Although birthdays are kinda quiet around here they’re still very special and today was a great day.   Up early to watch Ben play soccer, then off for a light lunch with Cindy (hot dogs at the Peavey Mart and Milky Way ice cream, then watch the Euro 2008 final before joining up with the kids and Cindy’s family for a movie (Wall-E) and finally homemade bbq burgers.  And I got some community association work done, some wood chopped for tomorrow’s pizza party and some dough mixed.  Not bad for a Sunday!

My birthday gift this year was the best ever.  Cindy signed the two of us up to the MS-Bike Tour this September in Waskiseu.  66km of hilly parkland and possibly bears.  Awesome!  The only problem is that neither of us has done much riding so far this year, so the training regimine starts, erm, tomorrow. But early tomorrow.   And I’ll eat pizza standing up or something.  Tuesday for sure.

Photo credit:  riacale, on flickr

This was a great trip. Great sites, super adventures and really, really relaxing. Vancouver Island has a lot to offer, and the laid back attitude is a very important part of life here. We’re going to do everything we can to bring this attitude back to Regina. We’ve been blessed with very livable cities here – cities that remain about people rather than cars. I’m ready to recommit to moving Regina further in this direction – whether that’s local markets, bike lanes, or better public transportation. I don’t want to move, but I don’t want to have to drive everywhere either.

Let’s see how this new mood holds up when I go to work tomorrow…

SOCCER!!

Only 4 hours till kickoff of today’s U20 world cup matches. I’m extremely excited.

We’ve heard lots of horror stories about secutiry – long lines, no food or drink allowed in , no re-entry (and we’ll be there for 5-6 hours). But, we’re bringing lots of cash and sun hats. It was good to have the notice though- there was nothing in the tickets that mentioned this. Oh well.

Full report to follow!

We’re full up tonight due to the holiday weekend and there are some really great folks here. James from Australia is showing his DVD of his own personal version of Stupid Human Tricks. That James is a crazy guy. Seems to enjoy jumping off stuff with a bucket on his head. Over supper a few folks started a really wild singalong too accompany the cooks. Sweet. Cindy and Robyn bought me a birthday cake big enough to share which doesn’t hurt either

If you need a fun place to stay in Nanaimo, this is it. Come check it out.

It was actually quite a bit of fun, even though I’m extremely scared of heights. There were some awesome zip lines that went way over 100 feet, some rock walls up in the trees, and all sorts of swinging bridges, board walks, ladders, etc. I didn’t like the swinging logs much at all, but the rest was pretty decent. Although I need to confess that Cindy and the kids went significantly further than I did. That’s OK, we all had fun and now I know who to get to roof the house later.

Thanks to John and the folks at Wild Play in Nanaimo for a really fun afternoon!

A couple weeks back I wrote a post about my first impressions of Nanaimo and frankly, they weren’t very good. I had a couple folks comment that I missed all the good bits and made some suggestions on how to improve things. This time round I did a couple things differently:

- on the ferry ride over, I reviewed the comments from Mindi, Tratz and Jeff.
- First place we went was the visitor centre for a better map of the city. Nanaimo has a large number of streets that change names for no apparent reason, so it can be a little confusing to get around at first.
- Second thing we did was drive to the harbour and PARK.

I can honestly say that the harbour area of Nanaimo looks a lot better on foot. Earlier I bemoaned the lack of decent restaurants — we really enjoyed the floating Mexican restaurant right on the harbour that I’m sure we drove past the first time without spotting. We also found 3-4 other places we’ll be checking out this weekend. It looks like a really friendly downtown to travel on foot.

We took a spin out to the Nanaimo Aquatic Centre for a great swim and soak — it’s an excellent facility and we’ll be going back.

Our hosts for the weekend are the excellent folks at the Painted Turtle Guesthouse and Hostel. it’s a neat little place — clean rooms, well lit common area (if a little small) and really friendly people. Looks like we’re in for a great Canada Day weekend!

We saw a lot of wildlife – bald eagles mostly, but the highlight was a pair of seals who kept bobbing up right beside the kayaks, checking us out then diving down for a while. Quite a treat!

We went over to a marine park where we could camp overnight if we wanted. Lots of tide pools and starfish there.

Kayaking is a pile of fun. I can see myself buying a “lake” kayak when I get home. Very peaceful and fun way to travel.

We’re giving Nanaimo another try, thanks in part to some comments on this blog. I’ll be sure to report on any ‘finds’…

Beautiful…

Rather boring day. We’re at the end of the line on highway 101 and we’re bored. Tired of being wet. Tired of the mosquitos that come out when it stops raining. Most especially tired of trying to get a fire going with wet wood – but by jiminy, I got it going…

Found a wet sock in the ditch beside my campsite, which pretty much sums up the highlights of Okeover Arm Provincial Park. Thought it might be fun to see it go up in flames. No such luck. It just sat there and steamed till it turned into a sock shaped piece of black ash.

I think Okeover is Finnish for that part of the arm to which deodorant is applied.

We’re moving on tomorrow.