Garry and Joan; Travels for the less(or more) adventurous!: Western Canada

Western Canada wildlife

So this will be my last email from our western Canada trip. Just wanted to send a couple of photos of some of the animals we saw. I think both Joani and I were amazed at the amount of wild animals we saw on this trip. The most incredible was when we were driving down a divided highway in Jasper National Park.

We turned a corner and there was a family of goats walking down the side of the road.

We stopped, along with many other cars, and the Papa goat stopped at our open car window and posed for a photograph.

Joani thanked him, and then we went on our way. When we took the Sky-tram to the top of Whistler mountain we came across incredibly fat squirrels

and marmots

who also posed for photos, although they may have actually been begging for food. When we went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge park we were treated to the site of a baby Barred Owl

who had been separated from his parents and was being raised by the park staff until they could release him into the wild. We didn't get pictures of the caribou and elk that we saw, or a deer that popped out of the woods 20 metres from our car. . And unfortunately, although everyone else in our group saw grizzly and black bears, we did not. We were disappointed but not sure in the long run if it was a good thing, in case we became bear breakfast.

Garry

British Columbia

Hello Again

I was intending to send some photos of wildlife and scenery that we've come across out here, before this, but truth to tell we have been traveling like crazy from the minute we left Alberta.

On our first day out of Grand Cache

we went to something called the Skytram in Jasper park. Picture a small train car being pulled up the side of a mountain.

Fill it so full of people that it's standing room only. Make sure that some of the people ( Joani and Me included) have vertigo and fear of enclosed spaces, and voila you have the Skytram.

This vehicle pulled us 3/4 way up Whistler mountain. The temperature at the top was 12 degrees cooler at the upper base than the lower and to be honest, we were already pretty high up so it wasn't too warm at the lower base. I had bought a couple of souvenir shirts at the lower base gift shop and as soon as we got out of the car the first decision was to pull them out of the bag and wear them. The second decision was to climb the rest of the way to the summit. Like I've already said Joani and I both suffer from vertigo, so this might not have been the smartest decision, but as Joani put it." She knew as soon as I saw there was a mountain to climb, that I would be climbing it and she wasn't staying behind." Joani needed to stop a few times because the altitude made her a little dizzy, and I didn't mind because to be honest, I was having a bit of a time catching my breath.

When we finally made it to the top the view was breathtaking and well worth the hike.

We went from there to Kamloops, a beautiful city, where we wandered through the shopping district in daylight and caught an outdoor concert in the evening. Then on to Vancouver where we strolled down Robson street which contains a multitude of bohemian shops and cafes, and then on to Stanley park where we saw our first set of totem poles and some incredible redwood trees that were so tall we couldn't see the tops of them. I didn't get any photos of this day because I was looking at photos the night before and forgot to put the chip back in the camera. In an instance like that, the only sensible thing to do for the lack of photos that day is to blame Joani.

It has been a terrific roadtrip and the mountainous scenery has been awe inspiring.

We spent last night on Vancouver Island in Victoria. Again a beautiful city with a temperate climate that seems somehow almost too tropical. We actually saw palm trees! We walked to a park right on the coast where we saw a statue devoted to Terry Fox, The largest Totem pole in B.C. carved out of one single tree, and dipped out toes in the Pacific Ocean at what is the furthest point west we have been in Canada.

As I write this I am waiting in a line at the Ferry to go back to mainland B.C.. I will attach some photos of the scenery with this email

and send you one more short one( I promise it will be much less wordy than this one) with photos of wildlife we have seen.

Garry

Canadian Death Race

On to our second trip in 2016. Western Canada. Joani's youngest son Matthew and his girlfriend/soon to be fiancé/now wife were going to a small town called Grande cache to run a race. I'll let my original email tell the rest of the story.

Hello All

This is a minor vacation blog. As you all know, Joani and I were in China in April and next year if everything plays out right we will do a jaunt through central Europe. (Starting in the Netherlands with two Van Gogh museums and then driving our rental car wherever the muse takes us.) But this email is about where we are now. We are currently traveling through 2 western Canada provinces. Alberta and B.C. .

Joani’s son, Matthew is running another of his crazy races. A 125 kilometer race in Grand Cache Alberta, aptly named the death race.

Mindy, Matthew's girlfriend is only doing the near death marathon. Also well named as this marathon is 42 kilometers over mountain trails in crazy conditions. When they informed Joani and me that they were running these races, my first thought was, "are you serious?" Joani's was. " Can we help?" So as you can imagine Joani and I decided to be their support crew.

Both races started at 8 am and allowed up to 24 hours to finish, but Matthew wanted to do his in much less time, which was fine by me. Didn’t really want to be out on a checkpoint at 2 o’clock in the morning, in the pouring rain waiting for Matthew to show up.

So Race day came and went and everything went as well as can be expected when you consider the circumstances! ( Did I mention Death Race and near Death Marathon?)

I am going to try to send a couple of more emails with photos of scenery and wildlife out here but since our first reason for coming was the race I'll keep the contents of this email on the races.

Firstly I'll tell you that they both won their respective races.

Mindy was first female in what had to be a grueling 42 kilometres of hills, trails, water and mountains, while Matthew, also won his race, an insane 125 kilometres in the same type of conditions. It only took him a mere 13 hours. He was soooo lucky I didn't decide to enter??????? I might have finished in 13 days!!!!

So just a touch more about their accomplishments and then I will attach some photos and let you nod off to sleep, if you haven't already.

Neither Matthew nor Mindy consider themselves trail runners. Although they are both terrific athletes and runners, they usually run road races while this race is mostly run by trail racers. A completely different breed with different training techniques and strengths. Mindy not only won the women's division for the marathon but finished 3rd in the overall standings. So whupped a bunch of men in the process.

Matthew accomplished something that had never been done before. The race is broken up into 5 segments and most of the people running it, run in teams of 5. One person starts and runs the first segment and passes his timing chip onto the next team member. This happens 4 times so that at every checkpoint a fresh runner starts for each team. Matthew won the race! I don't mean he won the race for the solo runners...... I mean he WON...... the race. He beat all the solo runners as well as all the teams that were allowed to put out a fresh runner at 4 different checkpoints on this 125 kilometre course. An unbelievable feat!

https://www.canadiandeathrace.com/results_photos

I have attached a link to the race results for any of you that might want to check out the numbers, and for any of you romantics out there I will tell you that after Matthew crossed the finish line of what must have been one of the most grueling 13 hours of his life, the first thing he did was get down on his knee and propose marriage to Mindy.