Part One will be published later, if I get to it.
We - our lab group - took a field trip that included heading north to Seymour Narrows (for my stuff) and Powell River (for Grace and Steven's stuff). These are the kinds of things that make my job fun.
Yesterday's trip to Seymour Narrows was much more civilized than today's Powell River experience. We found the trail and hiked about 2 km to the water, through an old-growth forest and across a suspension bridge, which was fun when I got it swaying really good. Then we got to the water and talked to a retired couple who had moved to the area 3 years ago and had been doing a lot of hiking and exploring, and liked to botanize. No madrones in the area, but I gave them my email address so they can let me know what they find. They told us about some other cool places to hike and I want to go back and make a weekend of it. Seems like Geoduck Guy (I'll mention him in part 1) was wrong about seeing madrones at Seymour Narrows. He probably mentioned the place to impress us, like he had boated around there. But it was lost on us because we didn't know anything about it, we looked it up later when we got back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_Rock
I bet he would have enjoyed hearing about how we ventured into danger and one of my hiking boots washed up on a beach with my foot still inside.
Two large right feet found on Georgia Strait beaches
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=943bf6e1-1f65-4419-b046-e0bbbe16b147&k=78604
Down at the pub he'd be telling his buddies how they warned me not to get in the boat with those boots on, they'd pull me right down! We didn't make it to Lund, but we went to the pub at Powell River and had a late dinner. We were too late for the best Thai restaurant on the planet, so that will have to wait until another time.
On the way to the ferry we stopped for tea at "Becky's Country Bakery" and "Point Blank Paintball". It was a farm by the side of the road and the barn was converted into the bakery/restaurant, and in a shed there were ATVs and paintball gear, plus other assorted mantoys in various states of dilapidation. It was obviously a mom n pop business. They were washing up some of the paintball gear in the kitchen with the dishes from the bakery. It smelled heavenly in there and I wanted one of whatever they were baking, but it was unclear what it was so I settled for a ginger cookie, which was excellent. We all had one. While we were there some old people came in for tea. There were a lot of them, like a dozen. One lady was trying to set places for them and kept dropping things. And they were looking at us like we were out of place. Probably because they go there all the time and we were sitting in their living room, as it were.
At Powell River, there were 2 sites that needed measuring, and so we split up into pairs, and Steven and I took the one that had been treated 2 years ago. Everything had grown up really tall, taller than us, and there was a lot of bushwhacking involved. The vegetation was taller than the stakes that marked where the plots were, so it was hard to find some of them. And the footing was difficult, and there were banana slugs. I was terrified that one would find its way inside my armor. I had on super slug-stomping boots, with cleats on the bottom, and rain gear. No slugs were impaled on my boots afterward, I checked. We thought we'd have to park and hike in because of the ditches, but Steven was driving and he made every single one. It turns out that last time Grace and I were in completely the wrong place and we should have turned onto the decommissioned logging road and squeezed our truck past the large boulders that were blocking the way.
Grace said she heard something stomping around and she thought it was us, so she called out. But it wasn't us. The bushes were too high for them to see what was doing it, so it could have easily been the sasquatches checking out the menu.
Sasquatch #1: Me smell brush-apes.
Sasquatch # 2: Me too.
S #1: You hungry?
S #2: Naw. But let's look at menu.
We got back to Victoria earlier than I thought because we caught the noon ferry. The next one was at 5. We finished up the measurements at around 1130, then drove like a bat out of hell over logging roads and across the 8 ditches in 4WD. In spite of some slow drivers on the highway we made it to the ferry at a little after noon. We could see that it was still there from the highway and willed it to be late. We even had time to help a guy jump-start his car, because it had died while he had left the lights on and was listening to the radio in the ferry line. He saw our government vehicle and came right over. His tax dollars at work. Seems like everyone is on strike too. The garbagemen in Vancouver, the librarians, and the loggers. We drove past several places where they were just sitting around and doing nothing. At one place they had even set up a bbq and looked quite comfy. At least we didn't have to deal with logging trucks on the roads today, so that was a plus.
We - our lab group - took a field trip that included heading north to Seymour Narrows (for my stuff) and Powell River (for Grace and Steven's stuff). These are the kinds of things that make my job fun.
Yesterday's trip to Seymour Narrows was much more civilized than today's Powell River experience. We found the trail and hiked about 2 km to the water, through an old-growth forest and across a suspension bridge, which was fun when I got it swaying really good. Then we got to the water and talked to a retired couple who had moved to the area 3 years ago and had been doing a lot of hiking and exploring, and liked to botanize. No madrones in the area, but I gave them my email address so they can let me know what they find. They told us about some other cool places to hike and I want to go back and make a weekend of it. Seems like Geoduck Guy (I'll mention him in part 1) was wrong about seeing madrones at Seymour Narrows. He probably mentioned the place to impress us, like he had boated around there. But it was lost on us because we didn't know anything about it, we looked it up later when we got back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_Rock
I bet he would have enjoyed hearing about how we ventured into danger and one of my hiking boots washed up on a beach with my foot still inside.
Two large right feet found on Georgia Strait beaches
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=943bf6e1-1f65-4419-b046-e0bbbe16b147&k=78604
Down at the pub he'd be telling his buddies how they warned me not to get in the boat with those boots on, they'd pull me right down! We didn't make it to Lund, but we went to the pub at Powell River and had a late dinner. We were too late for the best Thai restaurant on the planet, so that will have to wait until another time.
On the way to the ferry we stopped for tea at "Becky's Country Bakery" and "Point Blank Paintball". It was a farm by the side of the road and the barn was converted into the bakery/restaurant, and in a shed there were ATVs and paintball gear, plus other assorted mantoys in various states of dilapidation. It was obviously a mom n pop business. They were washing up some of the paintball gear in the kitchen with the dishes from the bakery. It smelled heavenly in there and I wanted one of whatever they were baking, but it was unclear what it was so I settled for a ginger cookie, which was excellent. We all had one. While we were there some old people came in for tea. There were a lot of them, like a dozen. One lady was trying to set places for them and kept dropping things. And they were looking at us like we were out of place. Probably because they go there all the time and we were sitting in their living room, as it were.
At Powell River, there were 2 sites that needed measuring, and so we split up into pairs, and Steven and I took the one that had been treated 2 years ago. Everything had grown up really tall, taller than us, and there was a lot of bushwhacking involved. The vegetation was taller than the stakes that marked where the plots were, so it was hard to find some of them. And the footing was difficult, and there were banana slugs. I was terrified that one would find its way inside my armor. I had on super slug-stomping boots, with cleats on the bottom, and rain gear. No slugs were impaled on my boots afterward, I checked. We thought we'd have to park and hike in because of the ditches, but Steven was driving and he made every single one. It turns out that last time Grace and I were in completely the wrong place and we should have turned onto the decommissioned logging road and squeezed our truck past the large boulders that were blocking the way.
Grace said she heard something stomping around and she thought it was us, so she called out. But it wasn't us. The bushes were too high for them to see what was doing it, so it could have easily been the sasquatches checking out the menu.
Sasquatch #1: Me smell brush-apes.
Sasquatch # 2: Me too.
S #1: You hungry?
S #2: Naw. But let's look at menu.
We got back to Victoria earlier than I thought because we caught the noon ferry. The next one was at 5. We finished up the measurements at around 1130, then drove like a bat out of hell over logging roads and across the 8 ditches in 4WD. In spite of some slow drivers on the highway we made it to the ferry at a little after noon. We could see that it was still there from the highway and willed it to be late. We even had time to help a guy jump-start his car, because it had died while he had left the lights on and was listening to the radio in the ferry line. He saw our government vehicle and came right over. His tax dollars at work. Seems like everyone is on strike too. The garbagemen in Vancouver, the librarians, and the loggers. We drove past several places where they were just sitting around and doing nothing. At one place they had even set up a bbq and looked quite comfy. At least we didn't have to deal with logging trucks on the roads today, so that was a plus.
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