Entering Jasper National Park, 10/29
The beauty has only begun!
These pics were taken with the "real" camera not the camera phone... so they are clickable for larger views. Enjoy!! We sure did!
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Jasper National Park, Alberta
Entering Jasper National Park, 10/29
The beauty has only begun!
These pics were taken with the "real" camera not the camera phone... so they are clickable for larger views. Enjoy!! We sure did!
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Random observations
Ah! At long last, an internet connection. No cell phone reception, much less internet, while crossing the prairie regions. That goes for the U.S. as well as Canada.
Ok, here's a wierd post. A listing of some things I've learned about Canada, either through being here previously (I was born here, and I've been back to visit twice), research before leaving this time, or things I've noted during this trip:
Knew/learned before leaving:
There are no $1 bills. You have $1 coins (loonies - due to the image of a loon on the back) and $2 coins (toonies - well, it just made sense somehow).
$1 US ~ $1.20 CAN
Even English teachers say, "eh?"
Most French-speakers are in Quebec. In rural areas especially, there are many who don't know English at all. In main city centres like Montreal, there are more who are bilingual.
Quebec has expressed the desire to cede from Canada and become its own nation. Canada has tried to placate it and satisfy its needs while still remaining one nation.
"Out" is pronounced "oot" (as in "boot"), not "owwt." "About" is "aboot." "Been," as in "Where have you been?" is "bean."
Spelling differences: Such as favour, colour, centre, cheque, catalogue, splendour, favourite.
Tim Horton's (coffee and donuts, essentially) is to Canada what McDonalds, sports bars, popcorn at the movies, and apple pie are to the U.S. - but all wrapped up into one. There, they sell Timbits, their hottest selling item. You probably know them as "donut holes."
Canada is generally much cleaner than the U.S. - in terms of litter, air quality, water quality, etc.
Canada has adopted the metric system. The U.S., if memory serves, is the only remaining country still using the old English system. (I don't think even England is still using the English system.)
Learned during this trip:
I was told that the reason Toronto has grown exponentially into the most populous city of Canada, is that Quebec passed laws insisting on French as the language of choice. At this point, many English-speaking citizens left and most of the English-speaking businesses took their business elsewhere. That elsewhere was Toronto.
I've only previously been to Alberta, but when I was there, I remember the place being immaculate. No litter, no graffiti, no homeless on the street. I didn't get a chance to see much of urban Alberta this time, but I did see urban areas of other provinces, and I report with some sadness that this is not true for them. Of these, graffiti is the main problem I've seen. Still, it's not as bad as in the States.
Canadians are used to having a pretty good mass transit system. They think nothing of walking a few blocks so you can catch the bus or hoof it to where you're going.
Maybe as a direct result of the above, there are definitely less people here with overweight problems.
There are stairs *everywhere*. I've often found myself wondering how people in wheelchairs get around this country, because I've seen comparatively few ramps.
There are recycling bins everywhere. In the train stations, inside the trains, on the street corners. They're pretty committed here to getting people to recycle.
There is a Chinatown in every major city. Not just west coast, not just east coast. Every major city we've seen.
There are something like 50 different ethnic groups represented in Edmonton and 42 in Toronto, if I remember right. Including restaurants for all their traditional foods. Mmmmmm!
There are way more vegetarian restaurants and vegetarian options than you'd think, in all the major cities we've seen.
If you're avoiding MSG, you really have to watch it here. It's in most soups, flavored crackers, and flavored chips.
The richness of First Nations (what we usually call "Native American") cultures are to be seen everywhere. Carvings, paintings, instruments, clothing, and all manner of other household items, arts, and crafts can easily be found. They are so beautiful.
Canada is a lot bigger than you'd think just looking at a typical U.S.-centric map.
Southern... Saskatchewan I think, actually has cactus-filled desert areas.
Here you don't add "creamer" to your coffee; you add "whitener."
Ok, here's a wierd post. A listing of some things I've learned about Canada, either through being here previously (I was born here, and I've been back to visit twice), research before leaving this time, or things I've noted during this trip:
Knew/learned before leaving:
There are no $1 bills. You have $1 coins (loonies - due to the image of a loon on the back) and $2 coins (toonies - well, it just made sense somehow).
$1 US ~ $1.20 CAN
Even English teachers say, "eh?"
Most French-speakers are in Quebec. In rural areas especially, there are many who don't know English at all. In main city centres like Montreal, there are more who are bilingual.
Quebec has expressed the desire to cede from Canada and become its own nation. Canada has tried to placate it and satisfy its needs while still remaining one nation.
"Out" is pronounced "oot" (as in "boot"), not "owwt." "About" is "aboot." "Been," as in "Where have you been?" is "bean."
Spelling differences: Such as favour, colour, centre, cheque, catalogue, splendour, favourite.
Tim Horton's (coffee and donuts, essentially) is to Canada what McDonalds, sports bars, popcorn at the movies, and apple pie are to the U.S. - but all wrapped up into one. There, they sell Timbits, their hottest selling item. You probably know them as "donut holes."
Canada is generally much cleaner than the U.S. - in terms of litter, air quality, water quality, etc.
Canada has adopted the metric system. The U.S., if memory serves, is the only remaining country still using the old English system. (I don't think even England is still using the English system.)
Learned during this trip:
I was told that the reason Toronto has grown exponentially into the most populous city of Canada, is that Quebec passed laws insisting on French as the language of choice. At this point, many English-speaking citizens left and most of the English-speaking businesses took their business elsewhere. That elsewhere was Toronto.
I've only previously been to Alberta, but when I was there, I remember the place being immaculate. No litter, no graffiti, no homeless on the street. I didn't get a chance to see much of urban Alberta this time, but I did see urban areas of other provinces, and I report with some sadness that this is not true for them. Of these, graffiti is the main problem I've seen. Still, it's not as bad as in the States.
Canadians are used to having a pretty good mass transit system. They think nothing of walking a few blocks so you can catch the bus or hoof it to where you're going.
Maybe as a direct result of the above, there are definitely less people here with overweight problems.
There are stairs *everywhere*. I've often found myself wondering how people in wheelchairs get around this country, because I've seen comparatively few ramps.
There are recycling bins everywhere. In the train stations, inside the trains, on the street corners. They're pretty committed here to getting people to recycle.
There is a Chinatown in every major city. Not just west coast, not just east coast. Every major city we've seen.
There are something like 50 different ethnic groups represented in Edmonton and 42 in Toronto, if I remember right. Including restaurants for all their traditional foods. Mmmmmm!
There are way more vegetarian restaurants and vegetarian options than you'd think, in all the major cities we've seen.
If you're avoiding MSG, you really have to watch it here. It's in most soups, flavored crackers, and flavored chips.
The richness of First Nations (what we usually call "Native American") cultures are to be seen everywhere. Carvings, paintings, instruments, clothing, and all manner of other household items, arts, and crafts can easily be found. They are so beautiful.
Canada is a lot bigger than you'd think just looking at a typical U.S.-centric map.
Southern... Saskatchewan I think, actually has cactus-filled desert areas.
Here you don't add "creamer" to your coffee; you add "whitener."
Monday, October 24, 2005
Niagara Falls (New York and Ontario sides) and upstate New York
Well, I have to say that despite my fears of potential problems due to the rough train ride, we had a completely AWESOME time with my son at Niagara Falls, then later at his campus. We were blown away by the beauty of both!
You can never really find words to convey the inspiring majesty of the falls. Despite the fact that it rained the whole time we were there, even the cloud cover and rain couldn't take away from the sights and sounds to behold. The color of the water was a sparkling teal/sea foam green. Copious amounts of mist arose from the base of the falls. Boardwalks allowed close-up views of the rapids beginning their plunge to the dark rocks below. A footbridge led from the mainland to an island in the middle of the river. The footbridge gave way to tree-lined paths on the island, all splashed with varying shades of red, orange, yellow, and green foliage. There's no way to see all of this and not be overwhelmed by its beauty.
My son's campus is gorgeous. There are so many beautiful trees everywhere that you imagine the original site as a forest, out of which just enough space was cleared to allow for the widely spaced buildings and nothing more. At the entrance to the college, and at many locations throughout the campus, you can see nothing but forest. It looks like you're in a national park, not a top-notch university! We were taken completely by surprise. It's easy to see why my son fell in love with this place! To top it off, the foliage is turning here, too. The entire place is awash in color. What a delight it must be to wake up here every morning and see such spectacular beauty.
You can never really find words to convey the inspiring majesty of the falls. Despite the fact that it rained the whole time we were there, even the cloud cover and rain couldn't take away from the sights and sounds to behold. The color of the water was a sparkling teal/sea foam green. Copious amounts of mist arose from the base of the falls. Boardwalks allowed close-up views of the rapids beginning their plunge to the dark rocks below. A footbridge led from the mainland to an island in the middle of the river. The footbridge gave way to tree-lined paths on the island, all splashed with varying shades of red, orange, yellow, and green foliage. There's no way to see all of this and not be overwhelmed by its beauty.
My son's campus is gorgeous. There are so many beautiful trees everywhere that you imagine the original site as a forest, out of which just enough space was cleared to allow for the widely spaced buildings and nothing more. At the entrance to the college, and at many locations throughout the campus, you can see nothing but forest. It looks like you're in a national park, not a top-notch university! We were taken completely by surprise. It's easy to see why my son fell in love with this place! To top it off, the foliage is turning here, too. The entire place is awash in color. What a delight it must be to wake up here every morning and see such spectacular beauty.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Arizona
(Somewhere near Flagstaff)
And I thought Arizona was all desert!
When I was little we used to live in Tempe, near Phoenix. It was all flat dirt with scattered scrub, and that's all you got. I guess it eventually had to give in to the trees and such of Colorado, but I never suspected for a minute that that might be in the middle of AZ.
Kind of reminds me of the first time I went to Death Valley on a job (a story and photo album for another blog). Whenever you see scientists interviewed there, or news coverage there, it's stark, bleak, and featureless. But when you actually go there, there's an amazing variety of terrain and scenery. You have vast white salt flats, in the lowest point in the country if not the continent, and this is surrounded by hills and mountains splashed with red, blue, yellow, green, and orange from all the rich mineral deposits found in the soil. There's a place there called Artist's Palette because it's so saturated with colors, it looks like just that. There's even a band of wild horses out there! Death Valley is one of the most amazing and strikingly beautiful places I've ever seen. And if I hadn't been there to see it myself, I'd still be convinced it's nothing but a big stretch of sand.
This place reminds me of that. The last things I expected to see were big green groves of trees and brush. The man sitting behind us told us Flagstaff is home to the biggest grove of trees and biggest population of elk in the world.
Going to Death Valley taught me that no matter how many times you've seen a place on documentaries, never to judge a place before seeing it yourself. Today I learned that you can't judge a place just because you've been someplace nearby, either!
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Set up mobile posting for the blog
A few more hours left!
Last-minute wrapping up and we're off to the train station.
Set up data access today with our cellular provider so we can post from the road. Thanks to promotional deals, when you sign up for $5/month for 1MB internet, or $3/month for sending of 20 multimedia messages, each of these services has the first month unlimited access! Is that a perfect time frame, or what?? Hehe. We can post to the blog by e-mail, so I just want to be able to do e-mail offline, log on for 5 minutes and do my send/receive, then sign off. These plans I signed up for couldn't possibly be more perfect.
This is gonna be so awesome!!!
Last-minute wrapping up and we're off to the train station.
Set up data access today with our cellular provider so we can post from the road. Thanks to promotional deals, when you sign up for $5/month for 1MB internet, or $3/month for sending of 20 multimedia messages, each of these services has the first month unlimited access! Is that a perfect time frame, or what?? Hehe. We can post to the blog by e-mail, so I just want to be able to do e-mail offline, log on for 5 minutes and do my send/receive, then sign off. These plans I signed up for couldn't possibly be more perfect.
This is gonna be so awesome!!!
Los Angeles, California - inclement weather
Just in case anyone is under the illusion that we never get inclement weather here...
...these are all from today.
Heavy hailstorm
Streets flooded up over the sidewalk
The river that was the 60 freeway onramp - Hacienda Blvd.
While I will grant you that this isn't our usual weather, it's not like we haven't seen it hail before. Just not this hard. I've seen really heavy rain before, but I've never seen the skies just open up quite like that. It started as sheets of rain, then suddenly came down with hail just as hard. The streets were instantly flooded, and we knew if we didn't get out of there soon we were going to have a stalled engine.
Maybe God wanted to prepare us for the weather we're going to experience on our trip? LOL
...these are all from today.
Heavy hailstorm
Streets flooded up over the sidewalk
The river that was the 60 freeway onramp - Hacienda Blvd.
While I will grant you that this isn't our usual weather, it's not like we haven't seen it hail before. Just not this hard. I've seen really heavy rain before, but I've never seen the skies just open up quite like that. It started as sheets of rain, then suddenly came down with hail just as hard. The streets were instantly flooded, and we knew if we didn't get out of there soon we were going to have a stalled engine.
Maybe God wanted to prepare us for the weather we're going to experience on our trip? LOL
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Los Angeles, California - and random commentary
There are still things in L.A. that are just beautiful. I snapped this with my phone this morning when we went out for coffee. These formations promptly dissipated and were completely gone within 2 minutes after I took the photo.
And while we're on the subject of beautiful things in L.A., we couldn't believe our eyes when we saw this doe recently, right here in the city, at Griffith Park:
In addition to the interesting cotton-ball cloud formations this morning, I happened to see a flock of sparrows feeding underneath a tree. They'd get frightened by a passing car and they'd all fan out and whoosh up into the branches above, like an explosion in slow motion. The interesting thing was that the branches were the same color as they were, so when they did they disappeared completely. Then, slowly at first, they'd come fluttering down... like leaves with a life of their own, spinning and tossing in the wind as they fall off the tree. The brownness of the branches made the illusion complete. I couldn't take my eyes off of them. I watched this amazing cycle over and over again until they took refuge in the tree as it started to rain.
All of this served to remind me today that no matter what you think you dislike about a place, there is still abundant beauty to be had.
Preparations, aka mad rush time
Well, we made it through the workweek!
Now it's been a flurry of preparations. For reasons I won't bore you with, preparations involve more than making our reservations, buying supplies, and getting everything packed. We also have to do the equivalent of helping 4 people move... 1 is very messy and a hardcore packrat, 1 is messy and a severe packrat, 1 is messy and a recovering packrat (myself), and one is a compulsive purger (Nickie). Do you ever wonder why I feel sorry for the woman? LOL Anyway, we are utterly exhausted but hopeful that the worst is over and we can get started doing some actual, you know... PACKING done. Hehe.
Departure: day after tomorrow
Now it's been a flurry of preparations. For reasons I won't bore you with, preparations involve more than making our reservations, buying supplies, and getting everything packed. We also have to do the equivalent of helping 4 people move... 1 is very messy and a hardcore packrat, 1 is messy and a severe packrat, 1 is messy and a recovering packrat (myself), and one is a compulsive purger (Nickie). Do you ever wonder why I feel sorry for the woman? LOL Anyway, we are utterly exhausted but hopeful that the worst is over and we can get started doing some actual, you know... PACKING done. Hehe.
Departure: day after tomorrow
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