Tag: camping Posts

This last weekend my friend Dave and I made a hasty escape from the city and headed towards Pemberton. I ad a pretty rough prior week, as did Dave, so we were both looking to get away for a few days and simply enjoy some time in the outdoors. The place we ended up going to is called Owl Creek, and it’s a small campground about 15 minutes past Pemberton, BC. Usually when I’m up in that neck of the woods I head on up to Birkenhead Lake, but Owl Creek is about 40 minutes closer from Vancouver, and offers a nice bit of seclusion. Despite forecasts calling for heavy rain, most of the weekend was a mix of cloud and blue sky. So we spent most of the days just chilling by the campfire, sipping some Howe Sound brewery beers, and chatting the days away. If you’re looking to […]

About two months ago I was packing up my items in Buenos Aires, getting ready to fly to New York City and then to Europe. I’ve been out in Port Coquitlam now for almost a month and am pretty much back into the swing of my normal routine here. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the summer, and of course what my plans are after that. Everything is still up in the air, but here’s how I think things will shape out. I’ve been planning for quite some time to take most of July and August off. I have a few little personal side projects to work on as well as some house keeping items over at BNC, but mostly I plan to spend my days playing tennis, riding my bike, and of course camping. I managed to go camping a few times last summer, but I was actually […]

It won’t be much longer now until things start heating up around here. It seems like just a few days ago that Christmas was here (or possibly it only seems that way because my tree is still up). I for one am getting pretty excited about enjoying the sun again when it comes. This summer I’m hoping to do quite a bit of camping and hiking. The campground reservation system for the lower mainland isn’t open yet, but I found out that the one in Tofino actually opened the other day. So I decided to whip out my credit card and book three days of camping on the Island in July. I’m going to probably take the whole week off and spend my time exploring Vancouver Island, and hopefully also visit a few friends. Years ago I camped in Goldstream Provincial Park near Victoria, and I thought it was pretty […]

I woke up yesterday to another sunny day here in CowTown™. I was debating going to the gym, but decided instead to go and try a local hike. So I pulled my hiking boots out of a box, found some clean socks, and drove up to the trailhead for Teapot Hill, which is only about 10 minutes from my house. Teapot hill isn’t that hard of a hike, but considering I haven’t been hiking really in years, it did a good job of wearing me out. The elevation gain is only around 300 meters, but a lot of that comes near the end. At the top of the hike is a pretty nice view of Cultus Lake, so I snapped a few photos and rested there. I used to actually be quite the hiker. About 5 years ago I would meet up with some friends on the North Shore and […]

Last night I had the choice of staying up at my campsite, which was all set up, or staying in my nice air-conditioned apartment. Given how gross it was outside, I actually decided to stay here and get a good night’s sleep. So this morning I had to wake up, do an hour long client call, and the head up to the lake and tear my campground down, which is thankfully all complete now. So I’m back at home, and definitely looking forward to a semi-normal weekend around the house. The last few weekends have been fairly crazy, either because I was driving down to Oregon, or because I was involved in a 24-hour charity event. This weekend I’ll probably sleep in, make an appearance at the gym, get some groceries, do some cleaning, and probably just lounge around the house for the weekend. I’m actually really looking forward to […]

I briefly went into town this morning to water my plants, take a shower, and get a few groceries. I also managed to hook up with the guys and gals down at Hawk FM for a follow-up interview to the blogathon one I did on Friday. Other than that, I spent most of today sitting shirtless on my picnic table, trying hard not to melt in today’s heat. Thankfully I was in the shade most of the day, but man oh man, when that sun hit it sure was hot. My sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew came up for dinner, and just left a few minutes ago. So right now I’m catching up on a few emails, and probably going to do a few hours of work before bed. I’ll probably head back into town again tomorrow for the morning, and then head back up to the lake again for […]

Well, yesterday was an interesting day. It started at about 8am for me when I went up to the campground site to check in. As I pointed out, checking in was an hour long process, made longer by a few people who for some reason thought they were privileged campers. Unfortunately I was stuck in a wireless hole, so I wasn’t able to take the call at 8am where I was supposed to be on the radio. I’m going to be camping up there for three days, off and on, so I thought I’d write a few camping related entries. The strange thing about camping is that you always seem to run into the same types of people. Here’s a very short list of some of last night’s highlights: The RV Camper I’m not a big fan of RVs, to be honest. I understand the appeal when it’s raining out, […]

I’m up at Cultus Lake now, doing some weird cross between camping and working. I honestly wasn’t too sure if I’d get 3G up here, and had planned to head back into town during the days. But given how I have four bars on my phone, and that 3G is working great, I might just work from up here. To that end, I went back home a while ago and picked up my 15W solar panel and my 75Ah deep cycle battery. Right now my laptop appears to be drawing about 25W, which is fairly awesome considering I’m charging it and also working on it at the same time. At 120V, that means it’s currently drawing roughly 0.2 amps (200 milliamps). I’m currently using an inverter attached to the deep cycle battery, and since power must be roughly conserved across it, that means the battery must be putting out roughly […]

I went to bed last night at around 11pm, and slowly drifted off to sleep. For the most part, I had a decent sleep, and managed to get myself out of bed at around 7am. So I think I’m basically recovered from Blogathon at this point. I was just up at Cultus lake sorting out my registration. There was a line up of cars about 20 deep waiting for the registration office to open, so it took me about an hour to get to the front. Of course, there were a few people who showed up and cut right to the front of the line, thinking for some reason that a re-registration or some issue from the night before was enough reason to bypass all of us who had been waiting all morning. I almost got out of my car to say something, but decided to keep my pie-hole shut. […]

I woke up yesterday in Cascade Locks, Oregon and decided to hit the coast for a few hours. I bounced through Portland, grabbed a coffee and some breakfast, and had a really great, leisurely drive along a forested road towards Cannon Beach. I pulled in right around lunch time, and hunted around for a good place to grab some food. Thankfully I found a neat little brew pub, just a block from the water. I tasted a few of their beers, and also a nice plate of Halibut and Chips. Afterwards, I grabbed my camera and spent about an hour down on the beach. Cannon Beach is of course super beautiful. The big monolith in the water, Haystack Rock, is one of the largest in the world, and photos really don’t do it justice. In addition, Cannon Beach was used in a few scenes in “The Goonies”, so it’s a […]