A Holiday Recap

T'was a Merry Christmas from the Clark-Pangs this 2010 year... From David and Gabby

From Bowen (who loves to swim in the ocean!)

 

And from R2-D2/Birdlet/Chief Bird/Paran-sae (who discovered his cousin Velociraptor)

We went to hockey games

And held Christmas dinner parties. This is our living room.

And David making Christmas dinner in the dining room

Oh it was a delicious turkey!

This is Bowen's typical "I want some food" look.

We ate until we were stuffed...

And there you have it! Winter in Vancouver. Please come soon to visit!

Stereomental (in three parts)

Alkanes, Alkenes, Alkynes. Who cares? Stereochemistry? Stereomental. Alcohols? I'll have a gin Caesar.

1) Tomorrow I go get ma nails did. I have never gotten my nails did. I am such an absolute noob at this, I accidentally clipped my nails two nights ago. Apparently, the manicurist does this for you. Also, apparently you are supposed to choose your own colour at the shop. So they'll cut my nails but refuse to choose a colour for me? Heaving a great ol' sigh, I did some research into nail colours. My God. There are a lot of them. I tried choosing a colour but in the end gave up, there were just too many. I'll have to wing it when I get there.

2) Frozen. Arctic winds are pummeling through the Lower Mainland (and elsewhere, I suppose), viciously punching its damp inhabitants in the gut leaving them open-mouthed and exclaiming, "Whatcha do that for??". It's absolutely glorious. Since Dave's been off to Whitehorse, I have been put in charge of Bowen. Every morning and a couple times afterwards, I take him to the beach, where I kick around a Chuck-it on the sand. Sometimes I forget to attend to the crazy-eyed beast with the sand-logged ball at my feet to look at the snow-capped mountains, the crystal clear waters, and breathe in the icy air. It's so beautiful out here. It is during and after those moments (when I pat the crazy-eyed beast in gratitude and acknowledge the other pink-faced ones on the beach like me) that I am thankful that I have a dog dragging me out to see this. Otherwise, I'd be indoors like all the other folk, huddled by the heater and playing video games being none the wiser.

3) R2-D2 has a new cage. He has improved, I think he likes all his new toys and the extra space. He was nearly killed by the dog the other week but he has recovered most handsomely. The vet seemed impressed. R2 is only a wee thing, after all and Bowen, a stocky oaf. I think that in normal circumstances, he should have died. I feel a little guilty as R2 is in my hair and the dog locked in the bedroom, but it is for his own good. I can't handle them both at the same time. We mustn't have another incident. He's also bluer. His improved diet has made him molt some of his old white feathers and replaced them with much more blue ones. There are expectations that he will look quite different in 6 months.

C'est tout.

What to do?

I sat here for about 5 minutes staring at the layout of this blog-thing, wondering what to do with it. Crossing the country was very short. It only took three weeks, which in its duration took forever but in retrospect took no time at all. Updating it was hard on the road, it wasn't as if we were traveling for months... periodic updates when you are away for a long time is understandable, but not over a few weeks.

I was tempted to shut it down, but I have known readers. Maybe I'll get more later. Maybe it's good for practice. I don't write much anymore, not like I used to. And it isn't as if I'm pressed for time these days. All I do is go for walks, swims, eat, sleep, and skin birds.

So perhaps I'll continue. It's become a single-author blog. My other half isn't really into blogging so I've written on his behalf.

The other thing that bothers me is that there is no theme to this. I like themed blogs, not just selfish musings of some person. But that's what happens with a blog: it becomes a canvas for selfish musings.

Merg. Let's see how this goes, shall we?

The other coast

That's it. We've made it. The coast is ours.

Is the story as simple as that? Not really. After the long haul across Ontario, we began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was exciting because after Ontario, we only had a handful of provinces left to go. And most of these provinces were easy, a straight line across each.

It was then that tragedy struck. Something clicked and something whirred. It grinded and it did not purr.  The Jefe looked up with mournful eyes and said, "I'm sick." We were only in Kenora.

Now, I have spent many an hour sitting in the Jefe, but not enough hours listening to it to know when she is ill so I didn't think anything was wrong. I just wanted to get to Vancouver. However, Dave seemed to catch on pretty quick that something bad was happening in the transmission. But where on earth were we going to find a LandCruiser mechanic this far east of Alberta?

Minutes later, in a gas station, Dave was on the phone with "his guys", a parts provider somewhere in Alberta, who told us to limp into Winnipeg, where a LandCruiser guy was. He was the man to see. So with an expensive transmission rebuild kit being sent to Winnipeg after a telephone diagnosis, a city that we'd never been to in sight, Vancouver quickly settling itself further in the distance, David being jobless and stressed out, the dog just aching to get out of the truck, and a large raincloud on the horizon, all was not looking well for the intrepid explorers.

A few hours later, we pulled into what can only be described as a LandCruiser farm. It was where LandCruisers were grown, cultured, and harvested. There were different species of them strewn about, a patch of 60s series here, 50s series there, Jefe lookalike 70s series. Some were totally stripped of their parts, looking naked and vulnerable in the grass. One was hoisted up high in the sky inside the large barn-shop, looking like a hedgehog that has its tender underbelly exposed. Dave and I held our breath, hoping that perhaps our salvation lay here.

The Man who knew any LandCruiser like the back of his hand, Simon, was a Sarawak Chinese-Malaysian who had moved to Winnipeg many years ago and despite seeming to want to get out, didn't look like he was going anywhere for the rest of his life. He was a typical Malaysian (or perhaps any stereotypical person you encounter from the tropics)... a little slow, a little lazy, very friendly, hesitant to be efficient, and full of complaints. He was, as my father -a Sabah Chinese-Malaysian- would say, one of those Malaysians with a valuable and rare skill who would never be rich because they purposefully try to turn away customers.

And he DID try to turn our business away but after noting the fix that we were in, reluctantly agreed to work on the truck... but after the weekend (It was Mother's Day weekend, after all). We sighed a vague sigh of relief, hurrah, the truck would be fixed eventually but it meant that we had to spend nearly a week in Winnipeg, an expense we had not anticipated. However, Simon came to our rescue by contacting a fellow LandCruiser enthusiast who invited us into his home for four nights. He even provided bikes and cooked for us. We are indebted to Ben.

Winnipeg... is really quite pleasant... and really safe when you have a tough looking dog like Bowen with you. There are some beautiful parks, some gorgeous architecture, and some very nice neighbourhoods. There are a lot more trees than you'd think there would be, Louis Riel is everywhere, the Red River and the Assiniboine River are quite picturesque, and as Dave noted, the people are quite hip in a tough, grungy hipster kind of way. And the food is really not too bad. I spent a lot of time walking around with the dog, trying to tire him out as much as possible. Which, unless you own a quad, is close to impossible. I did seem to tire him out on the last day, when we walked for 6 hours straight in some relatively hot sun. He seemed keen to get home that day. +1 for Gabby!

Finally, after Day 5 in Winnipeg, we set off for Regina where we spent a very pleasant night with the Hansons, parents of our dear friend Jonathan (who is off working on a Masters in Germany). We moved onto Southeast Saskatchewan the following day, first taking a detour to see the Tylosaur exhibit in Swift Current (set up by my friends in the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, it is a traveling exhibit of a very large and scary looking swimming reptile, a mosasaur). There, we randomly bumped into an old professor of mine from McGill, Hans Larsson. Hans is a hotshot paleontologist who's always on the Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel. He's also a really fun guy and a great prof. He introduced me to Southern Saskatchewan back in 2006. It turns out that this years field trip, they will be excavating Grasslands National Park, something I've wanted to do since 2006. So jealous. I nearly jumped into the truck with them! haha

We moved on to Eastend after that. We spent the afternoon saying hi to various people in the town, which was so nice. I love Eastend. It is a very beautiful place and by now, very familiar and a place I'm extremely fond of. It is a small town of about 600 so it's not hard to settle into the routine of the town and get to know people there. And the museum is beautiful, I wish there was a place like it in Vancouver that I could work at.

The next day, we drove to Lake Louise, near the border of British Columbia. We stopped for ribs in Calgary which were phenomenal (recommended by one of Dave's friends in St. John's) and had braced ourself for the crazy drive through the Rockies.... which didn't actually happen. It's a very safe and flat drive through the Rockies, if you can believe it. It was starting to look like the hardest part of the drive was the drive between Nova Scotia and Quebec!

And so we found ourselves on May 15th... sick of the road, wanting to get home, stop living out of a suitcase, stretch our legs, ANYTHING, and we decided that we were going to do it all in one day. That was it, no more breaks, no more sleeping in hotels, we were going to Vancouver that day.

And we did. It was painful and beautiful, but we did it.

C'est tout.
Ciao.

Ontario is a very large province

We're in Thunder Bay at the Valhalla Inn. It's kind of amazing being back here with Davey because the last time we were here together was in the summer of 2008 when we worked for North American Palladium. I only spent about 6 weeks here but remember being really impressed by Thunder Bay... Now, most people don't really have much to say about T-Bay but I had just come from Timmins where I'd spent the worst 6 weeks of my life (black flies, mosquitoes, deer flies, and no-see-ums had something to do with it). There were so many luxuries here like living in hotel rooms, lunches in a bug-free park, and of course, going for meals at various restaurants. No swamps, bug-infested sandwiches, and struggling through thick bush. We ended up finding a few lovely surprises in Thunder Bay like a wonderful Italian joint called Mama Alfa's and the best Thai restaurant in Canada called Thai Kitchen.

We just had dinner at Thai Kitchen. It was every bit as good as I remembered it. Dave and I bought even more food to go with the massive amounts of left-overs from our meal for the ride tomorrow. Gluttons. We're gluttons.

So we got to Montreal and fell back into old routines. We ended up staying a week there. haha. Montreal is so wonderful, I want to move back one day. Maybe in a few years.

The weather was strange, with blazing hot sun one day, snow the next... but we fit in plenty of time on a terrasse with a pint of beer or a glass of wine. We saw many friends. In between, we went to Lac St. Jean to visit Dave's grandmother, which was quite lovely. Last time I was up there, there was a lot of snow so I wasn't able to see much of the landscape.

After our leisurely life in Montreal, we took a detour to Toronto for a couple of days. It was hectic. Toronto is such a huge city that everything felt a little stressful. Traffic, meetings, going uptown, downtown, family, friends, coffee, lunch. It was still a great trip and I wish we'd had a few more days there to relax a little and enjoy the city.

Now we're back on the road. Between Toronto and Regina we don't have anyone to see so we're trying to get through it all without going crazy.

Time for bed. Soon I hope to put up a selection of pictures that we've taken along the way. For now, I can't find the camera cord and only have a few minutes at a time on the internet.

Much love!

A quick recap

Last night, after an 18-ish hour drive, the hard working duo of Dave and El Jefe pulled into Quebec City. The not-so-hard-working duo of Gabby and Bowen sat stiff in the front seat, piled on top of one another trying to stay warm in a frigid car (there was cold air blasting in the car to keep the driver awake and on the lookout for those damned moose).

We're about to set out AGAIN on the road to Montreal for a couple days so I have to be quick:

Seal flipper pie was extraordinarily good, better than I thought. My camera died so I couldn't take a snapshot of the food. It was served kind of as a stew, with root vegetables and other veggies, along with homemade Newfoundland pastry. Yum.

We were supposed to leave on the 20th but that was a Fail. The rain kept pouring, making it difficult to pack the trailer and the wind picked up, causing concern that the weather conditions would be too dangerous to drive in. We decided to leave on the 21st instead.

At 5 in the morning on the 21st, we woke up and stood at our bedroom window, staring at our view of the Narrows for the last time. The fog obscured the view of Signal Hill a bit and looked gloomy and sleepy, just like us. It was emotional and hard to say good bye.

Newfoundland is HUGE. I'd done the drive before with Dave last January (in the opposite direction) but I'd forgotten how huge and boring Newfoundland is to drive through. The east coast and west coast are both stunning, with vistas to make you gasp and clap your hand to your mouth with wonder but that whole in between bit? 14 hours of yawns.

We took the overnight ferry at Port-au-Basques on The Caribou after a Newfoundland dinner of pan-fried cod and pea soup. David (who is Quebecois and is very proud of the Quebec pea soup with its whole peas) grudgingly admitted that the Newfoundland pea soup with its salted pork and split peas was quite excellent.

The next morning we arrived at North Sydney, Nova Scotia. Hauling our grumpy and long suffering dog with us, we drove another 10ish hours down to West Green Harbour, Nova Scotia, where David's parents have a cute little house on the South Shore. It was so lovely, I'll talk about it more later to better give it justice. Plus, there is a nice little story about a dog stealing and eating an entire salami to recall.

We were so tired from the journey that we decided to stay an extra night and relax by the sea. It was worth it.

Yesterday morning, we got up at 5am again and set off....

Here we are. 4 days later and we've barely managed to make it out of the Maritime provinces. I've only just realized what a huge adventure we've set out on.

Uh-oh! I'm being called to the truck! See you later!

WE'RE MOVING??? PT. 2

All too quickly moving day has arrived. After a series of pleasant/cloudy weather days, it has started pouring rain. And I mean pouring. The rain started to fall pretty much as soon as Dave pulled the U-Haul trailer up to the curb. Rivers of water are flowing down the hills, making for soggy cardboard boxes and rain-stained glasses. The dog is soaked and stressed, and getting in the way. It is a very sad day.

We had a fun weekend... the Junos were in town. 100s of bands played in various venues and you were granted access to whatever show you wanted to see with a little blue bracelet. Well, whatever band managed to make it into St. John's... fog and ash seem to be wreaking havoc with flights this weekend. While Dave was at the sessions, I took advantage of a few of the bands: on Friday I saw Duane Andrews, The Subtitles, and Alex Cuba at Dusk. After that, I met up with Dave and the boys at Yellow Belly for the Dardanelles. On Saturday I went to The Ship and saw Mercy The Sexton and Amy Millan, followed by The Dardanelles again at Green Sleeves. Of course, interspersed with these bands, I caught a bit of the Irish music sessions. Dave also played a gig at Nautical Nellie's on Sunday. That night, I had one of the best restaurant meals I've had in a very long time at The Cellar with Dave and Graham. I ordered the special (following the wonderful appetizer of oysters): a tenderloin with a blue cheese sauce, quail coated in coffee grounds, beet and red pepper salad, horseradish mashed potatoes, and asparagus.  The quail was RIDICULOUS. Everything was amazing but the quail changed my life, it was so good.

Tonight, there is a get-together of musicians for seal flipper pie. As well, Dave's making a tortiere to bring to the dinner. I can't wait. Seal flipper pie is something of a tradition here, a must-try. Well, as long as there are no claws.

I didn't get to spend too much time here in St. John's and most of that time was spent living sort-of vicariously through Dave's social life, but I'm so glad that I got a chance to be here. The people are so lovely, like nobody else in the country. The town is small but there is immense charm in that. I know Dave's gutted to leave, he's made some wonderful friends who in turn have been wonderful to me.