Devauld.ca

Sonja and I had one story that definitely comes to the front of the mind when asked about the trip we just had. Nearing the end, we drove from the West Coast to Edmonton to attend a wedding on Saturday. On Friday night, with some time to kill, we check into the Trailway Motor Inn and watched some of the Olympics. Once we'd relaxed from the car ride, we decided to head out for some sushi and a movie.

We took in The Dark Knight and I was blown away. The direction of the new batman movies is phenomenal. All the way back to the hotel I was geeking out on the various degrees of awesomeness that were contained within, although I'm not sure if Sonja shared my level of enthusiasm.

We arrived back at the motel, and grabbed our purchases and brought them to the door. I used the old key to open the door, and reached inside to find the light. When I couldn't feel the switch, I glanced to the wall to find it and from the chain clasp was a small bat.

Seriously.

I made a remark along the lines of "That's odd" and reached up to poke the critter to check for life. Just as Sonja was asking what I found so odd, I made contact and spooked the slumbering mammal from the chain. He flew out into the light, narrowly missing my torso, and then flew straight at Sonja.

Her screamed no doubt screwed with his sonar, and he circled between the two humans at the door and the coke machine. He was moving fast, and we tried our hardest to stay away from any contact. After a couple shrill shreaks, and a couple dive bombs the terrifying moment was over and our furry friend flew off into the night.

Then it got weird.

The door next to ours and a man filled the doorway. He was an older guy, his hair losing the war 10 years ago to grey and a new battle with the forehead beginning. He was larger, and obviously drunk. His intoxication was not only evident from the slurring of his voice, or the odour streaming from his room, but from the fact that he was not wearing any pants or underwear. In fact, the only thing he was wearing was a black tank top. He came out yelling, wanting to know if there was some sort of problem. For some reason my brain could not put together a bat story to tell the nearly naked man. In fact, my brain felt like it was trapped in a Pink Floyd video.

Through the open door I went, assuring him that everything was fine. He managed to keep the conversation, or at least his end of it, going stammering about a domestic dispute. We both kept telling him that everything was fine, all the time making a very conscious effort to not look at him in any way. Oblivious to our desire to the the conversation, as well as the fact that he was in fact indecently exposed, he stayed in the doorway while we quickly put a plan in motion to get the hell out of there.

In the space of ten minutes we had retrieved all the stuff from the room, received a refund from the manager, and painstakingly talked an obese drunken exhibitionist from the doorway. While we were driving about looking for another hotel, I asked Sonja if she had a pen and paper so I could write down what happened, because I knew I never wanted to forget it.

The holiday is over, and we're back at the home base. The trip did not wizz by in the way that I thought that it would. Having our 4 day hike along the second part of the Juan de Fuca trail was a good choice, as I was able to unwind relatively early in the vacation. Coming out of the woods, there was a nice sense of complacency. Continuously, the beauty of Vancouver Island stunned me and our surrounding and company were very enjoyable while we toured about in the heat.

I snapped in excess of nine hundred photos on the two week trip, which shows that I made progress in my effort to cut back on the number of photos. Hopefully this set can be processed in less time than the 2-week European vacation last year.

We decided to cut our holiday short by a day arriving home last night instead of this morning. The car puked up it's contents, half of which are still sprawled throughout the house. Already the tendrils of life are poking at me, knowingly winding me up for the work week ahead.

Today marks the start of a two week road trip. The route we are taking can be seen here:

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Weddings, visiting with family and friends, as well as a few days camping will undoubtably make the time slip by faster that I would like.

This afternoon marked the return from my vacation in Colorado for some snow filled adventures. Some acquaintances form around the continent descended upon Denver to start out journey to our base camp in Keystone. Arrangements were made to stay at The Springs, and the lodgings were very nice. Too bad we didn't spend much time in them.

Our drive out on Sunday was slowed by a snowstorm that dropped 10 inches of fresh white snow into the valley, and our start on Monday was amazing. I was directed out to the back bowls, and very quickly found myself in deep fresh powder and having a great time carving up the white stuff.

The following day a few of us went out to Breckenridge, where the weather was considerably improved and a bright blue sky watched over us all day. Most of the day was pretty relaxed because of aching muscles from the previous mountains adventures. We still managed to have a good time, and a very memorable run down The Burn produced a glade so full of snow it could swallow a boarder whole. I could not let the day finish without at least one run down Devil's Crotch, which didn't turn out to be all that much fun, but I couldn't leave without going down the run after I learned it's name.

Our final day was spent in Vail which is by far the largest ski resort I have ever been on with a whopping twenty one square kilometers of skiable terrain. Again the snow was excellent and the weather amazing for the day, but fatigue started to show as I had a couple of really good yard sales at the end of the day when my body would no longer listen to my commands.

Today my weary muscles had a nice slow rolling start and a airplane voyage back to Canada. The trip was a lot of fun, and if the group organizes another trip next year, I'll be sure to go.

The long weekend was spent up in the Peace Country popping about visiting. Friday night we went out to my brother's place for a pair of nights.  There I took some photos of my nieces, and got caught up on my video games.  After the time in Spirit River, we went to Dawson Creek to get caught up on my mother's life.  There I learned that I'm related to some friends I know in Calgary, as well as the existence of one of the coolest channels on satellite television.  Finally we ended up in Grande Prairie for a visit with the farmers and überma.  Uncle Mike had me try out his new toy, and we finished off the night solving all the world's problems at the dinner table.

The whole trip was over before it had really begun, but it was a very nice escape from the daily grind in Calgary.