yours truly on the "grouse grind"
at the half-way point
beatiful buntzen lake
mads at buntzen
To continue my last blog's theme of being out and about, here are some pictures of recent adventures at Buntzen Lake and Grouse Mountain. And here are the stories behind them...
On Friday, I decided that I'd had enough of the dreary rain and cold of Burnaby Mountain, so I loaded Mads and a peanut butter and banana sandwich up and headed out for one of my favorite places...Buntzen Lake. The first time I came to visit Vancouver, one of the professors here (who was, fortuitously, also my professor at Montevallo) took me to Buntzen Lake. At the time, I was so impressed by how green and lush everything was (I hadn't yet connected the over-abundance of rain with the profusion of green), and I immediately feel in love with the Vancouver outdoors (it has, interestingly enough, taken me much longer to love the dirty, grey city of Van). Anyway, all of that to say that Buntzen has a special place in my heart. I've taken my friends Rosie, Ali, and Meg all there when they came to visit, and I hope we can take my mom, sister, Laynie, and T's parents there--it's too beautiful not to share. As we descended the mountain, the sun started to shine, and me and Mads were feeling pretty good about the day. I decided to do the seven mile loop around the lake, and as we hiked, I noticed that there were quite a few bear signs. I ignored them and let Mads of the leash...she loves to be free and run around. Around mile five, we had stopped passing other people, and the woods were really quiet. Mads was pretty far ahead of me, and as I turned a corner, I saw something black on the trail. I initially thought it was a dog, but upon closer scrutiny, I saw that it was a small black bear. My first thought was, yeahhh, where there's a small bear, there's usually a bigger mama bear. The bear saw me and immediately started running away (black bears are usually way more scared of you than you are of them, although I was pretty scared). At that point, I wondered where Mads was, and my wondering was answered by a tear of white fur blurring across the trail and into the woods. Mads was chasing the freaking bear. Awesome. Well, I guess she's dead, I thought rather morosely and was about to start crying when she came back up to the trail panting and wagging her tail. Geez. So we struck out to hike the last two miles (rather quickly, I might add), and all was well.
Yesterday, as if I hadn't had enough wilderness for the weekend, we decided to take Dr. Smith up on his offer to show us around Grouse Mountain by taking us up an infamous trail called the Grouse Grind. We had heard a lot of people talk about how hard the Grouse Grind is, but we thought that being the seasoned outdoorspeople we are, we'd have little trouble. Ha. The Grouse Grind is a two mile trail that has no switch-backs and goes STRAIGHT UP grouse mountain. It's literally two miles of stair climbing and often scrambling to get up the mountain. I'm so short that I often couldn't reach the steps, so by the end, I was literally climbing with my hands to finish. This was the first weekend the really popular trail was open, so there were a LOT of other hikers. We were rewarded at the top with a snack and a visit to the grizzly bear habitat (they have two orphaned grizzlies on grouse mountain), and I think I've seen enough bears for a while. We rode the gondola down (if you climb up, it's only a five dollar ride down. If you ride up and down, it'll cost you $40, so technically we made money...har har). Anyway, afterwards we went down and had lunch with Dr. Smith's wife, Gail, who was smart enough to stay home while we endured the grind. All in all, another successful foray into Vancouver's popular tourist destinations, and a nice blend of tourism and Vancouver's natural beauty.
For all that business, I've had a lot of stillness and quietness as I've hiked around (it was just me, Mads, and the bear at Buntzen, and Tommy and Jon quickly out-paced me on the Grouse Grind), and I've been thinking a lot about home. One night last week we decided to strike out and take our chances on a new restaurant, and we decided on a Burgers and BBQ place on Hastings street (famous for its hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurants...the kind where you really enjoy whatever it is you're eating and then pray it won't be followed by gastronomic explosions). We were pleased to find the "Southern-style" restaurant, and promptly sat down at a table for two by the window. We quickly noticed that two chinese people were behind the "grill," and the decor was fascinating--statuettes of african americans, blues music playing, southern licence plates on the wall (including an old Alabama one), and various other tokens of what the Chinese owners assumed to be Southern. We couldn't complain about the food, though; T ate a bacon cheeseburger, and I had wings (we were a little reluctant to try the actual "BBQ" offerings), and both were delicious. It was just enough to remind us of home.
Today, on father's day, I can't help but think that our families are probably bar-be-quing together and celebrating the dads who raised us, loved us, and cooked for us. We are pretty lucky kids to have a Sherman, a Dave, and two PawPaws who would literally give us the shirts off their backs to see us happy. Happy Father's day to all of you. We love and appreciate all the things you've done for us and all the sacrifices you've made for us. We miss your cooking, too.
We miss all of you!
--S and T
On Friday, I decided that I'd had enough of the dreary rain and cold of Burnaby Mountain, so I loaded Mads and a peanut butter and banana sandwich up and headed out for one of my favorite places...Buntzen Lake. The first time I came to visit Vancouver, one of the professors here (who was, fortuitously, also my professor at Montevallo) took me to Buntzen Lake. At the time, I was so impressed by how green and lush everything was (I hadn't yet connected the over-abundance of rain with the profusion of green), and I immediately feel in love with the Vancouver outdoors (it has, interestingly enough, taken me much longer to love the dirty, grey city of Van). Anyway, all of that to say that Buntzen has a special place in my heart. I've taken my friends Rosie, Ali, and Meg all there when they came to visit, and I hope we can take my mom, sister, Laynie, and T's parents there--it's too beautiful not to share. As we descended the mountain, the sun started to shine, and me and Mads were feeling pretty good about the day. I decided to do the seven mile loop around the lake, and as we hiked, I noticed that there were quite a few bear signs. I ignored them and let Mads of the leash...she loves to be free and run around. Around mile five, we had stopped passing other people, and the woods were really quiet. Mads was pretty far ahead of me, and as I turned a corner, I saw something black on the trail. I initially thought it was a dog, but upon closer scrutiny, I saw that it was a small black bear. My first thought was, yeahhh, where there's a small bear, there's usually a bigger mama bear. The bear saw me and immediately started running away (black bears are usually way more scared of you than you are of them, although I was pretty scared). At that point, I wondered where Mads was, and my wondering was answered by a tear of white fur blurring across the trail and into the woods. Mads was chasing the freaking bear. Awesome. Well, I guess she's dead, I thought rather morosely and was about to start crying when she came back up to the trail panting and wagging her tail. Geez. So we struck out to hike the last two miles (rather quickly, I might add), and all was well.
Yesterday, as if I hadn't had enough wilderness for the weekend, we decided to take Dr. Smith up on his offer to show us around Grouse Mountain by taking us up an infamous trail called the Grouse Grind. We had heard a lot of people talk about how hard the Grouse Grind is, but we thought that being the seasoned outdoorspeople we are, we'd have little trouble. Ha. The Grouse Grind is a two mile trail that has no switch-backs and goes STRAIGHT UP grouse mountain. It's literally two miles of stair climbing and often scrambling to get up the mountain. I'm so short that I often couldn't reach the steps, so by the end, I was literally climbing with my hands to finish. This was the first weekend the really popular trail was open, so there were a LOT of other hikers. We were rewarded at the top with a snack and a visit to the grizzly bear habitat (they have two orphaned grizzlies on grouse mountain), and I think I've seen enough bears for a while. We rode the gondola down (if you climb up, it's only a five dollar ride down. If you ride up and down, it'll cost you $40, so technically we made money...har har). Anyway, afterwards we went down and had lunch with Dr. Smith's wife, Gail, who was smart enough to stay home while we endured the grind. All in all, another successful foray into Vancouver's popular tourist destinations, and a nice blend of tourism and Vancouver's natural beauty.
For all that business, I've had a lot of stillness and quietness as I've hiked around (it was just me, Mads, and the bear at Buntzen, and Tommy and Jon quickly out-paced me on the Grouse Grind), and I've been thinking a lot about home. One night last week we decided to strike out and take our chances on a new restaurant, and we decided on a Burgers and BBQ place on Hastings street (famous for its hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurants...the kind where you really enjoy whatever it is you're eating and then pray it won't be followed by gastronomic explosions). We were pleased to find the "Southern-style" restaurant, and promptly sat down at a table for two by the window. We quickly noticed that two chinese people were behind the "grill," and the decor was fascinating--statuettes of african americans, blues music playing, southern licence plates on the wall (including an old Alabama one), and various other tokens of what the Chinese owners assumed to be Southern. We couldn't complain about the food, though; T ate a bacon cheeseburger, and I had wings (we were a little reluctant to try the actual "BBQ" offerings), and both were delicious. It was just enough to remind us of home.
Today, on father's day, I can't help but think that our families are probably bar-be-quing together and celebrating the dads who raised us, loved us, and cooked for us. We are pretty lucky kids to have a Sherman, a Dave, and two PawPaws who would literally give us the shirts off their backs to see us happy. Happy Father's day to all of you. We love and appreciate all the things you've done for us and all the sacrifices you've made for us. We miss your cooking, too.
We miss all of you!
--S and T
