Track recorded with Navionics App.
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Phone died so today’s track is in two parts

Track recorded with Navionics App.
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B Timothy Keith
–a la iphone!

A long day on the water. I promise I’ll catch up.

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B Timothy Keith
–a la iphone!

Many years ago (the early 2000s?), we headed off for a vacation. I had done a bunch of research and found a place called Rock Lake that was just outside of the Willmore Wilderness Area, north and a bit east of Jasper.

There was a backcountry lodge there with 4 small wooden cabins for rent. The cabins had no power but hot water and refrigeration were provided by natural gas tanks and they had indoor plumbing. It’s a beautiful place to visit with lots of hiking and meadows full of elk in the evenings as you sat on the veranda.

But the best part of the trip was actually the outfitters just down the road. They mainly did guided hunting trips on horseback during the seasons, but lucky for us, did day rides in the off season as well. These were great, back-country horses with none of the passivity commonly associated with trail ride horses and the trails themselves were exhilarating and magnificent. We scrambled up 60° inclines and crossed ridgelines and explored valleys. I think we went back three days in a row, just meandering around the mountains and ridges and up to the top of a few of them.

 

But many of you will have heard my story of the one trip we did where the leader asked us repeatedly if we were scared of heights before he would take us up. From the picture below it doesn’t look all that terrifying, but if you are 8 feet up on the back of a horse and you can touch the side of the hill with one hand, looking down the side of the mountain was enough to make anyone close their eyes and pray to whatever horse gods there are.

But the view was oh, so worth it.

Unfortunately I have never been able to find out if these cabins are still there. The original listing is long gone and the long meandering drive in a bit too lengthy to make just to find out.

Ghlaghghee, 2003 – 2015

Ghlaghghee died in January of this year. I had stopped following John Scalzi’s blog Whatever closely some time ago so I missed the entry. For some reason or another it was mentioned on twitter the other day and I finally read it. It’s a wonderful thing to have a person whose profession is words to describe something. I wished I could have conjured half the emotion revealed half the truths Mr. Scalzi does when Samantha died last fall. The bond with a cat is often so subtle that it is impossible to describe and though it leaves a disproportionate  scar when it’s finally sundered, you rarely  give much thought what that bond actually is.

John’s entry does this well and it speaks, for the most part, for me as well. Thank-you John.

Remembering is a source of joy

One of the things we too often discount in this ‘modern’ age is that by remembering and retelling stories we keep things alive in our hearts and heal our spirits. The disconnected glee that John had at my, among others, expense as I would try to pronounce Ghlaghghee’s name now, in turn, makes me smile. For those who are disinclined to read the blog post, apparently  John’s 4-year-old daughter wanted to name the new kitten Fluffy despite an official ban on such ‘cutesey’ names. The daughter won; but John, taking a page from Bernard-Shaw’s book, decided to spell Fluffy with assorted g’s and h’s to the eternal consternation of all readers and speakers. (Gh=f) (l=l) (agh=u) (gh=f) (ee=y)

Apparently Ghlaghghee was also the first internet ‘bacon-cat’ and his fame even exceeded the best-selling author’s for a period.

Samantha was never so famous. Named simply Samantha by our then 5-year-old after a classmate, she eventually became formally know as Samantha T(he) Cat. But she did perfect the ‘clamber-up-the-bathrobe-in-the-morning’ and modeled for several books and magazines—although rarely when she was actually supposed to be modeling.

Anyway, it’s good to remember and it’s good to smile and I hope when my time comes everyone pauses to laugh at me, laugh with me or simply just laugh.

 

I want! I want!

I have always wanted a secret passageway. And every time we have done any renovations at all I have contemplated putting in a revolving book case. I still have it in mind for our current basement. Some of these ideas are just sweet!

Find even more images here: http://bookriot.com/2012/11/02/10-kick-ass-secret-passage-bookshelves/

Head

Testing a new plugin for Social media distribution

 

—Captain? #Uncategorized

Shhhh, don’t tell anyone you saw it yet!

No news is good news? Still haven’t heard whether the boat deal is a done deal. Just wanting on a few numbers…I hate numbers. Always wanting to subtract when you want to add or multiply when you want to divide. Stupid numbers.

It’s production week on the mag, so I am keeping busy though. Have a picture:

The Granville Island Boat Yard

Generally clickbait (those links that say things like “2 dogs sat on a bench: You won’t believe what happened next!” or “Suzy was only 12—But this is how she amazed her parents!”) doesn’t interest me too much, although I have to admit there are some people who are damned good at it. But occasionally it actually engages me on a level I  am genuinely interested in. Like maps.

And this week Vox.com post a link to 25 maps that explain English that really intrigued me so I soon found myself clicking away like catfish striking at a morsel of PB & J… (Actually I have no idea if catfish like PB & J, but in my imagination I think they would. They seem like that kind of fish.)

This was one of my favourite maps. Now I know where to be less freaked out about travelling to as I hate the idea of being one of those people that speaks English ‘louder’ to try and make myself understood. And, while I try, I suck at languages; just ask C about my ‘Italian’ accent. It might play into L’s hands though as she really, really wants to go to Sweden.

I also learned that a lot of the East coast of Britain used to be swamp, enough so that York and Cambridge looked to be almost coastal cities. I will have to look into it more as I find that concept utterly fascinating.

 

But I encourage you to visit the site and see all the cool maps and graphics that range from where the English language came from to where the major regional dialects are in the U.S. It’s really cool…

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/3/8053521/25-maps-that-explain-english