Vacations are so anticlimactic. You spend all sorts of time and money to take a fantastic trip, and the end result is a bag full of wrinkled receipts and boarding passes, food wrappers that never got thrown out, wrinkled and stinky clothes, and the impending arrival of the dreaded Visa bill.

Then there’s the after-the-vacation-cold. Going from a place where the average daily temperature is right around 100°F to a place where the daily temperature may hit 70°F, and then back to the afore-mentioned 100°F place doesn’t do a body good. Well, it *feels* good at the time, but I spent most of yesterday coughing up phlegm and alternating between shivering cold and sweating hot.

As you may have guessed, I was out for a few weeks on vacation. The highlights are as follows: we flew to Seattle and rented a car, which we drove to Vancouver, Revelstoke, Calgary, Fernie, and back to Seattle. We made a few other notable stops on the way, including a visit to the plaid toaster.

Alas, here’s a few highlights to delight and amuse you.

We flew this cute little Canadair jet from Raleigh to Cincinnati on the way out. Airport security eyed me a bit cautiously as I whipped my camera around like a madman, but it was worth it. Moments like these make recollecting the trip a lot easier for me.

The food on the plane was yummy. I had a delicious bottle of water and some Oatmeal To Go.

Of course, I miss those little plastic-wrapped trays of assorted food substances that airlines call “meals”. In fact, I had the notoriety of bringing an entire Air Egypt meal home with me from vacation in 1997. My wife threw it out some years after the fact, but I’m pretty sure it was still edible.

The rental car we were cursed with was a Chrysler PT Cruiser. With great respect to Keith Bradsher and his excellent book “High and Mighty”, I have to concede that the PT Cruiser also handles like a pig on stilts. In addition, it had rather glacial acceleration - not to mention that it got worse mileage than my Mercedes. Alas, it didn’t manage to diminish the quaint beauty of the Madison Park neighborhood of Seattle, where we spent our first night.

Next stop: Vancouver. Surrey, to be specific. See, my family lived in Surrey in 1979, and it was one of only two places I have lived that I had never been back to since moving. This trip would settle the score for both locations. So, props to the good people who live at 9273 152 St. in Surrey, BC. It was nice to see the old haunt, even if I was only 4 years old when I lived there.

Vancouver is a beautiful city, and I wish we had more time to spend there. This particular shot was taken from Kitsilano Beach looking north. We also had our first CouchSurfing experience in Vancouver - props to Erin for making us feel warm and welcome.

The drive from Vancouver to Revelstoke takes you through the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Here, the PT poses in front of one particularly lovely mountain scene. It was tough to take bad pictures at this point in the trip; every turn reveals another vantage that could have been taken from any postcard or issue of National Geographic.

This church caught my attention, and I spent some time circling it - wondering just how much it had seen in its many years.

It was *great* to finally visit a Husky Truck Stop after all these years. Carolyn was a real trooper, and delighted to rediscover poutine after all these years. For those who don’t know, poutine is french fries with cheese curds, drizzled with hot beef gravy. It’s a peculiar Canadian favorite, entirely unhealthy and completely delicious.

We drove past the site of the Last Spike, and I stopped to pay my respects to the men and women that gave their lives to bring this country together. I found myself humming the melody to Gordon Lightfoot’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy“, and couldn’t help but feel a tremendous sense that something terribly important took place here a long, long time ago.

The stretch between Revelstoke and Calgary is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful stretches in the world. I have seen these roads many times in my life, but I still gasp in amazement when I see the mountains before me. These pictures won’t do the mountains any justice, but it might give you some small idea what it’s like.

I’ll write some more tomorrow … I hope you enjoyed the first part of my vacation as much as I did!

1 comment
Posted in Blog
Written on Wed, 29 August 2007 at 1:14 pm
Tags: Canada, Last Spike, Revelstoke, Seattle, vacation, Vancouver
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