Smokanagan, Asian Fusion gardening gear (Korean purple pants and Vietnamese plaid breathing mask)
Normally you would see hills in the distance behind the church.
Friday, August 24, 2018
Smokanagan 2018
Today the air quality index in Vernon is 10.5. You can smell and taste the smoke. It doesn't just blanket the surrounding hills; it seems to swirl with the wind at the end of the street. I was wakened by its arrival around 1:00am. We shut all the windows. I could feel a tightening in my chest, and Jay was really stuffed up by it, as he has been for days. This morning I wanted to do yard work because it was necessary and it was beautifully cool. I dressed appropriately.
Smokanagan, Asian Fusion gardening gear (Korean purple pants and Vietnamese plaid breathing mask)
Normally you would see hills in the distance behind the church.
Smokanagan, Asian Fusion gardening gear (Korean purple pants and Vietnamese plaid breathing mask)
Normally you would see hills in the distance behind the church.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Banff
VOC in Banff National Park
I spent last week in Banff National Park with the VOC. Six of us shared a condo in Harvie Heights. On Sunday, I drove three of us and two of our bikes from slightly smokey Vernon into the towering, rugged Rockies. Visibility remained clear on the Monday hike along the C Level Cirque Trail and also on Tuesday as we biked into Banff and along the Vermilion Lakes. But as we rode home that afternoon the smoke drifted in. It had caught up with us.
By Wednesday morning the peaks that surrounded our place in Harvie Heights were no longer visible and the smell of smoke was in the air. We six decided to drive into Banff instead of going on the planned hike. Fortunately we arrived in town early enough in the morning to get one of the many free, three hour parking spots. We went first to the Whyte Museum, founded by local artists and philanthropists Peter and Catherine (Robb) Whyte. In the room that explained the development of the museum, Chic was recognized as having been a major contributor of time and information. We spent quite a while there. I was particularly impressed by the works of Carl C Rungius, especially his paintings of moose. By the time we left the museum the streets were alive, not with the sound of music, but with other tourists, talking, shopping and snapping selfies with no mountains in the background. We drove to a golf club for lunch. Later, Mo and I had one of many soaks in the hot tub at our condo. During and after dinner we discussed which of the two possible Thursday hikes we would take: the easy, the difficult, the first half of the latter. By morning we realized it had all been a waste of time and hot air. The smoke was still quite thick. We went off together to join the easy hike to Johnston Canyon and the Ink Pots. I, who remembered it from when I was twenty and working for Brewster's, had dismissed it as too easy the night before but found it in my seventies to be quite enough of a challenge and well worth the walk.
Our last hike on Friday was around the Sunshine Meadows. We took a long gondola and short chairlift ride to the top and walked up and down and around for hours. It was beautiful in spite of the fact that we couldn't see the distant peaks.
Lack of clarity was a theme of the trip for me. I felt quite on top of things while packing and driving to Banff but lapsed into confusion on the second day when I thought I had lost my MasterCard. I panicked. Then calmed down, went on line, got the MasterCard number, phoned it and canceled the card. I was just gluing together my shattered nerves when Jane came downstairs waving my MasterCard. She'd found it in the folds of her quilt. OMG. Oh well. It was a bit of a laugh until I went to put it in my purse, even though it was now useless, and discovered that what I had really lost was my TD debit card. So I was beginning my holiday with no plastic and very little cash. Lynne volunteered to accompany me on a bike ride to the TD bank in Canmore. By this time I was as rattled as the character in the Stephen Leacock story. But for no reason. The teller was sweet, helpful without being patronizing. In five minutes I walked out of the bank having already used my new debit card to withdraw cash from the machine. When I arrived home yesterday I found the envelope containing my new MasterCard where Jay had put it, in the pile of saved mail.
Unfortunately the weather has not cleared as quickly as my confusion. The smoke from the forest fires is now so thick you can taste it. My chest even feels a bit heavy. BC is still burning.
Donna and me on the Cirque C trail
Lunch with Lynne and Aleta. I'm using the chopsticks Gord made. I forgot a fork to eat my salad, so he looked around, found a stick, broke it in half and gave me the pieces to eat with.
The trail back from lunch on the Monday hike
Peek a boo. Mo on our first hike.
A painting by Carl C Rungius in the Whyte Museum in Banff
The falls at Johnston Canyon
A hippy on a stick in the Sunshine Meadows
Map of fires currently burning in BC
I spent last week in Banff National Park with the VOC. Six of us shared a condo in Harvie Heights. On Sunday, I drove three of us and two of our bikes from slightly smokey Vernon into the towering, rugged Rockies. Visibility remained clear on the Monday hike along the C Level Cirque Trail and also on Tuesday as we biked into Banff and along the Vermilion Lakes. But as we rode home that afternoon the smoke drifted in. It had caught up with us.
By Wednesday morning the peaks that surrounded our place in Harvie Heights were no longer visible and the smell of smoke was in the air. We six decided to drive into Banff instead of going on the planned hike. Fortunately we arrived in town early enough in the morning to get one of the many free, three hour parking spots. We went first to the Whyte Museum, founded by local artists and philanthropists Peter and Catherine (Robb) Whyte. In the room that explained the development of the museum, Chic was recognized as having been a major contributor of time and information. We spent quite a while there. I was particularly impressed by the works of Carl C Rungius, especially his paintings of moose. By the time we left the museum the streets were alive, not with the sound of music, but with other tourists, talking, shopping and snapping selfies with no mountains in the background. We drove to a golf club for lunch. Later, Mo and I had one of many soaks in the hot tub at our condo. During and after dinner we discussed which of the two possible Thursday hikes we would take: the easy, the difficult, the first half of the latter. By morning we realized it had all been a waste of time and hot air. The smoke was still quite thick. We went off together to join the easy hike to Johnston Canyon and the Ink Pots. I, who remembered it from when I was twenty and working for Brewster's, had dismissed it as too easy the night before but found it in my seventies to be quite enough of a challenge and well worth the walk.
Our last hike on Friday was around the Sunshine Meadows. We took a long gondola and short chairlift ride to the top and walked up and down and around for hours. It was beautiful in spite of the fact that we couldn't see the distant peaks.
Lack of clarity was a theme of the trip for me. I felt quite on top of things while packing and driving to Banff but lapsed into confusion on the second day when I thought I had lost my MasterCard. I panicked. Then calmed down, went on line, got the MasterCard number, phoned it and canceled the card. I was just gluing together my shattered nerves when Jane came downstairs waving my MasterCard. She'd found it in the folds of her quilt. OMG. Oh well. It was a bit of a laugh until I went to put it in my purse, even though it was now useless, and discovered that what I had really lost was my TD debit card. So I was beginning my holiday with no plastic and very little cash. Lynne volunteered to accompany me on a bike ride to the TD bank in Canmore. By this time I was as rattled as the character in the Stephen Leacock story. But for no reason. The teller was sweet, helpful without being patronizing. In five minutes I walked out of the bank having already used my new debit card to withdraw cash from the machine. When I arrived home yesterday I found the envelope containing my new MasterCard where Jay had put it, in the pile of saved mail.
Unfortunately the weather has not cleared as quickly as my confusion. The smoke from the forest fires is now so thick you can taste it. My chest even feels a bit heavy. BC is still burning.
Donna and me on the Cirque C trail
Lunch with Lynne and Aleta. I'm using the chopsticks Gord made. I forgot a fork to eat my salad, so he looked around, found a stick, broke it in half and gave me the pieces to eat with.
The trail back from lunch on the Monday hike
Peek a boo. Mo on our first hike.
A painting by Carl C Rungius in the Whyte Museum in Banff
The falls at Johnston Canyon
A hippy on a stick in the Sunshine Meadows
Map of fires currently burning in BC
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