Mount Doug

Simon is still in Australia and Grace went to a Union meeting in Vancouver, and I was unmotivated in the office. I worked until about 1-ish and then decided I should go and check out Mt. Doug park for a field site. And The Oracle (weather.com) said it's supposed to rain all next week, so off I went. I saw big black clouds headed in from the west but ignored them. I decided to walk rather than drive up to the top of the hill, which is 1.5 km, according to this
http://www.vancouverisland.com/parks/?id=542
Halfway up I took one of the trails, which was very nice. This site will be perfect for the side project I have planned, which is to look at the mycoflora of Pacific madrone. It needs updating. Madrone, or Arbutus, grows there mixed with Douglas-fir and Garry oak and is in varying degrees of health.

It got kind of tricky towards the top where there was just rock that I had to climb up, and I wasn't really dressed for it since I went there from work. Amazing views from up there. I went to the observatory at the very top where you get the 360 view and it was awesome. But rather windy, and it started to rain.

There were surprisingly a lot of people out there for mid afternoon on a work day, but it was friday so that doesn't really count. There was a spandex-clad biker toiling up the hill and I could walk much faster than he could pedal. But not going down, of course. Lots of dog-walkers. And lots of old people. An elderly English couple blasted by me on the trail. Later I caught up with them looking at a snake and heard this:

Him: Oh, a snake.
Her: Yes, it's rather bigger than we've usually seen here.
Him: Is it alive?
Her: You can see its tongue moving.
Him: So there it is.
Her: There it is, then.

The snake was dismissed.

At the bottom of the hill was a horde of high school kids. They were going to have a race to the top of the hill but their leader hadn't showed up yet. Some of them were dressed in costumes, like a bunch of girls had a Batman theme going on. One of the dads was nice enough to direct them out of my way so I could back up the Pig and get out of the parking lot. I didn't want to hit any of them.

I was going to do this tomorrow, but it's supposed to rain and also I have to deal with Vogonity. I found out they handle immigration issues at the airport out in Sidney, so I'm going to go out there tomorrow and see if I can talk to a human being, or at least a cooperative Vogon and try to get my work permit renewed immediately, instead of having to wait for months the way it is now. It wasn't this bad when I first came here.