In the Wild West!

Well my new adventures have taken me out to Rocky Mounting House, Alberta where I am one of 3 participants in a Experiential Program, where i work at an outdoor adventure center for May and June and then head up north to Fort Simpson where i'll be rafting on the Nahanni for July and August. Tough life I know! Things here have been great! I just got back with from a 5 day road trip to Chilliwack BC for a Big Water Workshop where we rafted the Chilliwack River. The water was HUGE and we had wuite the ride down! This whole rafting thing is new to me but very exciting. The weather here has been great desptie yesterday and today where it has been snowing a lot! I guess that's the Rockies for you.

Guess where I don't have sand? You can't!

I've just returned from the land of sand, canyons and milky water. For the past 8 days I've driven through 4 states arriving at the destination spot for a 6 day rafting trip down the San Juan River in Utah. Once again, words cannot describe the beauty of this place from the drive to the river itself. It all started with 4 other instructors, 10 students, 2 Suburbans and 1 cargo van. Amy and I had the good (or slow) fortune of driving the cargo van with all the gear to Mexican Hat, Utah.

Mexican Hat- The Hat!

It was about a 14 hour drive that took 2 days. The drive was incredibly beautiful, driving through the Mojave, across Northern Arizona and then through Monument Valley. The Grand Canyon was within 150 miles of us so you can imagine how beautiful it was.


Monument Valley


Drive Home

We stayed at Goosenecks State Park on our first night, which overlooks the river and is located right at bend in the river hence Gooseneck. It was a pretty fantastic way to wake up in the morning and start our trip!


Gooseneck State Park

I had never been rafting before and didn't quite get the fact that you can literally bring anything you want. I'm use to having to bring the minimum as you have to carry all your stuff and don't want to make your life hell. We had three boats, two oar and one paddle. The big oar dragged it's ass in the water the whole time as it had the majority of all our crap. It was hilarious and annoying because it got caught on rocks and sand bars and was a pain the get off especially because the water was so cold! It had a large wake, enough said.


Me learning how to row


The San Juan River

In true Chadwick fashion we ate like kings and queens for 6 days, as you are able to bring coolers because you don't have to portage anything. *Note the word portage is French for carry and tends to be butchered by our American friends. So we took the term float and bloat seriously! The first two day were hot and sunny and then the temperature began to drop and the infamous wind storms paid their visits. We were told in advance that we should bring ski goggles because the combination of wind and fine red sand hurts the eyes. They were right! The wind picks up and sand blows everywhere, the sky takes on this red hue and sand literally gets EVERYWHERE, even in places you thought were protected. We managed to do a 2 hour hike by one of our camp sites up this old miners trail. We got a good look of the rivers path and Monument Valley at the top.



One of our campsites

The water was a milky brown colour as a result of the heavy rains days before we got there, which made it a little trickier to read the water. When the winds picked up rowing the boats was like trying to make a cow walk down a steep hill, it didn't really work. The big oar rig acted like a huge board and tended to not be so aerodynamic.



On day five all four ladies managed to take over the big oar rig and dined with Milano cookies, which oddly enough contain both romance and bliss and flowed down the lazy river. On our last night we had a costume party as it was Amy's Champagne birthday, the ol' 29er! We celebrated in true river fashion with a cake and funky clothes.


The Grand Gulch

Our last day was cold but sunny and involved a lot of sand bar dodging, which also involves wet freezing cold feet! We quickly (2.5 hours) packed up all our stuff and loaded the cargo van with shit (literally) and all, and away we went back to the sunny west coast.

Of course in true Canadian and American language banter we managed to pass our ehs! while they passed on their a's! We also had to say goodbye to our new friends in hopes that we will meet again. Our California adventure has come to end, having seen the a lot of what the beautiful South west has to offer.


River bums

More trees, less Bush!

Today in the United States of America, I attended my very first peace protest. The protest was on stopping the war in Iraq and getting the American troops out of the country and back home safely. The protest took place in famous Hollywood on the Hollywood Blvd. with 3000 + participants. This was a country wide protest that also took place in Washington, D.C. and New Chicago (I think) that was hosted by an organization called LA Answer (http://www.answerla.org/). It was the prefect day for a protest if there ever was one as the sun was hot and the streets were riot free. While there were bike cops around, the entire day was problem free and a huge success.

Beginning of peace march.

There was a lot of chanting going all over the place such as, "What do we want?" "Peace in Iraq", "When do we want it?" "Now". There were hippies, surfers, people from all walks of life that attended this march and it was very powerful to have all those people walking together for positive change. There was a also a lot of great signs and costume that were hilariously cleaver. Including one that said "the only Bush I trust is my own" It was amazing to see who much effort people put into their signs to get the message across, I think it worked!

One of many Bush costumes.

The crowd

Me and Deb (Chadwick OE director), who we happen to randomly
run into amongst the huge crowd

Straight to the point!

The crowd dancin' to the music.

The march ended right at the Kodak Center (where the Oscars take place) where we all got to dance and clap to the sounds of Jackson Brown, Ben Harper and this wicked LA band called Ozomatli (http://www.ozomatli.com/), while dubies were being passed around as it if were the 60s and Jimi Hendrix was still alive. It was pretty incredible to be apart of the entire day and be apart of some history. It's interesting to hear about all the politics and greater details about the war in Iraq as at home I find I only get the basic information. There were a few speakers that shared their stories with the crowd. A mother who lost her son to a suicide bomber, and a wife whose husband was convicted as a felon as he refused to go back to duty in Iraq. Martin Sheen was also there and sent out a very powerful message. It was an experience worth being apart of and gave me a chance to see the other side of Americans that made me realize that they aren't really all that different from us.

We also happen to run into a few famous stars on the walk of fame... we are still tourists!

Me at Donald Trump's star!

Amy at Kermit the Frog's star!

Where in the world is Alaina Robertson?

I live in San Pedro, which is a community on a peninsula in Southern Los Angeles county. We are staying with a great woman named Margaret, who goes to Yoga with the OE director at Chadwick school. The school that I'm with is located just north at the top of "the hill" as they call it here, where all the swanky homes are.

Map of LA- I live in San Pedro right at the southern tip!

View from the top window out into the ocean

Upstairs looking down into the living room

The living room

The balcony looking down the street to the ocean


The Korean Bell. The Koreans built this to honour their relationship between the US.


The view from our street to the pier.


The view from the pier looking at San Pedro.


Amy and I learning how to eat artichokes.

Where the land meets the ocean

Since leaving the rolling hills of San Francisco, we have been cruising down Highway 1. Highway 1 is actually how Amy and I ended up here in this crazy state. It all started at a Sarah Harmer concert back in November, when I had mentioned that I always wanted to drive down Highway 1. Amy looked and me with a twinkle in her eye and well now here we are, highway 1! The section that we've just completed, Point Reyes to Santa Maria is the best part of the highway. You literally drive on the edge of the cliffs that crumble into the pacific coast some 200 feet below you. The water is turquoise as it smashes on the black coarse rock and is utterly amazing! Literally every turn is picture worthy and well we took advantage of every turn, making the trip just a little longer but worth every stop!

View along Highway 1

After leaving Berkeley we headed to Point Reyes National Sea Shore, just north of the city. This is a pretty unique place in that it is on the San Andreas Fault zone, meaning it is moving north and slowly separating from the main land. In true park entrance fashion, we headed straight to the visitors centers to snap some photos for our picture documentation, because we are here for school in case you (as well as us) forgot! This visitor center was the best one we had been in so far, it was filled with all sorts of great information about the parks flora and fauna. After a look around we went to book our campsite. Now ordinarily this is pretty uneventful, but at other parks we did not have the pleasure of having Chris the Park Ranger book our site. He was quite the character! He spoke so quickly that neither Amy or I could understand him. When he asked what site we wanted he proceeded to say site number 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12 and 14 were available, at lightening speed. We stared blankly and he then spoke up saying "well everything except 1 and 13 are available". Oh Chris you wacko why didn't you just say that. Just when we didn’t think it could get any better (or worse) he then proceeded to tell us that we had to put everything into the bear box provided at the site, including (again at lighting speed) soap, deodorant, shampoo, dishes (washed and dirty), toothpaste, lip chap, mouthwash and the kitchen sink. The kitchen sink! He listed everything that could possibly smell, our list doesn't do what he mentioned justice. HT reason for all this was that park has "psychotic raccoons" hahaha. Once out of that visitors center Amy and I laughed so hard we were crying. We would forget about it for a few minutes and enjoy the nice road we were driving down to get to our campsite and then we would just loose it, we laughed so hard we were crying and barely looking at the road! Chris has no idea how much joy he has brought to us, we still talk about him now!

The campsite that we were staying at was a hike in campsite, the first of this kind that we had been to. SO we loaded all our crap and 3 miles later we were there! There were few people there and the site was only a few meters from the ocean, it was beautiful. The sky was very clear and great for star gazing as well. With warmer nights we were able to stay out side a little longer than 7:00.

The beach just down from our site

The next morning we woke up nice and chipper and psychotic raccoon free! We started making breakfast when I noticed that the bag to my MSR stove had large holes in it... what the heck! A mouse! Chris did not warn us about mice. The little bugger had eaten large holes in my bag, as well as some energy squares we had bought! He must have been living in that bear box... i wanted to kill him. But of course he was too cute to kill so i just yelled and kicked the the box instead (surprisingly gratifying!)

The culprit that ate my stuff! Shaking in his fur in the corner... wimp, I win!

As mentioned earlier Point Reyes is on the San Andreas fault and in 1906 or 1909 there has an earthquake in the area where a fence, which straddled the fault line, completely separate tearing it into two.

The fence that is now two

There is something about Point Reyes and weird people, but we ran into some serious birders with all the equipment, who never fail to entertain. There were four of them. Amy and i decided to have a little lunch before we left the park and hit the road, thank goodness we did because what unfolded around us was amazing. We were eating away our sandwiches when we noticed that the birders were back, one birder Rick started to walk away from the group towards the parking lot when all of a sudden another birder began to scream, "Rick, Rick, a golden eagle". As she's screaming the three of them take off in hot pursuit with binoculars in hand to catch a glimpse of THE golden eagle! It was the funniest thing we had seen since Chris. They freaked, over a bird! It was priceless!

We continued our drive south along highway 1 to Santa Cruz, then to Big Sur. The drive along the highway is breathtaking and has several redwood sections which are very cool. When we got to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park we got to camp in a large Redwood grove. There wasn't much sunlight but the size of the trees made it feel cozy. We went for a nice hike to a waterfall within the park. Along the trail there are lots of redwoods with huge holes in them that you can squeeze through, so Amy and I pretty much got a picture in every hole we could find.

The wild and rare Alaina-in-tree-hole

Arriving at this site was one of our earlier arrivals and nice for a change to really enjoy the area instead of snowball.

Me and Scarecrow just reading in a log

Pfeiffer Big Sur campsite- amongst the redwoods

The following day we decided to enter the world of tourism one last time, as we took a tour of Hearst Castle. The Hearst castle is located just off Highway 1 and over looks the coast. The castle is huge and was built by Mr. Hearst himself over the course of 15 years. He was an owner of newspapers and magazines in the US and had a lot of money, which is obvious as his house is a castle and elaborately decorated with all types of architecture. So for the afternoon we hung around with a bunch of middle aged overweight tourists and then went on our way to Refugio State beach... not exactly the nicest place we stayed in. The camp ground itself was decent, but was located right off the highway and also conveniently right beside the railroad tracks, which are used A LOT! However we made the best of it!

Part of Hearst Castle

The dinning hall at Hearst Castle

On our last day we hiked the Santa Monica Mountains which are just north of LA. The landscape is very rough and shrubby and dry. The hike was about 8 miles long, and was nice as we walked through a few clouds and we luckily saw not rattlesnakes. The weather has been getting much warmer the further south we go, but the ocean breezes make it more tolerable. After our hike we went to find our home for the night and ended up at Sycamore Canyon State Beach. There were few campsites left as it was Friday and the girl at the desk tried to give us a handicap spot which was fine but was located beside this sketchy dude with a greasy ponytail, who had the doors to his molester van open blasting some Evanescence while he starred at his fire. It was 3:30 in the afternoon, no thanks! So we managed to find another spot away from that guy and off to the side. However, a bunch of teenagers decided to show and then party until the wee hours of the night. I had to double up the earplugs that night!

So now we are back in LA, in the comfort of a home with laundry and comfortable beds ready to go back to Chadwick. We are going through a heat wave right now so it's 30C and sunny. Oh yah, and yesterday we picked oranges from the neighbours tree and ate them fresh, I know real rough!

What do you get when you see a red bridge, the rock and the BART? San Francisco of course!

Friday night through Monday morning, Amy and I stayed at her old friends house Desmond and his wife Katherine at their house in Berkeley. It was great we had a bed, and a bathroom, and a shower and a fridge that was actually cold instead of our semi-cool cooler even when it has ice. The first night we were there we were greeted with happy people and a big pot of curry. After dinner three of us went to the local diner and had some milkshakes and sundaes… you can't beat that! On Saturday Desmond and Katherine had a day planned for us. We had a lazy morning with a huge breakfast and then headed into to town, where we happened to check out this weird pirate store. Yes! A whole store of pirate things. It boggled my mind for a good amount of time on how the store actually stays open when it sells items like pirate beard cutting, or signs on 10 ways you could use a message in a bottle, the first being ordering a pizza. I didn't realize there was a customer want for such items… and I found out there isn't. So to this day I still don’t know how the store remains open. After glass eyes and hooks. we went across the famous Golden Gate bridge and took some classic tourist pictures. No HK peace symbols in our photos though! The interesting thing is the Golden Gate Bridge is actually reddish orange and not gold at all, but is called the Golden Gate because it is the only entrance into the wealthy bay area.

Golden Gate Bridge

We then proceeded to do a 2.5 hour hike into the hills of the Golden Gate State Park. We got a great look at the city as it was a fog free day which are seldom found in San Fran. After an eventful afternoon, we proceeded into the city for an art show. The theme was rejection. The walls we covered in rejection letters from universities and various jobs. There were even rejection letters rejecting rejections (If that makes sense!) it was hilarious and depressing all at the same time. All that rejection made us hungry so we headed to a local Japanese restaurant for some sushi. Amoung the 12 that joined us was a movie star, and unlike the Ian Ziering (Steve from 90210) sighting this one was real and I even talked to them. The star was Ted Lavigne, who played the creppy guy at the end of Silence of the Lambs, and is a major character on the show Munk. You may be scratching your head thinking, "who" don't worry I don't know who he is either, but he's a movie star so who cares! Not me, it counts! So after some laughter and corny jokes all around, the parents of the girl who hosted the art show paid for dinner, it was great and certainly not expected!

On Sunday in true San Francisco style Amy and I went to Alcatraz also known as "The Rock". We took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) also known as the subway to normal people into the city. This was the first real touristy thing Amy and I had done on our tour. We took a 15 min ferry trip to the island and started with a tour with Margaret called "Shipwrecks, sharks and skeletons" oooooo scary! The gist of the tour was that there were a lot of shipwrecks around the island because of fog and the shallow waters. There aren't really any sharks that swim into the Bay but were often talked about to scare the inmates from trying to swim to shore. and there could be some skeletons in the water depending on if you believe the 3 guys who tried to escape the island drowned or not. It was a very cool tour.

The 'Rock'

Then we herded like cattle to collect out earphones and proceed into the prison for an audio tour. This tour was amazing and has won awards for how good it is. You walk around the prison being told various stories and about the sections of the prison by voices of past inmates and prison guards. As you walk you hear people yelling and banging on the rails of the cells and the clanking of keys, it's really cool! The tour is supposed to take about 45 min, but we were there for about 3 hours because of how interesting it was. It was funny to take off your earphones and watch all the people move without talking from one section of the prison to the next. Once back on main land we walked through the famous Chinatown, which happens to be one of if not the biggest in North America. They had just celebrated Chinese New Year the night before ( even though it was last month) and remnants of the big parade covered the streets, The streets were closed off to traffic and instead filled with vendors selling all kinds of crap. I bought some postcards that looked as if they had been on the shelve for several years and for good reason but were only 25 cents a piece which is a bargain in post card talk. Amy took a picture of the store where I bought the postcards and was yelled at by the man who owned the store. It was weird because you couldn’t' even see where he was standing because of all the red and yellow plastic crap that covered the store from head to toe. I think he should have been pleased that he was a least getting customers, but he was a grump! I introduced Amy to bubble tea to which I happen to do for a lot of people, and she loved it, but whose kidding who doesn’t love slimy black balls in your drink, not this girl!

On out last morning in the city, we headed to the well known Berkeley Bowl grocery store which sells every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable. About 10 kinds of oranges! And then got a quick tour of Telegraph Street, which was famous throughout the civil rights movement as a place of change and the Berkeley campus. Berkeley is a great place to visit, and even has a large supply of hippies still living there thinking it's the 60s!

Me and my new toque

Bachelor degree? Yes please!

Well here I am in the garlic capital of the world, Gilroy, California. We are staying in a pretty basic motel room. Motel room you might think, wow swanky, but the reason is that we couldn't find the campground we were wanting to stay at so we just kept on driving knowing there was the garlic town we had been told about further along the highway. We also reminded ourselves that it was Thursday = Grey's Anatomy so one thing led to another and here we are. We came in the dark but the smell of garlic was overwhelming, they take garlic serious in Gilroy.
P.S. Grey's was a re-run, which is ridiculous and made for two unhappy Canadians!

We embarked on our two week road trip on Tuesday, as part of out practitioner's workshop, which is a chance for OEE students to learn something new.

This park is located near the southern end of the Sierra Mountains. The drive to the park is gorgeous, through a series of rolling hills and away from the big city. The valley between the Sierra mountains is also fruit territory, We've seen all sorts of fruit trees: oranges, lemons, cherries, hazelnuts, plums, grapes, you name it we've probably seen it. We even picked some oranges, but they were terrible and woody!

We got to the park and stayed at the lowest campsite Potwisha, which was at an elevation of roughly 2050 feet. We got in just in time to catch a few minutes with the sun to make some dinner and then hit the thermies. Note: we were the only ones at the campsite for the two nights we were there and probably the only ones sleeping in the entire park!

The first night was pretty clear night so we didn't think anything of the weather. Mind you we had got into our tent around the usual bedtime of 7:30! I was awoken in the middle of the night to this weird sound. I shook Amy thinking it was a bear as we are in bear territory, but couldn't hear any breathing. So I was confused. Then I heard it again, but saw this weird shadow on the tent, it had snowed! Our tent was covered in a heavy wet layer of about 3 inches of snow. Thinking it was 3:00am I asked Amy and it was only 11:30, I couldn’t believe it. So throughout the night we woke up to kick the tent so it wouldn’t' collapse. We woke up in another winter wonderland! Sputnik! We didn't have a snow scrapper so I removed the snow with out new spatula and cleared the picnic table with a Tupperware lid, we're resourceful!



As a result of the weather, the road up to Giant Forest to the big Sequoias was limited to cars that had chains. Us + rental car = no chains! So we didn't get a chance to see them at this park so we just took advantage of what we could. However, we did see two male deer with pretty big antlers, and two lynx so we didn’t leave disappointed.



Stop #2: King's Canyon and Sequoia National Forest
On Thursday, we were on a mission to see some big trees, so we headed to Kings Canyon, which is another National park but associated with Sequoia. We drove for roughly 2 hours and climbed the Sierras. The weather had been cooperating throughout the morning and the sun was shinning melting the snowy roads. The entrance into Kings Canyon was significantly higher then Sequoia, about 6000 feet. So we petted snowball and put her into 2 gear and up we went, climbing higher and higher above the valley. As we got higher, the trees got bigger and we were officially in Sequoia territory.

We drove to the Generals Tree trail which leads you to the General Grant Tree which happens to be the 3rd largest tree in the world in terms of volume. It was huge! There was also a Sequoia that had fallen over 100 years ago, but had barely changed as the sequoia trees don't rot. The fallen tree was used as a shelter and home base for many and you can see burn marks from fires their campfires. We trekked through the 3 ft. snow to check it out. The trees were absolutely incredible. Pictures unfortunately don't do the trees much justice, so use your imagination. We also took a drive to have a look at the canyon itself which was pretty beautiful.

Me hugging the General Grant Tree

Sequoia Forest

Amy in fallen Sequoia

After too many hours of driving and a few cases of the car crazies here we are in garlic town. We are going to San Francisco today and staying at Amy's friends place until Monday, when we continue our 'schooling' down the coast!

I also have been learning how to crochet, or crotchet as I like to call it and have officially become a member of the club, and have made my first toque!