More images from the trip few weeks back…

Lunch break

On the way up.

resting

Shots from last week, finally getting some together.  We head up the duffy lake road just up from Pemberton.  Felt weird being back there, since the last time was for the big music festival.  Sledded into a cabin up the valley and stayed for 5 nights and four days of solid skiing.  Had some good skiing, but were limited on what we could ski since the snow was pretty unstable.

Got up a 4:00am to get past the Olympic check point Saturday morning and then head into the mountains.  We ended up stopping in Whistler for lunch on the way back but not much was going on.  I’ll try and add some video off my phone from our walk through center of the village and I’ll add more pictures once I find some time.

Shot from the top of the ridge we where on-looking East

Little bit of wind on the last run on the first day

Boyz coming down.

The view coming up in the morning from the day before. Practice for there next figure 8 contest, might need some more.

Athletes village from Cambie bridge.

The Bay sporting some serious imagery.

GE rink @ the foot of the Vancouver Art Gallery

I will have more up on my flickr and will be adding most of these to the art site ::downloads for 7 bucks.::

Got my first turns of the year on Friday, headed up to Hemlock where there was only one main chair up and some crazy weather.  Was raining pretty hard in the morning at the house and it wasn’t too much cooler at the ski hill.  It was snowing but very heavy and wet, they reduce ticket price  to 34 dollars  so I guess that’s about 5 dollars per run.

Sun coming out...drive down 208th in Langley

Got my training in, in the afternoon and grabbed my camera for some sun breakin shots, and then hit up the AHL Abbotsford Heat game to finish off the day.  Fun Friday.

My favorite shot from Friday. It was so nice to see the sun this week.

Headed out to Cuba last Monday, got back on pretty much a red eye flight Tuesday morning at 4 am.  Was a pretty long flight back, being tucked in a little space.  I believe the flight was a solid 6 hours, going there was about 5 hours 40 minutes.

Spent 7 days at a 5 star resort which would normally be about a 4 in Mexico, I think mostly because the US doesn’t have any influence on the country.  Beaches are a lot better then Mexico with flatter, warmer and clearer water.  You also don’t have Mexicans bugging ya every few minutes to buy shit.

We headed into the Capital of Cuba, Havana for a day trip.  Saw how a lot of Cubans lived and what they lived in.  Some very interesting structures as well as a lot of variety of vehicles.  Many 50′s Americana cars, Chinese buses and Russian sports cars with very old Spanish architecture.

Didn’t do too much of the culture stuff since we stayed at an all inclusive but it was still quiet an eye opener see how these people lived.

Grabbing some of my favorite shots, I’ll add more probably to flickr later on.

Havana city from the top of a hotel

City 15k from our resort. Ran there...running was tough in 26 degree heat

Havana market in the capital of Cuba

Beach by our resort

Here are some shots from last  weekend.  Headed over to the island last week and found some good spots.  Pretty happy with a few shots, enjoy.

Interesting vending machine

Chinatown in Victoria

This was a week before Halloween at Value Village...luck I guess no one was in the image.

Busy everywhere but the baby cloths

little alley in the between chinatown

Just after the skinny alley

Headed up to Penticton Once again this weekend, this time for the ironman.  Had a friend in it last year and watch him conquer that bitch.  He skipped this year but him and I and a few others went up to watch and sign up this year.  Great weather, good time, and pretty pumped up for next year.  Camped in the line up over night so we could make sure we would get our spot.

600 dollars for 3.8kms of swimmin, 180kms of bikin, and the old 42.2kms of runnin.  The worse 600 dollars I ever spent.  I plan on doing some fund raising with this stupid adventure and bloggin as much interesting info as possible.

Unfortunately this year one man die in the events 27 year history.  A 60 plus man died of a heart attack just after the swim.  I am seriously thinking about using the heart and lung foundation as my charity of choice, but I am  open to suggestions as well.

Last week while I was in Seattle I headed to the Rock and Roll museum, the building alone is quite interesting.  Admission was 14.50 and I would say it’s worth going, especially if you are a Jim Hendrix fan.  They had a huge amount of Jimmy things from over the years,  I didn’t realize that he was from Seattle.  Plenty of facts, images, clothing and  smashed up guitars.

Two things that really stuck out for me was the large guaitar sculputure, with the second being how well they had their interactive displays layed out.  You could spend a solid few days combing over all the information that they had.  Along  with the music history and displays they also carry other displays.  When we were there they were getting ready for a large science fiction display with a lot of star trek crap as well as a third section for the kids carrying Muppet “stuff”.

Right close to the space needle

I love this photo. I like taking photos of people taking photos....

huge video display...you don't need to pay to see it.

the white cello was a nice touch on the sculpture

So my grandfather had some extra tickets for the Seattle Mariners game Wednesday and Thursday night.  Wednesday night they were playing the Chicago White Sox and then Thursday the New York Yankees.

So it was time to bomb back to the states.  I was pretty amped up for the Yankees game Thursday since I hadn’t seen them play since last may.  White Sox game ended up being probably the best regular season game I’ve seen on tv or live.  A 0-0 tie going into the 14th inning with Ken Griffey pinch hitting to get them the win.  So much insane defense, including Ichiro gunning a runner out a home to keep it scoreless.  Apparently it was the longest 0-0 game in Mariner history….

Roof off Safeco

Looking like it wants to rain

quite a few still stuck around--14th inning...

The motel we stayed at Wednesday night

Old pop machine right out our door.

I have not done back to back games with the Mariners before and the attendance numbers where a lot different for the White Sox then the Yankees.  So were the prices, tickets in the same area where 5 bucks more and parking was double!  I was kinda choked because the two guys I really wanted to see on the Yankees didnt end up playing, but CC  Sabathia did pitch a great game. (a-rod and Jorge Posada

Thursdays game had a larger crowd. A little cotton candy?

I love the sky in this image....

Headed out Thursday morning for a nice little weekend houseboat trip on the Shuswap.  We used the Waterwaves houseboat company for our little trip on the lake,  slept 14, and comes with a good size hot tub.  Not totally pleased with the service aspect of the whole operation but the boat worked,  the design and layout was pretty solid.

Apparently Waterwaves is one of the larger companies in Sicamous with the option to build your own boat if you have the money and ideas.  After a weekend of houseboating I don’t know how they can even stay  in business.  The amount of shit you have to sign, rules, and bullshit that no one follows, would not be something I would invest in…Also sounded like this thing called the recession is hurting them a little as well.

Anywayz, fun weekend all together and everything seemed to work out.  Good weather, good people and a lot of beer to drink.  Now time to try and catch up on some sleep.  Photos attached.

Getting on the ship around 7ish I think.

Heading out for the night.

Sunetting on our first night.

I ended up sleeping in my tent on the top of the boat. 7am

Same morning at about 8am

Afternoon drinks and hot tub

afternoon sun tanning...(not my feet )

Forest Fire Sunset

Morning after a solid party night.

Sitting on the front of the boat

Floating store...

Nother sunset pic.

Drive home just outside of Kamloops

I headed down south for some play time in Oregon.  This time the weather wasn’t a problem, if fact it was cooler down there  then our average 30 degrees, so it was a welcome change.

I started my trip with a good old search from the US Customs.  I hate going through the boarder.,  After my 30 minute run around I headed straight for Seattle were I was meeting my parents.  They where already in the states with the trailer and quads.  I left my truck at a park and ride at Sea-Tac and jumped in with them.  We  blasted to Portland for a night and a stay at Janzten Beach, a usual stop for us.  It’s always fun to stop in there, go for a run around that little island and check out all the floating houses on the Columbia River.

Shot From the running Path

In the morning we headed off to Sandlake just outside of Tillamook.  Its about an hour and a bit West from Portland.  (We fast tracked it to the coast instead of taking the 101 along the Ocean.) As per usual we did our stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, Its a must if your rolling thru. ( Saturday was their 100 year party.)  After we got our cheese and ice cream we headed for our final destination and where we will be staying til the Monday morning.

Sandlake Campground is one of the only,  if THE only campgrounds on the west coast that lets you ride your quad thru the camp and onto the dunes.   This makes this a very popular spot when its dry.  You use to be able to ride 24 hours day but now its getting heavy regulated and more supervised.  I ended up getting pulled over on my quad by a f-250 on the dunes!  Had a background search and all!  (I believe its 12-6am now.)  I got a shot of another dude get hauled over too.

same guy cop hauled me over, this guy didn't have a flag on his truck=fine.

Our Camp site...all sand!

Once we got set up we headed out for some riding.

Dad doing some donuts for the camera at sunset

After our first day at Sandlake we decided to do some driving to check out some spots we haven’t gone to before.  First stop was to check out some trails at Cape Lookout State Park for some trail running later on, some very cool views from up there.  (I’ll post about the run later on on the week.)

After checking out a few routes, we headed over to the air museum in Tillamook.  My Dad was told that it was a must see, and man was it ever. The Hanger was unreal, something you need to see in person to understand the size.  Totally built from wood so they could use all the steel for the planes in world war 2. what!?  Entry fee was 7.50 and with a stamp you can enter multiple times in one day.   I guess you get really board in Tillamook.  They also apparently have the best burgers in Tillamook…  Museum Site.

The Tillamook Air Museum from the inside.

After all the tourist crap we headed back for more sand blasting

Dad taking it in...

Sunset Riding

Roots on the beach

Sun Setting in the clouds on the Saturday night

Last Day of Riding

After doing some running around Saturday morning, picked up a few friends in Vancouver and headed up to meet up with others down in Squamish.  The group we met up with was up there for a month to climb.   Since the crew and I didn’t climb, we found a local lake and spent both days jumping of cliffs and soaking up the sun.  We drank a lot of beer and did a lot of jumping.

The name of the lake slips my mind but it was pretty warm and seems like it would be a good one for some open water swimming.

Little dive--Someone rock climbing in the back.

A group Beer Jump

Group of guys hanging out on the rock

Saturday got the best of a few people...

Spent my weekend up in Tulameen, British Columbia,  3 hours Northeast from Vancouver up the number 3 highway.  Tulameen can also be accessed  from the Highway 97c, Coquihalla Connector Highway.  It was a very warm weekend with a large group of people gathering at a friends cabin a few blocks form Otter Lake.  Lucky we had a boat and a few quads to enjoy while we where up there.  We took  full potential of this area.  This is quickly becoming one of my favorite spots to go in the summer for many reasons.

1) its an all year round spot if you enjoy sledding in the winter, and quading in the spring and summer

2)lake is big enough for wake boarding with multiple boats.

A Ski before the Sun Goes Down

3)small community

4) corner store with everything in it, including liquor, gas, ice cream, a restaurant for when your hungover, and fireworks.

Canada Day Boom

Here is a web cam of the store.  We spent one day hangout in front drinking beers on there supreme outside seating.  http://www.tulameenbc.com/map.html

5) the rope swing

Last years shot from the Rope

We did some early Canada day drinking and fireworks, while some of us got on the boat for a ski.  Water was warm enough not to wear a wetsuit, so that also meant that it was go time for the rope swing.

I was also able to grab some night time shots of the outdoor rink that they have up there, even found some pink skate gards that where left from the winter.  check out my flickr.