Scott Bush

After another nice breakfast—this time cinnamon toast with honey from cousin’s apiary—we had a visitor for coffee: my great uncle Len. It was fun to talk with him and to have Crystal get a chance to meet him. He’s very laid back and we were immediately having fun shooting the breeze and trying to complete electronic New York Times crossword puzzles.

Inspired during our first day’s tour around PW, Crystal and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day by hiking up Mt. Valentine. Completely gorgeous… a peaceful wood of Aspens, then a steep climb up rough-hewn steps to a bouldered, grassy bluff overlooking the paper mill below and the Straight of Georgia beyond that. We spent a relaxing, solitary half hour or so enjoying nature before returning to our car and driving to Marine View drive to check out the stores.

PW’s retail-industrial complex grinds to a halt on Sundays, it turns out. Not many stores were open; a few knick-knack/local goods stores, a thrift shop, and a used-book seller. One gem was Robbie’s Hemp Shop and Juice Bar. We strolled past the door, then kinda stopped and looked at each other. “Wanna check it out?” I asked. “If you do,” Crystal replied. So we did. Pretty neat actually! We ended up spending about 30 minutes there talking to the propietor and her friend (we were the only customers that day, we found out; Sunday is slow in Powell River!). Crystal enjoyed the juice special: carrot-beet, a real steal at CAN$2.50 for 12 ounces. We watched her throw big carrot after carrot and beet after beet into her juicer—along with half an apple for sweetness. The resulting juice was good and very healthy. I even took my first shot of wheatgrass (on the house, too!). Not bad, but I definitely would prefer it mixed in with other fruit.

We had lunch at Rocky Mountain Bakery, which sold sandwiches, soups, and pizza, before rounding out the day at the aforementioned used book shop. The weather was gorgeous and really made the town sparkle… we couldn’t have asked for a nicer afternoon.

But our evening was even better! After returning home and cleaning up (and refreshing with a lime cordial in the garden) we exchanged cars with my cousin Mike so we could later pick up family friends Bill and Snookie Amos and head out for dinner. But first we toured Mike’s beautiful new home, which they’d just finished building about a year earlier. Amazingly beautiful place.

Forgive my use of clichéd adjectives, but our next stop at Snookie and Bill’s “estate,” for lack of a better word, was incredible. They have the most exsquisite garden I’ve ever seen. I remembered it from my childhood visits, but it’s come a long way since then. Shrubs define various sections of the garden, each with well-kempt beds of bright flowers and magnficient trees. A clear brook runs through it, and a pretty wooden gazebo offers a restful place to sit and enjoy it. Snookie told us what each of the trees and flowers were and offered a history of the garden’s growth over the years. They’ve sold the property and are moving shortly, so it was a real treat to be able to enjoy (and take photos of) it before they left.

Dinner was my “birthday treat” and was at The Laughing Oyster in Okeover, which is about a half-hour outside of Powell River. What a meal! I had gunpowder prawns, while the rest of the diners had steak. There was a bit of a wait for the food to arrive, but it was well worth it: grilled asparagus and peppers, fried yam croquette, and rice pilaf accompanied my prawns, which were as spicy as promised and served on a large shell. I even got a slice of “chocolate chocolate crazy chocolate,” a secret desert. It was quite a meal, surpassed in taste only by the company in which I enjoyed it.

We rounded out the evening by driving out to the end of highway 101, which terminates in Lund. It’s a pretty little place, with not much but a hotel and a marina but is apparently a well-known tourist spot. The drive back to PW was pleasant; Bill even spotted a deer in a field as we stopped at an overlook to see Savary Island.

A long, eventful day… but still one of the most relaxing and enjoyable days I’d had in a long while. It was a nice change of pace, and made me realize how nice a slower-paced lifestyle can be.

The second day was second in name only; first in everything else! Well, except the weather, which was overcast with some sun breaks. Since this day seemed to revolve around food, so does the blog entry.

Breakfast

We spent a nice morning over a breakfast of organic, local eggs whose shells were so thick I really had to smack’em to crack’em. That’s from healthy chickens who get a lot of calcium in their diet, apparently.

After breakfast we headed out to Powell River’s local market. Not quite as large as those in Edmonds or Everett, but just as nice. Lots of soap, candy, candle, and plant vendors, though not much produce yet. The market is right next to Powell River’s “therapeutic riding” association’s horse facility. Pretty interesting, really—children are helped onto the horses and given rides as a way to help them physically and mentally. There’s a large corps of volunteers to help these kids (my uncle included) from throughout the community.
On our way back we had a tour of the area. It was a veritable family history! We saw Mowat Bay, where my paternal grandparents lived on a float house, as well as a few other homes throughout Powell River built by family as early as the 1950s. Uncle Owen also gave us the history of two of the trees in his yard, which he brought over from Nova Scotia as saplings in 1954. Amazing to think about that as I stood looking up to the sky at this huge tree… talk about having roots to a place!

Lunch

After a delicious lunch (sandwiches on kalamata olive bread with organic greens from the market) we had a nap! it’s a very rare occasion for me to have a nap, but it was nice; we are, after all, on vacation. The weather was a bit nicer that afternoon so we took trip to Marine Drive, a street full of quaint retail and dining places (most of which were closed at 5:30 on a Saturday). But, the Breakwater bookstore and internet café was open, which allowed me to post about our first day. It was a pleasant surprise to find the coffee was excellent, too.

Dinner

Our second day seemed to largely revolve around food and dinner was no exception. We feasted on local prawns we’d bought from a woman earlier that day and had been caught just days before (Powell River is well known for its prawns). This was accompanied by an organic greens caesar with homemade dressing; fresh-baked focaccia bread; baked potatoes with green onions from their garden; and a healthy dose of melted garlic butter over the whole thing. A top-shelf meal if there ever was one. The best part of it all was the fact we were joined by my cousin Linda who is an absolute delight. She brought us three jars of honey from their very own apiary. She also gave us a queen bee, which looks like a peanut shell or a peach pit. I was fascinated by it all and resolved to keep bees when we get a house with a yard, assuming there are still bees around—seriously.

A brief walk around the neighborhood rounded out the day. It has been a most relaxing day and we’re looking forward to tomorrow!

As rare as a blue moon or steak tartar, we enjoyed a four-day Memorial Day weekend. Crystal and I decided to take the opportunity to travel to Powell River to visit my family there. It’s a beautiful trip, though long—about six hours with two ferry rides, but we were looking forward to the time together and the weather certainly cooperated.

Day one

We headed north up I-5 about 11am and were at the Canadian border near Blaine/Surrey by about 1:30. The truck customs were a bit busy but we were through and up highway 15 shortly afterward. Next we hit highway 1 and went west through Vancouver to Horseshoe Bay. We’d missed the 1:55 sailing, but were early for the 3:30. We slept a bit in the car, but it was too hot so we wandered around the ferry slip and enjoyed the weather until the ferry arrived.

The ferry was huge; by far the biggest I’d ever been on. Very nice, too. We sat on the upper deck and read our books and snacked while watching the small islands and not-too-distant mountains pass by. The crossing to Landingdale was short, and we were soon on the road again.

We took a brief stop in Gibsons at Prime Minister Tim Horton’s donut shop, where Crystal evaluated his “double double” legislation; I reviewed his single. Good stuff, especially accompanied by a donut.
The road from Gibsons to Earl’s Cove, where we were to catch the 6:25 sailing to Saltery Bay, is—in a word—curvy. Sports car commercials should be filmed here, and a future edition of Project Gotham Racing must include it as a track. What fun! We had a ferry to catch, which gave me reason to speed along the twisty road to the best of Crystal’s car’s ability. Made me wish for a nice roadster rather than the aging four-cylinder we were in, but Crystal’s white knuckles kept me from really finding out how well we could take a hairpin turn. Luckily there was no other traffic save for a BC Hydro work truck that actually passed us on his way to the ferry. Luckily, we arrived in time, thanks to the ferry running behind schedule.

The second crossing of the trip took 45 minutes and we equally beautiful, though the ferry—the “Queen of Tsawwassen” wasn’t nearly as well-appointed. We enjoyed the last 27 kilometers from Saltery Bay to Powell River, where we met Auntie Val and Uncle Owen. We snacked and caught up for a few hours before hitting the rack–in a brand new Murphy bed! It was built by Auntie Val’s son Mike and is really neat. We’re the first to stay in it.

It’s nearly my birthday, which is great except I remember two years ago at this time when I learned of my friend Greg Stark’s death atop Mt. Rainier. I was at work at the Small Schools Project when my phone rang; it was Beth Koemans. She told me she’d seen a news report about one Greg Stark and his uncle not having returned from a hike. “It could be our Greg Stark,” she said. “Maybe,” I told her, “But you don’t know yet so don’t worry.” Unfortunately, as the day wore on we knew it was our Greg who was missing and we had to hope he’d be rescued. He wasn’t.

I’m posting about Greg for two reasons. First, it’s the second anniversary of his death and I now have a blog so I can mention him. And more importantly, I’ve learned of an event in Eastern Washington called the “Greg Stark Memorial Youth Fly Fishing Event,” put on by a fishing shop called The Evening Hatch. What a cool tribute! Young people are taught to fly fish and have an opportunity to do so on the Yakima river, all in memory of Greg. If you’re a fly fisherman (or is it fisher-person?) I’d ask you to give them your business if you’re ever over there.

We miss you Greg.

I’m a huge Denzel Washington fan. Really liked Fallen, Man on Fire, and Crimson Tide; and I loved his performance in Much Ado About Nothing (see all his movies on IMDB.com). Last evening we watched his latest, Deja Vu. Quite a film!

What I enjoyed most about the film was the integrity of the storyline. (Don’t read on if you haven’t seen it because this will clearly ruin your movie-watching experience.) There are two timeframes in the movie and—assuming you can suspend your disbelief—you’ll be amazed at how well they mesh together. It’s very trick. Having watched Star Trek for years, the time-travel episodes mostly fall apart (Enterprise’s “temporal cold war” nonsense is a perfect example). That’s why I was surprised at how well Tony Scott (or perhaps I should give more credit to the screenwriters?) managed to foreshadow many plot elements. The second half of the movie we were exclaiming “oh, there’s the [whatever] we saw earlier! Cool!” all the time. It also kept the suspense because we’d seen something earlier that hadn’t yet been explained, so we knew it was coming. And the acting was good across the board, though I felt Jim Caviezel played his role excellently.

There were also some good Denzel lines, as with Fallen’s “Put some food on my plate.” Denzel’s sitting in the device about to go back in time and his colleague asks how he’s doing. “I’m besides myself,” he says in that wry Denzel way. Good stuff.

As you may know, I volunteer with Food Lifeline whenever I can. For the past four years I’ve helped with their National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) food drive event; the last three of which I’ve been a team leader. It’s a great event: letter carriers (the correct term for “mailman” or “mail lady”) drop off plastic grociery bags in your mailbox early in the week. Then on Saturday they pick them up again filled with donated non-perishable food and take them to their postal station. That’s where Food Lifeline’s volunteers come in. We transfer the food into huge cardboard boxes called “totes,” which are then loaded onto a waiting semi truck for shipment back to the main facility for processing and distribution to local food banks.

This year wasn’t as busy as past years, but it was still a very good turn out. We had 34 (or 36) totes full of food at the North City postal station where I was (the previous years I was team leader at Bitter Lake and University stations). We had a good number of dedicated volunteers, so we made short work of transferring the food when the postal vehicles arrived. All in all, my only complaint is the nasty sunburn across my forehead I didn’t know I was getting. Overcast days can be dangerous, so wear your sunscreen kids!