Terrible at this.

Man, I really slacked off on this blog lately.
My trip to Guatemala was wonderful. Tikal was breathtaking, the beach in Panama hot, and the randomness of the last weekend indescribable. I had a fantastic time with Cailan, and cannot wait until we reunite at her next teaching gig in.... Egypt!!
Returned to Canada and dove into spring with a lot of outdoors outings, skiing, hiking, more recently paddling and camping. Quick trips to Edmonton, Twin Falls and Hay River. Summing it up in this past weekend's trip back to Pensive Lake.

This year four of us returned to do the Pensive Lake Wilderness Tour that we did over Canada Day last year. Jocelyne and Julian came last year, Graham was new and the plan was to meet Daniel and Blair who were there last year too on Cameron and all descend the river together the last day. Turns out portaging in one go is a thousand times more productive than not. Jocelyne and I carried all the gear, and the boys carried the canoes.
We did the first leg, and camped at the same location as last year... about six hours faster. Ditto with the second day. The weather was fabulous, like last year, minus the headwinds.
We leisurely paddled all afternoon Saturday, passing last years camping and heading down to Lower Pensive Lake to meet Daniel, Blair, Graham and Andrew.

Sunday morning we headed back down Cameron, which I was nervous for, but I felt a lot better knowing that I'd have the choice of paddling with Joce or Julian, who have some idea what they're doing. We were totally successful this run down. There were a couple little delays in the rapids, but the water was so much lower, that they were not as intimidating.
All in all, great weekend in the sun! Cannot wait till next camping trip! Where I hopefully will be much more diligent at reporting.

Guatemala

Well, this morning I woke up in Guatemala City!
I've come down to visit my best friend Cailan, who's been living and teaching here for the past three years... and this will be her last. I needed to come down while I had a personal guide and a place to stay. 
Had a long day of flying yesterday, I wasn't actually sure we'd make it out of Edmonton... weather and mechanical delays :( But I made it to Houston and didnt miss my connection, like the majority of people sitting around me. Continued on to Guatemala City, where I went through customs and the guy didn't even look at me, got two new stamps in my passport and didn't get my bag x-rayed because I'm a foreigner. 
Outside was a mass throng of people waiting, and I heard my name haha. It was great. Cailan picked me up and we went out to this little bar to meet her boyfriend Jorges and their friends. The driving is chaotic and erratic, the bar was wooden outdoor benches and large bottles just continuously brought over. Got some salsa dancing lessons and some practical information about the country, how great it is and learnt some random words in Spanish. 

Tonight Cailan and I are going out to celebrate her being finished her Masters in International Education that she's been working on here... then were jumping in a van and driving overnight to Semuc Champey, a national park that every person at home that I told I was coming here insisted I go to.  After I'm not really sure. I want to go to Tikal, Pacaya Volcano, Antigua and who else knows. 

Apparently Holy Week is a BIG deal here. So I'm going to head to Antigua on Easter Sunday for mass and check out all the processions and other hoopla that's on the go. 

Other than that.... I'm just taking everyday in stride. 

Little Over Night

Well I decided to write about my nice little over night trip this weekend, since I missed writing about my last two trips - whoops.

Yesterday four of us headed out overland to Berry Hill to spend the night at the Ski Club's wall tent. 

We really lucked out, on saturday night it was a balmy -22c but when we finally headed out on Sunday morning it had warmed to -10c! and only got warmer. I don't think it got below -7c today actually. 

The walk was really nice, I wasn't sure what to expect as I have never gone overland from Vee Lake before... but there was a road from Vee Lake to the abandoned Ryan Mine, followed by a well used (to my surprise!) quad trail the rest of the way to Berry Hill. We contemplated walking over the lakes, I had been skating on Frame Lake on Wednesday.... good thing Daniel talked us out of it as the ice at Banting was only two to three inches max, creaked and cracked when we stood on it.

The tent frame was just great and we got it super warm! Took us about three hours to get there, we managed to cut wood, get water and heat the tent up within an hour then spent the rest of our day light target shooting. Great fun.
The night consisted of eating, playing various card games, including an Ontario vs. NWT cribbage tournament - NWT lost to Ontario like in most match-ups - and setting off our Chinese lanterns. 

The lanterns made for a fun time, it was super windy last night so lighting them was an adventure. Trying to find a non windy location was impossible, lighting them inside seemed logical. 

And it was, until we needed to get them outside... they either blew into the trees, back toward the tent or just engulfed themselves in flames. Right before all of us settling in for the night Daniel and Blair went to get water and came back with a massive Giant Water Bug that Daniel accidentally scooped out of the water hole. It was massive! We spotted swim by the next day too. 

Woke up to the sound of the ice freezing. Most interesting sound, a warping noise like when a saw is wiggled. It sounded like things were flying over the tent, mixed with deep growling noises.
We took our time leaving, playing frisbee down the trail, but with a goal of making it back to the truck before 4:30 when we loose the light. 

Great trip, but I wish I had dragged corona off with us. 

Iqaluit long weekend

For August long weekend I treated myself with an aeroplan adventure to Iqaluit.
What better way than to use up my aeroplan point which were expiring (recent changes to the programme no longer allow for the expiration of points... ). It's really quite a deal. While nearly impossible to get decent trips out of YK south, the north is your oyster as both Canadian North and First Air qualify for redemptions! I cashed in my 25,000 points and flew over to Iqaluit.

The reason you might ask, as everyone else and their dog has been, was to visit cousins and my newly minted cousins, harass my anaana for sewing tips and just wander the tundra is all its summer splendour. Something I haven't experienced since I was... five!

Went over on Friday and visited cousins. Wandered around Saturday in the terrible weather then had supper with my cousins Thomas and James and got to meet their new babies!

Sooo adorable. I told Thomas spending the weekend with is panik  was really making me want one. Eep! Baby fever. Oddly enough that ended on Sunday night when I spent the evening with James's older panik Jane and Allison's panik Veda. So many questions! Fun none the less :)

Sunday was actually a fantastic day. Went out to Sylvia Grinnell park for the day to wander around. Beautiful. Not to mention the weather was gorgeous as well. Hiked as far as my converse shoes would allow (I couldn't find my hikers, need to find them before next week!) Made my way back along the river out to the coast where I met up with Thomas at their tent. James, Jane and Aunt Jukeepa came out and went fishing for Char.

The tide was on its way in, James explained that was a bad time for fish - hence why none were caught by any one out there! So we dined on s'mores and hot dogs.

Went back into town and meet up with my anaana Meeka and John from YK. It was great to catch up! He's my newest hook up for passes east ;) 

Today I spent all day with Meeka sewing. 

I loved it. If only she came here more, or better yet, I went there more! She helped me figure out why my kammik weren't working, gave me a little scolding for them being Western style instead of Baffin style, before acknowledging that in fact I do live in the West. She also drew me out some patterns for mittens. Ah new projects for the winter! 

The day ended with Nathaniel and Braeden taking me to the aeroport to return home - where it's been over 20c! Ahhhhh! I could have got a tan! But... visiting was much more worth it :)

Pensive Lake Wilderness Tour

This past long weekend I headed out on the Pensive Lake Wilderness Tour with Daniel, a bunch of his friends and Kelly and her friend Jill - total of eight paddlers split between three canoes and two kayaks.

This had been a week in the planning, and all started to fall apart on Thursday night when people began to bail, leading to the invitation of other, and then even more so on Friday night when two key people were forced to bail at the utter last minute. Still, we forged on and met out at Tibbett Lake early Saturday morning! 

The first day of the trip was a scorcher, probably close to 26c out. Definitely was in the 20s when we left that morning at 8! We set off from Tibbett Lake and crossed Goop Lake (waist high goop at the shore) on to Upper Terry Lake where we stopped for a snack break and a swim - best idea ever. It was sooo nice and this is really where we actually all interacted and met each other in the group - Blair, Daniel, Garish, Jill, Jocelyn, Julian and Kelly - and swam in the unbelievably warm water! It was also after this stop that I realised my paddling partner had never steered a canoe before, and wouldn't let me.
We continued along with a bunch of tiny portages on to Saunders Lake where we stopped for lunch. Almost as bad as Garish portaging bottles of wine in!
This was a really long and narrow lake, and I dont know if Julian was genuinely offering to let me kayak, or if he was trying to commandeer the canoe to get some straight paddling on the go. Either way, he offered to let me try his kayak after. Super exciting. I had only kayaked once before - sea kayaking at field school in Fleur de Lys. Jocelyne said I looked like a natural, it was so fast, and I really enjoyed it. Sort of confirmed my desire to rent a kayak in the future! The only trade off was that I had to then portage the kayak, which he had full of beer.

The rest of the portages from here onto the Ross River were small, or we skipped completely with lining up the little portions. It was like wading in bath water while we went up river. 

We made it to Ross Lake after 28km of paddling/portaging and found ourselves a little island where we set camp. We spent the night swimming, dining and enjoying wine. Daniel and I smartly brought it in platypus/wine bags, though Kelly didn't agree, she thought bringing wine to begin with was a ridiculously useless thing to portage. Meh. Watched the sun set and headed for bed. 

The next morning started off with a swim and it was another glorious day! Jocelyne paddled with me and we decided all we wanted to do was float with our feet in the water! That didn't fly, and we held the group up quite a bit (but not really, we had all day!)

We portaged over to Pensive Lake - one unbelievably hard, the other super easy because it was the winter road.

Once on Pensive I kayaked for a bit, we stopped for a break in the sun. Daniel and Garish caught some fish and we all relaxed. Here the winds picked up and we ended up paddling into the wind for the remainder of the lake. HARD WORK!

We camped at the head of the Cameron River on Sunday night and became engulfed in smoke! It looked pretty cool. We camped at a place where I am certain is a potential archaeological site. Mind you we didn't see anything on the surface like tent rings... but it's location and the fact that it was cleared just jumped at me. That night we enjoyed gin and tea courtesy of Jocelyne, which made for a late night. A litte too late for Jill and Kelly, I got up at 9:30 to see them setting off down the river. We were down to six. 

Our group didn't set off until around noon, and with them gone, meant I had to paddle with Garish still, who wasn't letting me steer yet. This is where I got worried. The rest of the day was white water. Him never steering before, let alone doing white water in a canoe, and me never doing white water before. We made for the worst couple ever and got stuck in the first major rapids. This scared me for the remaining ones after we had to be rescued by Daniel and Julian, lost our paddle and almost the canoe. Unfortunately the experience didn't deter Garish even though I was only using half of an extra kayak paddle, I had to plead with him to portage other rapids, which I only won out on one set. I was so scared he would not line up and we'd get stuck/flip again. 

But we made it out alive, our casualty list was my paddle, knee pad/chair, camera and Garish's phone and packsack which had its straps cut so Daniel could lighten the canoe to get it out. 

It was a fantastic weekend, so much sun, amazing weather, and just to be out in the city was magnificent! We paddled/portaged of 60km and I can't wait until Daniel plans the next trip :D

Reunions

Well I have been on two weekend get aways in the past month. Both were a sort of reunion.

I spent May Long in Calgary, reunited with my two housemates from when I lived in St. John's. They both are now living in Alberta (surprise?) and so we finally got our acts together for a meet up!

It was pretty much what you would expect as an "East Coast Reunion", copious amounts of fun!
I flew in from here, Jess and her BF drove down from Ft. Mac, Ashley is living in Calgary, plus their friends Trisha in Calgary and Meghan who flew in from Halifax.

We initially had grand plans of hitting up the mountains, but sadly that fell through, and we were stuck in Calgary :( We made due. And really, the whole trip was to hang out with each other, which we could obviously do anywhere. Plus the weather wasn't the greatest (that is my excuse to get over missing the mountains). And the one thing I could take away from the weekend - nothings changed! Hahah those girls are a riot.

Reluctantly I returned North, only to have fantastic weather. It's always a let down to go South and then it be nicer here. One of the biggest issues I have with travelling in the summer - it makes up for our ghastly winters.

This past weekend I went on a whirl wind trip to Vancouver. My friend Peter (and old neighbour) got married this weekend! I headed down on Friday for a day of shopping, and the big city experience of getting my nails done. My past three trips South have included getting my nails done. 
When I got downtown it was this awful mist, but not quite rain. Thankfully after lunch and my nails it cleared off to a sunny evening. Walked along the seawall and tried the delicacies only found in cities: fine dining combined with foods not available at home.

Met up with my parents for drinks and snacks of Oysters and stuffed yorkshire puddings. The former was great, the latter, meh.

Saturday morning was spent on Granville Island in the shops, took an aqua bus back across then out for a Korean BBQ. It was good, but I have had better, and am a little disappointed it wasn't what I was expecting as my parents had never experience on before. It could have also been whenever I've had them before, it was with others who ordered for us... it was still satisfying.

The wedding was over on the UBC Campus, in a beautiful park area. The sun was hot, really it couldn't have been any nicer. Cheryl was ecstatic throughout the ceremony, and really the whole night!
Met some really cool people - they are both doctors, so there were some interesting specialist there, and Peter's undergrad was in engineering, so they added some flare to the group. Hahah, every engineer I have met since finishing school fits the stereotype.

Partied until the wedding was over and we had to leave. I had wanted to go to the Museum of Anthropology on Sunday morning, but that didn't happen. I didn't get out of bed until 10... and was really not feeling it anymore. Serves me right. I think it was worth it though.

That ended my whirl wind trip as I flew home that late afternoon.... almost solstice time! Landing at home at 11 and the sun was still high in the sky!

My next trip will be out to Jean Marie for 10 or so days for work. The bugs better be under control this summer! That or not one day of rain. I think I would actually take the bugs over rain... then off to Iqaluit for a weekend, followed by another 10 or so days of field work.

Hooray for summer!

Worlds recap

Well... skating withdraw has begun. I am so saddened that this week is over :(
This was an amazing week, I am so happy I decided to do this... all in all it was well worth the cost.

Definitely lucked out that I had a place to stay so I didn't need to pay for that or for most of my meals. I would love to go to another event like this - be it the Skate Canada, Skate America or worlds again. Nationals next year could be cool considering it's a big anniversary year in Ottawa. But staying in Ottawa would mean I have to actually pay for a place to stay, mind you the tickets would be considerably cheaper.

Yesterday, Lisa and Nicole brought back our tickets, all full of skaters autographs! Now I feel bad not getting Kurt Browning's, Mao Asada's or Liz Manley's to fill out the book. Shoot. That afternoon we headed back to the arena for the Champion's Gala. Super cool. All the winners came and stood in the audience, the bronze medalists were all next to us in the aisle. Hah I dont know if I have ever been so "star struck" before.

Kirsten and Dylan

The gala ( I think you can stream it on CBC)was so much fun, there were serious skates and fun skates like Javier Fernandez's and Moore-Towers and Moscovitch. Patrick Chan's was appropriately done with a hat.
One thing that stood out to me was that all the Canadian's except Andrei Rogozine didn't skate even though he placed higher overal than Gilles and Poirier. Don't get me wrong, Gilles and Poirier are delightful to watch! I just was curious how all the Canadians except him.
No matter, just an observation.
At the end Scott and Tessa thanked everyone for coming, and all the volunteers for their hard work. I thought that was really nice. After they all skated around and high fived and autographed the audience. If I was younger, I would have been right up there! But, meh. I might regret it later... but right now I'm not concerned.

All the champions!

Heading home today, sat next to a really nice lady on the flight from London, she was a coach for 33 years and had been asked to come coach in Yellowknife with a bonus isolation pay. She said she came up for a week during caribou carnival to check it out... but decided there was no way she could live there. hahaha. Now my flight to Edmonton is delayed, so I am sorting through the thousands of photos I took :)

Until my next trip - Wexford St. reunion in Calgary!