BinaryChatter

The day was started late.  We got up after 9 and lazed around the house until noon.  We tried to get a geocache just down the road.  It was a multi-cache and the first stage required finding a set of numbers to be entered into our GPS unit.  The numbers turned out remarkably difficult to find.  In the end, we asked the cache owners for a hint and ended up finding it.  Tomorrow we’ll try to hunt down the other stages of the multi-cache.

Lunch was had at the pier followed by stops at the bookstore and the gallery.  For dinner we had fresh caught halibut that Uncle Kayem and Opa had packed back from their fishing trip.  The largest was a 60 pound halibut, and he tasted really good.

Paradise found.

Like lumps of coal we slept until 10 AM.  Warm toast, eggs, and a selection of meats and cheeses certainly goes well with sipping thick coffee.  I, of course, had to taint my coffee with some hazelnut coffee creamer.  It softens the harsh edge much like whacking your thumb with a ball-peen hammer wrapped in velvet.

With breakfast broken we piled in the car like clowns to a volkswagon.  Actually 2 ugly bugs.  Opa, Oma, Uncle Kayem and Auntie Emkay led the way to Paradise Beach and we followed hoping not to get lost.  This beach is a wonderful hideaway half way between Courtenay and Campbell River.

We arrived when the tide was at its lowest and the beach easily extended a quarter mile from the picnic area.  The tide was going to take all afternoon to creep up and swallow the beach. The kids immediately dropped everything they were carrying and made a B-line the water’s edge.  Many times we had to dodge around tide pools and stop and dally with the sand dollars, shells, and seaweed festoons matrixed on the sand.  Upon reaching the ocean, Opa found an old crab carcass and received squeals of delight and dread as he marionetted the carcass to the likes of a Godzilla decimating Tokyo.

A half hour later, our wave hopping and fish spotting was interrupted with the arrival of air mattresses.  Nature was immediately replaced with lolling lazily on the periodic waves.  Just a moment ago the kids were hopping, runing, and swimming like minnows.  Now, they lay as if just completing 12 hours of hard labor.

Eventually even the air mattresses lost their appeal as did the waves and open ocean.  We let the tide chase us back in by building sandcastles on a dry sand bar only to have the tide bring on destruction.  With each battle inevitably lost, a new site found, a new line in the sand drawn, and a new indestructible castle built.

Soon tiring of defeat, the troops gathered for lunch and then off to an unsuccessful geocache. Dad pigheadedly hauled the kids of to a mile long hike down the beach to ‘The Potter Shack‘ where no cache was found that day.  With testament to headedness-of-pig I hope to try again tomorrow.  As the day waned and the tide flowed, we were squeezed from the beach like so much sunscreen.

The day completed with ribeye steaks, spinach salad, and McWilliams wine.

Whew.  Fun can be so tiring.

I started this morning out with a three mile run along the False Creek walkway.  Just a week ago I was running along the Tanque Verde wash in Tucson.  There are many striking differences.  Most obvious was the water.  Tucson rivers flow only a fraction of the year and was certainly dry when I last visited it.   Tucson also lacks vegetation.  Many hard core Tucsonans will argue this point saying ‘The desert has a green beauty all its own.’  Visiting verdant Vancouver invalidates their vociferous polemic (yeah, yeah, I couldn’t think of an v-word for argument.  Suggestions?) .  And while both have sun, I tend to be found running from shade to shade avoiding the Tucson sunlight whenever possible.  This is all in stark contrast to running along the False Creek park.  The sunlight visiting me like a long absent acquaintance, the dense green foliage reminding me that I truly live in a desert, and when I close my eyes the salt sea air reminds me that it will all still be there when I open them once again.

The kids, my wife, auntie Eeay and I went for a long walk at Locarno beach.  The tide had gone out and the ocean floor lay exposed in all its naked muddiness.  The shoes came off and our toes wriggled in delight.  We dodged our way amongst the boogie-boarders and out to the transient coast.

My daughter found baby clams which she stored in a larger clam shell filled with salt water.  Occasionally the baby clams would stick out their tongues and wave to her.  At last she placed them in a warm tide pool amongst dense seaweed and away from the eyes and beaks of the ever-overhead seagulls.

Our path took us to several geocaches, through the green forest of the Endowment Lands, and then back to Granville Island for lunch.   Ironic that I had the clam chowder for lunch.

That afternoon we went swimming at the Stanley Park pool.  Though a coastal breeze kept the experience from being ideal, we salvaged the afternoon by yet again geocaching and hiking through Stanley Park.  We ended the day eating gourmet Japadogs at yet another beach drinking smuggled beers from 7-eleven thirstbuster cups watching the sun slide from the afternoon sky.

Stress is a wonderful thing when measured in retreat.  If its origin is a two week long PowerPoint marathon building up to a two day program review, and all that remains is the afterglow from the fiery mass of Microsoft that has slipped below the horizon.  Wednesday was my last day at work and now I look through salt sea air to the Vancouver skyline.  Enchanting.  The view is surreal from a balcony on the 15th floor of a hotel just south of Granville Island. The myriad of city lights aglow before a mountainous skyline appear as a thousand drops of crystal sea shed from a sinuous emerald and enchanted wyvern casting about in the twilight surf.

The bulk of today was spent driving from the 54th street resort to the Vancouver Holiday Inn (700 N Broadway).  The effort started at 9:00 AM and concluded at 5:00 PM.  The trip was uneventful.  The kids plugged into their DVD player.  My wife listend to ‘Breaking Dawn’, and I listened to Thomas Paine’s ‘The Rights of Man’.

Once at the hotel the universe snapped from the virtual to reality.  Well, sort of.  If you count walking around Granville Island dining on Chicken Caesar salads and desserting on Gelato some kind of reality.

In the evening the kids ran circuits between the pool and the dry sauna trying to recreate the Tucson climate.  My wife and I with Auntie Eeay Veeaitch shared a nice wine on the 5th floor patio and watched the sun tuck itself into bed.

A rest day.  We stayed at the 54th street resort mostly poolside.  Sushi for lunch.  Chinese takeout for dinner.  My daughter learned how to do a full flip off the diving board.  I am trying to talk her into a one and a half.

This is the initial travel day of our Vancouver Island vacation.  After packing all day then driving to Phoenix, we caught the 8:11 PM flight to Spokane.  It landed at 10:55.  Taxi to the 54th street resort.  Glass of wine.  Sleep.

During the flight I taught my son how to play Sudoku.  We finished one and started on the second.  He consumed the puzzle with serious dedication.  Half way through the second he was struggling to keep his eyes open (it was 10 PM), and he said: “Dad my eyes are really tired.  I’m going to rest them for a moment.” and then he closed his eyes.