Monthly Archives: December 2010

Canada – The Final Day

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And so it’s off home we head.

Spotting whale spotters!

I think on some subconscious level my body-clock  is already trying to adjust as I awaken at 6am after having turned off the tv at half-past midnight.

When we picked up our Ford Escape SUV way back two weeks ago in Vancouver, the car-rental clerk told us to drop it off with an empty tank. I took him at his word and dropped off the vehicle with the trip computer reading “5km TO EMPTY”. Hope there was a gas station nearby.

We check in at the airport as soon as the gates open and – after a full body scan which found a minuscule  piece of foil paper in my back pocket – we then sit by boarding gate 42 awaiting our flight home, but only after having bought a last couple of gifts for close friends.

Vancouver

Although I do rue not having bought Chris ‘Anal’ Ettritch an “I Love Big Dumps” t-shirt in Banff. I’m quite certain that not buying that for a man who has written-off my toilet a few times will haunt me…

So we sit in Calgary Airport; I with my pen and pad; Jo with her freshly-bought sanitary towels, looking back on a very successful and entertaining tour of Canada’s west-to-mid-west region. I’ve met some new friends, cemented other friendships, and feel that i have proven that Englishmen abroad wearing football shirts don’t necessarily equate to fighting thugs.

We have seen orcas, humpback whales, a beer and a deer all in the wild. We’ve seen baluga whales, dolphins, giant starfish and other animal wonders in an aquarium and even an

Stanley Park

awful undersea garden.

We have seen mountains everywhere we’ve looked, and even been up a couple. We’ve seen vistas of beauty and have looked down on people and the tops of giant trees through the glass floor of a gondola.

I have eaten bison, but alas, not elk. I have eaten a steak over two inches thick and discovered the wonders of garlic mash. I have (finally) eaten a Baby Ruth, a Tootsie Roll, but yet still the Twinkie eludes me.

Up a mountain in Whsitler

We have discovered that a tax hike earlier in the year meant that some things we had budgeted for way back in January when we booked the holiday were more expensive when we got there. We have found that the small b&b’s are just as good as the international accommodations. Fuel is a lot cheaper here than at home… even if I did look like a monkey working a washing machine trying to figure out how to get some of the fuel pumps to work.

We found that the Canadians are patriotic, hockey-mad, unafraid of what us Europeans call ‘the cold’, and they are also very, very friendly. We have discovered that ex-pats in Canada don’t miss England… except for small luxuries like gravy granules! And, strangely, I never

Views are like this all the time

met a single Scotsman on our travels… Maybe they all live in Nova Scotia?!

And I also saw no chavs! Well, not until we got to Calgary Airport where a Dappy-clone and his bitches were boarding a plane.

My plane, incidentally.

I have learned that no matter how long I stare at a handful of change it is always better to get the store clerk to sort the exchange for me. I have learned that the secret to driving on the correct side of the road is to “watch what you’re doing when you turn left at junctions”. I also know that a solitary englishman sitting in a sports bar in Canada will be the only guy watching an NFL game.

And I have also seen day meet night on the horizon at 36,000 feet, and I have then watched the moon shine on wing, cloud and sea at the same time… truly spectacular to behold.

I also  realised that not eating a thing on a 10 hour flight is no cure for jet lag. I learnt that one the hard way!

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So as we fly over an illuminated Glasgow at night I wonder where my next flight of fancy will take me, and I think about my next planned trip approaching in 2011 to Wisconsin to see an old friend.

Flying home

It’s exactly that moment that Chris Ettritch messages me tongue-in-cheek, asking about holidays, and by the same bizarre stroke of fortune it appears that two guys from the same road on the Isle of Wight may just both be in Chicago at the same time next year.

Us two in the Windy City?

Now that would be something to write about.

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Canada Day Twelve & Thirteen: Banff and Calgary and Bob The Dog

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It’s a long six hour drive to Banff with a hangover.

On our way we pass an artic lorry on it’s side in a ditch so big I barely saw it at first, if it

The views are always spectacular

wasn’t for the guys in high-vis jackets and cones we probably wouldn’t have noticed it all. It leaves us wondering how it could have ended up in there.

Banff is beautiful and I can see why everyone fussed about it when we told them we were going through there. Someone even suggested we don’t go to Calgary and stay in Banff instead! However, we gotta get home somehow and the airport is in Calgary!

We arrived late and found a little Holiday Lodge B&B literally thirty seconds walk from the main street. It was cheap at $65 a night and a really lovely and quaint place. There’s a hallway between our room and the kitchen and the owner – Scott Yaeger – said he shut the kitchen door once and a Korean guest spent three days in his room as he thought he wasn’t allowed into the kitchen!

A quick walk around the site of an old zoo and a bridge spanning an impressive body of water and all that’s left for today is to get some food in the Old Spaghetti Factory – really good food at a decent price. Unfortunately we’re both too tired to eat it all!

Our thirteenth and final day saw us leave our happy little b&b under a warm sun and cool air… and ten minutes later both sides of the highway are covered in frost. A few miles further and snow covers everything and falls heavily around us. Yep, our last 24 hours on Canadian soil and it finally frickin snows.

I must admit to not being too impressed with Calgary and it just reminds me of London,

The Calgary Tower

but it might also be that all the Canadians we’ve met on our travels have told us not to bother with the place! I think it’s because that Canadians in general are outdoors-loving folk, with plenty of space and wilderness around them, and Calgary might seem too busy and confined for them.

Still, we’re here and determined to make our short stay as much fun as possible.

The 191 meter tall Calgary Tower is our first stop. The restaurant at it’s peak provides us with brilliant views as we chow down on very tasty pork subs and fries as the room slowly turns in a 360 degree view of the city. It’s a unique experience and I find myself warming to Calgary more.

An unnerving view from the glass floor of the Tower!

And suddenly it starts to snow and we’re sat up high watching the sky scrapers and buildings around us begin to disappear underneath the snowfall.

More than satisfied with both the food and the view, we depart the tower for a quick walk around the streets before our next rendezvous.

A few years ago I got my hgv licence and joined a website called www.truckersworld.co.uk where I became friends with an ex-pat trucker in Canada called Robert Menhenit – aka BobTheDog. I bugged him with Canadian questions about lifestyle and work and he always took the time out to explain and answer my queries, so when we realised we’d both be in Calgary at the same time we had to meet up!

We met at the Blackfoot Truckstop and Jo was so disgusted by the place she took a picture of everyone and everything in the restaurant! I didn’t think it was too bad…

Bob’s a great guy – really laid back and has a slow drawl to his talk which is infectious. He has an opinion on everything and is very knowledgeable on a host of subjects and soon Jo’s gone back to the car to wait while we continue chatting!

Calgary from the Tower

Evening draws in and we find a Travel Lodge to stay in before killing some time in the nearby Chinook Centre. It’s a very impressive shopping mall with unimpressive shops, but the real reason we went was to go watch Jackass 3d… but the queue was too damn long and I was getting hungry.

So, we walked back to the hotel only to realise that the building next door was a steakhouse called The Keg Steakhouse! Food time, and I had possibly the greatest piece of steak I’ve ever eaten. It was called a baseball steak served with garlic mash and I’ve never wanted a meal to never end before! All tales suggested Calgary was home of the steak, and I definitely agree.

Two legends finally meet: Solaar and Bobthedog

Retiring to bed I flick through the Canadian tv channels and suddenly feel a pang of regret that I’m not going to be able to watch as much Robot Chicken and NFL and college football games back in the UK.

It’s been a great two weeks and Canada has been amazing… and I like to think that I’ve made my mark on the second biggest country in the world as well!

There will be one more Canada blog after this one; just a summary of the holiday in general before I turn my hand back to normal blogs and stop boring people with my Canadian antics. Some people have slideshows to do it, but I use blogs!

Calgary from the air

Canada – Day Eleven: The Day We Nearly Died

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Rising for breakfast I bump into one of the guys from Quebec rummaging through the food in the communal fridge. He wasn’t helping himself, but he and his wife had filled the appliance with lots of their own food. I wish we’d thought of doing this kind of thing eleven days ago as it was the meals in restaurants and take aways that were making my wallet lighter! Ray’s (the owner of the hotel we were staying in) wife Liz mentioned that the other guests had bought enough food for a back-up superstore!

After a friendly and intuitive conversation with our fellow guests we were – once again – ready to roll. Both the Quebecans and Ray advised us to check out the salmon run in  nearby Sorrento as the BBC were there recently filming the biggest exodus of sockeye salmon in 100 years.

It’s a short drive before we’re herded into a car park packed with cars and more school buses than I’ve ever seen in my life. Kids are everywhere and some of the teachers look way out of their depth. I even saw one teacher grab some kids before realising they were from a different school!

Salmon swimming upstream

Even more disturbing was a young child leaving one of the portaloos asking the teacher if he should use the hand sanitizer inside.

“Only if you want to get cancer when you’re older.” was her unbelievable reply!

Watching the fish swim in their thousands upstream was really impressive, and the sight of hundreds of dead fish washed up on the shores all over the place were equally disturbing.

After a couple of hours we left and headed toward Salmon Arm, but on the way there we passed an old automobile museum so I thought I’d pull over a take a photo or two of the old and rusty relics lining the side of the road. We weren’t there long (as it was shut!) before getting back in the Escape. This is the point I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

Almost the last thing I ever saw!

In England you see the odd story of the 80 year old man who drives the wrong way down the motorway.

Today, I was that 80 year old man.

I turned left out of the museum and drove down the highway… the wrong way. Years of having driven on the left made me do it automatically, when all of a sudden I realised that the was a truck driving along behind me… on the other side of the road. I was about to question what he was doing before I realised to my horror what I had done, and that I was heading the wrong way on the wrong side of the highway – and switching my eyes forward I saw two cars approaching me over the brow of the hill at high speed!

The man on the right is called Thor... by me, anyway!

I stuck the Escape into the dirt on the side of the road as the cars skidded and swerved to avoid me, but thankfully it all ended safely, even if we were pretty shaken. After convincing one of the drivers (and his pregnant daughter) that I wasn’t drunk and that it was a slip of the mind and that the police didn’t need to be involved I waited until it was clear before slowly making our way again – this time on the right side of the road!

To this day the events can still creep into my mind and make me shiver, and sometimes I have to pause and remind myself what side of the road I should be on… even back home in England!

Carefully we returned to Salmon Arm to meet up with Matt vatkin, Jess Ladner, Matt Parnell, Curtis Schindler (plus a truly Nordic-looking man I dubbed Thor who crushed me in a bear-hug as we left) and the other locals for a Vatkin-inspired karaoke night and some much needed liquid refreshment, before heading back to Jess’ to smoke cigars, sit round the fire and then crash out in her spare room.

The Salmon Arm Gang

Canada – Day 10: Vernon and Davison Orchard

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An early rise (as always during our holiday) starts with what can be loosely described as breakfast at the Travel Lodge. It involves being crammed into a tiny room shared by the reception desk, with the other residents lining up to butter toast or dispense cereal from downward-facing containers. I almost skipped it, but one slice of dry, horrible cold toast and we’re heading for Vernon.

Lake Okanagan

Vernon – in my opinion – is one of the nicest housed areas we’ve seen, and there’s still plenty of hills and mountains in every direction to keep it picturesque.

We head up to Silver Star Road where our destination is a hotel called The Castle On The Mountain and it’s owned by Ray Clark and family – brother to my friend Kev, who lives half a mile away from me on the Isle Of Wight.

It’s a beautiful house, and the view is spectacular out of our front-facing window. We drop our luggage off and Ray briefs us on a couple of places to visit before we head into Vernon’s centre for some tourist time.

A wild deer we saw in Ellison Park

The town itself is the usual collection of shops, so we head out to Ellison Park – in particular a lovely little spot looking out over Lake Okanagan. Unbelievably the toilets are Chris Ettritch-proof: they’re simply holes in the ground covered by huts… and you certainly wouldn’t want to drop your wallet down one…

20km in the other direction (40k with Jo’s navigation skills) and we quickly visit a quaint farming community called Lumby before finding ourselves at the Shuswap hydro-electricity site – a very impressive amalgamation of nature and man-made machinery.

The Shuswap Hydro-electricity Plant

Afterwards we went back into Vernon and visited the Davison Orchard where they were ending their season of pumpkin harvesting. I was so hungry by this time I was sampling all of the free biscuits and dips on offer… and I heartily recommend the apple butter!

A bunch of pumpkin heads.

Pizza and pasta dinner at Boston Pizza that evening and we were done for the day, retiring back to our comfy room in the Castle On The Mountain to blissfully relax…

…unaware that tomorrow I would inadvertedly almost kill ourselves and two other people…

Canada – Day Nine: The Legend That Is Matt Vatkin

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After 4 days in Whistler (a day longer than we’d planned) I’m sad to say we had to leave it behind us, but we’ve got places to go, things to do and new friends to meet, so we jump in the Escape and embark on a 7 hour trip to Salmon Arm to meet with a guy I met thru facebook – Matt Vatkin.

Matt Vatkin and Jess

I’m a little hazy on how we even started talking but I’m fairly certain is was thru some now-defunct game (Zombiewars…?) but it was evident that we had a very similar sense of humour and soon we were bantering backwards and forwards on each others’ facebook walls.

Once the holiday to Canada was growing inevitably closer, Matt and I were soon arranging to meet up and see how we’d bridge the Canadian-UK divide. As Jo and I neared Salmon Arm we were soon exchanging phonecalls with Matt and trying to find our way thru Salmon Arm itself.

Earl's on the right. I'm on the left.

Salmon Arm is on the shores of the Shuswap Lake,where the Salmon River empties into the Salmon Arm reach of the Lake – hence the name. It ‘s a tourist town in the summer and has a population of just over 16,000.

There’s also a shit load of churches. We passed a sign on our way in listing around 20 of the buildings in Salmon Arm!

After winding our way thru the unfamiliar roads we eventually arrive at Jess Ladners‘ house – Matt’s partner-in-crime. She’s very welcoming and soon we are sat with the pair of them around a fire that seems to always burn in Jess’ garden. It’s made of concrete blocks and makes me wish I had one!

Jess and Matt are very much like most Canadians we’ve met: friendly, polite, nothing’s too much hassle for them to help you (although I’m sure the beer helped!). Matt’s very charasmatic and has a view on everything, making him easy to talk to and get along with.

We meet Matt’s friend Matt Parnell who immediately reminds me of Simon Cope back home (a fellow taxi driver who lives upstairs and who I have known for over 20 years). He’s laid back, friendly and so easy going it’s a simple task to get on with him.

Matt Parnell!

Soon we’re shooting the shit about anything and everything, the conversation often ending up about Earl – Matt’s pet hound that is currently trying to hump the life out of the two other dogs running around. We also talk about sweets/candy and how Matt says UK candy is better. He also tells me that there are Twinkies somewhere nearby!

Beers are drunk, but our road trip has left us exhausted so we head back for the Travel Lodge we’re booked into, possibly also the biggest place we’ve stayed in so far, and very comfortable.

Canada – Days 7 & 8: Peak-to-Peak, bears and On The Lash.

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Like a lot of places on earth, Whistler comes alive even more at the weekends. There are more families around and the play park is covered in kids and watchful parents.

No, I let Jo play on it on her own.

Whistler get busy... busier.

We were supposed to start our day with a jeep trek up one of the mountains for a spot of bear-seeing and a waffle breakfast, but the guides didn’t turn up. I can’t think why on a Saturday morning in a village with 7 night clubs…

Instead we had breakfast – and again I find myself baffled as to why the Canadians have their bacon cooked to within an inch of being completely inedible! Luckily, we then stumbled across a little gold mine.

A sweet old lady had set up a row of tables, and – with the help of some others – had covered the tops in a variety of books for sale.

Sounds simple so far, but a lot of these books were brand new. I asked her how much they were and she simply said all she needed was a small donation of any amount for her chosen charity.

I couldn’t believe it! So, after scooping up a load of Agatha Christies’ for my mum I bought myself The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and an Alec Guiness biography.

After depositing our treasure trove back in our room we headed for one of the mountains and a trip on the Peak-To-Peak Gondola.

Up In The Clouds

The gondola runs on three cables and   holds world records for the longest free span between ropeway towers—3.03 kilometres (1.88 miles) and highest point above the ground—436 metres, or 1,430 feet. And the view is very impressive.

On our first journey below us were nothing but clouds, but on the way back they parted completely to give us a perfect view of the woods and trees below, and it’s bizarre looking down on such majestic trees in something other than  plane!

Jo has a bear behind.

Almost three miles later and we’d arrived at Blackcomb Mountain. There were already a few people there, marveling at a wild baby bear seemingly grazing on grass unaware of everyone taking photos. One foreign young man hopped over the fence and stood all of two feet away from the animal for a picture.

I asked a girl working on the gondola if the bear was tame and she looked confused.

“There’s a bear in a pen out there with a guy stood next to it taking photos.” I said.

She almost swore: “That’s no pen, it’s just an old fence, and there’s no tame bears around here anywhere. If that idiot is trying to take photos then just wait until mama bear returns.”

With that I guess I could have warned the man… but instead I got my camera ready in an attempt to make some big bucks.

One un-mauled man later and we were back on the gondola and off to our hotel room to get ready for our first night out in Canada, on the Whistler Club Crawl.

It’s a night of club-after-club and bar-after-bar where we meet some great new friends from Ireland, Washington and all over the US and Canada. Plus I think there were even a couple of Aussies in there as well!

It’s a long night for all… for all except Jo, who I have to walk home early, pausing often for her to puke her ring.

Class in another country, that girl.

Day 8 is a bit of a write-off and involves lots of hangovers, struggling to get out of bed, and watching everything and anything on tv.

We finally get our asses up and stumble to Earls restaurant – a sports themed bar showing baseball and NFL on all of it’s 6 screens. I watch the Eagles beat the 49ers 27-24 just as our chef brings out the food he has cooked himself for us, which I thought was a really nice touch.

Then it’s back off to bed. I’m getting too old for all this partying!!