Seasons and time of day

October is one of my favourite months because it is time of change and transition.  It is unlike any other month.  A recent drive through BC's interior on the Coquihalla highway to Kamloops and back reminded me how beautiful this time of year can be.  Now I don't have any photos from this drive but it did get me thinking more of how season and time of day change how we look at the world.  So I'd like to share with you photos of two of my favourite places.  Mount Seymour, BC in different seasons and Villamayor de Montjardin, Spain at different times of day.

Mount Seymour's 1st peak (Pump Peak) in late September

Same view of Mount Seymour in January, about nine months earlier

Village of Villamayor, cool and blue, near dawn

Villamayor in the afternoon heat, stormy sky in the distance

My new photo gallery

I've created a NEW photo gallery with Google's Picasa web albums. This will be where I post photos of my travels and hikes 2011 and beyond.  I still have my Pbase photo website, of course, and this is where you can find older photos (2010 and earlier) as well as any special photo project that I'm working on. If you want to check out my galleries, the links are in the column on the right of this page, near the top, underneath my profile photo.

Finding peace in the Kootenays and Pemberton Valley

Yes, it's been almost two months since I wrote last.  No shortage of things to write about, that's for sure.  But sadly I have no excuses to offer for not writing.  Blog hiatus aside, it's been a busy couple of months and I've been on the road a little bit, mostly local trips in BC and one trip south across the border to Seattle. 

A summer highlight was spending Labour Day long weekend in the Kootenays with Nadia and my parents.  I've been to my parents' cabin on Kootenay Lake many summers in years past, but it was different this time as I was showing it all to Nadia for the first time! (well, first time in the summer; she has been to the Kootenays before in winter).

For pictures of Kootenay Lake and other recent trips, visit my Picasa web albums.

Below is a neat find in the Pemberton Valley.   It's an "honour stand" offering  fresh corn, potatoes, cucumber, and other vegetables to passers by on the road.   The catch is that nobody mans the stand; you choose your food, add up the price, and put money in a metal box.  It was refreshing to be so far out of the city to find something like this.  Thank you Goat Mountain Produce!

A neat find in the Pemberton Valley.  It's an "honour stand" rewarding

honest people with good fresh food straight off the farm.

Riots, more riots, and Manning Park

It's been over a month since I returned from Europe.  A lot has happened since then, particularly in England (my home base on the trip), with the street riots this past week in all the big cities I visited: London, Manchester, and Liverpool.  It's interesting how I totally missed the Vancouver riots (was in Amsterdam with Brad that day) and now back in BC I have (thankfully) missed the England riots. 

But all this rotten riot business aside, I'd like to focus on the beauty of the British Columbia summer in this posting.  Last weekend Nadia and I went backcountry camping in Manning Park.  For those who don't know Manning, it's a large provincial park in the North Cascade mountains about 3 hours drive east of Vancouver on Highway 3 (the Crowsnest highway).  It's a wonderful meeting place of coastal BC and interior BC ecosystems.  It's where the coastal rainforests and damp temperate climate starts to transition into the drier climate and pine forests of the BC interior. 

We camped at Buckhorn camp and day hiked on Heather Trail to the Three Brothers area.  Highlights were the wildflowers and striking views of the North Cascades.  We had to cross patches of snow leftover from last winter and spring, which have been slow to melt off in the cool early summer we've had.
 

Nadia looking northwest over the rolling terrain leading to the Three Brothers, which are

in the far top right of the photo

View south into the high Cascades in south Manning Park and on the other

side of the US border in Washington state

Our packs

Off the Road, for now

I'm back in Canada now and am enjoying a quiet Saturday morning in my own home.  After four weeks of sleeping in different beds and always being on the go, this is a feeling like none other. 

I do miss the Camino de Santiago.  I had a great experience being a pilgrim for a week and a half and met some truly wonderful people.  I walked from St Jean Pied de Port, France to outside of Logrono, Spain - eight days and nearly 150km - but this is not even one quarter of the whole Camino Frances, which spans all the way across northern Spain ending in Santiago.  I know that the Camino will always be waiting for me to pick up where I left off.  I know exactly where my starting point will be based on where I finished the Camino this year - the small Knights of Templar church in the middle of the village of Torres del Rio.  When will I return to the Camino?  No clue.  It could be three years, ten years, or twenty years from now.

The highlight of the rest of my trip was travelling with my brother Brad for ten days, of which I have a few blog entries that you may have already read.  Something I didn't blog about earlier was that Brad and I had a great day in Paris meeting up with my parents (who had been travelling in Ireland and were spending a few days in Paris before returning to Canada).  What a city to meet up in for the day!

So this marks the end of my travels (for now) and I'm officially Off the Road for the time being.  BUT... please do check my blog from time to time.  I will continue to post, often about local trips and hikes, but also future trip plans and just general thoughts I'd like to share with you all...

The Ashmans in Paris... strangest family portrait ever!

Bilbao

Today is my full day in Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque region of Spain.  It´s a nice city and reminds me of a smaller version of Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Lots of grand boulevards, old Spanish architecture, gardens, and bridges.  Also a lot of modernist architecture.  It´s a hilly city too, with the edges of the city climbing up the nearby hills and mountains.

But... it´s a city and it´s unfamiliar.  I can´t think of a place I´d rather not be right now.  Bilbao is in such stark contrast to my days hiking on the Camino.  The fast pace of the city, it´s noise, construction, and traffic are the complete opposite to the warmth and nature I´ve been walking through at very slow pace over the past week.  So in short, I want to be home now instead of in this strange grey zone in an unfamiliar city.  I´ll be back in Canada on Friday after a day in London... can´t wait to get home!

My last night on the Camino

Since my last update in Lorca I´ve had two more walking days, starting early in the rising sun.  Last night I stayed in a Dutch albergue in Villamayor de Montjardin, a small town on a hillside overlooking the countryside.  I had a great day relaxing after arriving early in the afternoon, beating the worst of the heat.  After a few days of walking with girls, I had the chance to hang out with some guys in Villamayor and had some beers and laughs together.  Two Danish guys and one guy from Navarra (the province of Spain I am currently in, which is part of Basque country).  Today I walked to Torres del Rio, the final stop for me on the Camino.  I walked alone most of the time, but two of my original group (Anna-Kathrine and Petra) started and ended with me, and we are staying at the same hostel.  Just said farewell to both of them... they will continue tomorrow without me!

Tomorrow will be much different than my past eight days on foot.  I will take a bus to Logrono (my original planned ending point of the Camino) and then take a different bus to the large city of Bilbao.  It will be interesting to see what a large city in the Basque region will be like.  Apparently it used to be very industrial but now has a lot of culture (including a Guggenheim) as well as it´s own metro system.  I plan to relax and eat the great food and see if it lives up to the hype.  The wine and the pintxos are spoken highly of.  "Pintxos" is a Basque word and is basically the same things as tapas in southern Spain.

Then off to London on Thursday and Canada on Friday!  Just booked my hotel for London.  More updates to follow, either from Bilbao or London.

Albergue (pilgrim hostel) in Villamayor de Montjardin

Dawn, looking over Villamayor from front steps of albergue