Back in Edmonton Finally

Hey all, back from all the vacations I've been taking lately. :P was in jasper, then winnipeg, then in penticton for the long weekend. Phew! Jasper was cool, went hiking all over the place and in all sorts of terrain; icefield, desolate ridges, deep forest, alpine meadows... saw wildlife everywhere (bighorn sheep, goats and elk mostly). I'm trying to switch my photo galleries from snapfish to fotki, so bear with me until I have time to get that running. Eventually I want to have a gallery that can display video as well though.

Shout out to Bdette, welcome back from Japan! Hope you had a lot of fun! Just got your postcard, two days after you came back though >_<;;

In winnipeg, managed to experience superhot days, flooding and massive mosquito infestations... basically the whole summer in a week :P. Helped Dad rebuild the deck which fell apart while we were gone in Jasper, and basically goofed off the rest of the week and a half I was there. Debbie stayed with us a couple of days, and we had sushi with her and Gabe; I saw Simon who I haven't talked to since high school and we met for coffee and just caught up. He's so skinny now (!), and going to teach English in HK for awhile. Went to Paul's aunt's house for BBQ with him and Chris, then played Settlers of Katan for awhile (aka the Mormon game :P). That game is so addictive... must get more wheat... Too bad UG couldn't make it to Wpg, we'll have to schedule a five year reunion or something. Preferably somewhere else though. >_>

Penticton was a blast! We left on Friday afternoon and arrived Saturday afternoon; we ended up taking Highway 22 to Rocky Mountain House, and then west to the Icefields Parkway, and to Lake Louise. we slept in the car in Golden and went to the local Husky truckstop to take a shower. We jumped in this tiny lake by the road in BC and went swimming for an hour; it had a lot of tiny little fishes that were curious and swam beside and around us, tickling our legs. hehe, the trip was mostly uneventful apart from a few close calls and crazy driving which I won't go into here :P

we went camping for the first three days (actually beside a golf course; kept finding golf balls beside our tent :P), then stayed an extra day in a motel by the beach. It wasn't all that difficult, there were showers at the campground and we either ate in town or made meals by the campfire (we bought some fresh BC corn and cooked them in foil in the coals of our fire... soooo goood!). One thing we forgot was that cooking on a campfire is much different than a stove; pancakes didn't go so well. ^_^;; Some campers had canned soup which they peeled the label off and set them open by the fire to warm, then ate out of the can (will try that next time).

We couldn't build a fire right by our tent, but had to use one of the communal firepits. We ended up meeting some of our neighbours; one had a really cute french bulldog puppy that kept sniffing around us for food, and the other couple lent us hotdog roaster sticks. There was a reunion or something going on at the other end of the campsite, man were they annoying! The first night they sang 80's songs really loud and badly, the second night they blasted country tunes until midnight. Owell! At first me and Trish slept outside the tent on an air mattress while Lisa and Jon slept inside the tent on another, but it got super cold around 3 AM (desert climate i guess) so I slept inside the tent the next night. It was STILL super cold in the middle of the night, so we all slept inside the tent the third night; it was warm but super squishy :P. I think that's why we decided to go to town and rent a motel room instead of staying one more day at the campsite, so we could be well rested for the drive back.

We spent the first day at the Skaha Lake beach, it's sort of like Grand Beach with loads of people. Slept in the sun, played a little volleyball in the water, and basically goofed around. The next day was kind of rainy, so we went to the winery to taste some; we ended up visiting a couple (Tinhorn Creek, which had a demonstration vineyard and self-guided tours of the winery, and Gehringer Brothers, which had super good icewines) down by Oliver, which apparently is the wine capital of Canada. I didn't buy any wine, but my favorite was the Tinhorn Creek Pinot Noir, which was smooth with fruity tones and a toasted oak aftertaste from the cask. Yummy! The third day we inner-tubed down the river from Okanagan Lake to Skaha Lake, about a 3 hour trip. We brought a small cooler of beer, so we tied all our tubes together for better distribution purposes. There were loads of ducks, and a muskrat that would dive under people and surface ahead of them. We all got dunked (on purpose or by accident), but it was almost better to stay in the river than on the tube, the water was so warm. Jon lost his sunglasses at one point, a little tradition of his on vacation it seems :P.

Most of the days were super-hot, with temperatures up in the 30s-40s. Got a nice tan, with weird tan lines on my back from my tank and bikini top, even though I slathered on the SPF 45 sunblock. Nights were a bit chillier, probably dipping down to 10s. Mostly spent them by the campfire drinking beer and talking about random stuff, looking up at the stars (so clear and bright), and philosophizing about science/life/how we always talk about weird stuff like that around the campfire. We met one guy who was in charge of the all the ports of BC, and sits on the NAFTA board for occupational safety. Bigwig!

We drove back to Edmonton in 12 hours, with Trish and Lisa taking turns driving. hehe, I felt like a poor grad student when we ate Beefaroni out of the can sitting on the curb in Valemount, just outside of Jasper National Park. There were so many elk and deer because we drove by Jasper around 9, feeding time. We made it back to Edmonton around 12:30, and dropped off the rental car this morning. So it's finally time to get back to normal life. :P

As for house-hunting, we found a place that are pretty good, 2BR apartment with den, dining room, living room and kitchen. We're hoping to hear back from this house we saw a while back, 2 BR main floor with a den, living room, kitchen, and a huge backyard. If we don't hear from that guy by noon tomorrow, we're going with the apartment ($840, so $420 each per month). The price is about average for that area and size of apartment, so we're pretty set. Hooray!

Last trip of the summer will be to the Jasper Miette Hot Springs, with Kat and some friends. 2 nights and 1 day, and we'll stay at the Maligne Canyon hostel. Should be an easy little trip. hehe, then it's time to work my ass off to prepare a couple of presentations and my thesis. Have to learn how to answer questions without coming across as a dumbass. :P

cheers, Ange