Furball No Longer

The wonder dog got a haircut today.

A Weekend in the Wild(erness Park)

After a very long week, Jon made it home from the field in time for us to hit the road for a weekend of camping at Bluerock, just west of Turner Valley. There was still snow left from Thursdays blizzard and we spent a chilly night in our new tent. Its fantastic, and will be even better when we aren't sharing it with the dog.

Saturday morning we woke early, mostly due to the chilly temperatures and some of it due to a dog who only sleeps until 6 am. Things warmed up by noon and we headed out to view the sites of the park, including Sheep Falls.

We also did a short hike to some bridge along some trail. There were lots of large bear tracks, but all we saw was four deer.
We spent the evening around the fire, eating pies and pizzas from the pie iron. Night two in the tent was much warmer and the dog even slept until 7 am.
Our very cool fire.
We drove home this morning, ready to head to work tomorrow as Jon is in the field and I still have that thesis hanging over my head. We spotted our first bear of the season just outside of our campground (a smaller black bear) but encountered no other wildlife.

The Mighty Milk

This weekend was the second annual canoe trip, down the Milk River. Day 1 started off well, the sun came out and spirits were high. We did our 30 km without much effort. The wind picked up in the evening, but we still enjoyed a beautiful evening on the banks of the river.

Day 2 started alright, but the river was a little tougher than the first part, plenty of gravel bars and ripples to keep us on our toes. Ali and Andrew got dumped in the river early on but luckily they were unhurt. We all had our little incidents with gravel bars through out the day, but no one else had to take a swim.

It was a pretty long day, including a portage around a set of rapids. We all felt a little tired by the time we'd hit our day's destination. Luckily we made camp just as the rain and wind started and a quick meal improved everyone's spirits. Our canoe wind block worked surprisingly well, but soon after dinner had finished, the rain started up harder and we barely had time to shove a brownie (or three) in before sprinting for our tents.

It started out rainy on Day 3, and carried on for the next 5 hours while we paddled the last stretch of the river. Jon let me steer, which resulted in a lot of extra work for both of us, as he is a much stronger paddler and I spent the whole time compensating for it, while he had to do all the paddling. We arrived in Milk River just before we all lost feeling in our hands and feet, and thankfully our cars were waiting and we piled in and turned on the heat. Our journey was over! Jon and I celebrated with a double double (or it seemed to be a triple triple from the amount of cream in it) once we hit Lethbridge.

Overall we had a fantastic time, next year we'll just have to plan on having better weather! More photos available HERE.

Why Dogs Sniff Each Other's Bums

(as told to me by an old Russian man at the off leash park this morning).

Me: "Good morning"
Old Man: something that I think was good morning
Old Man: says something else
Me: "Pardon?"
Old Man yells louder: "Has anyone ever told you why dogs sniff each other's behinds?"
Me: "Um, no..."
Old Man: "It goes back to Creation, God was talking to the dogs and one of them let a very loud one rip. God said "Who was that?", and none of the dogs answered. He asked again "Who did that?". When none of the dogs answered again he banished them from paradise saying "You can't come back until you find out which one of you did that"."
Me: nervous laugh "I've never heard that version before"

So my friends, dogs are sniffing each others' behinds not to say hello, but to figure out who farted in front of God.

Another Weekend

After a very long and boring week in the office, we both rejoiced in our weekend freedom. We spent an awful lot of money at MEC on Saturday: new sandals for Jon, a new watch for Jenn, misc. camping items for our trip next weekend. Feeling very poor after all of that, we spent the rest of the day recreating and snapping photos of the flowers in our yard.

We also took Patches for some frisbee in the water. We bought him a floating frisbee for water activities this year and took it for a try. It doesn't fly as well as his new Kong one from M and M, but it won't sink when Patches is too lazy to retrieve it from the river.

At the end of it all, Patches is exhausted (thanks to Brinkley), we're exhausted (thanks to Patches) and we only have to make it through another 5 days in the office before its the long weekend!

Gardening

We spent the weekend enjoying the beautiful sunshine! We bought new plants and redid our front garden.

Patches enjoyed the sun, and being out of the backyard all day.

I found these beautiful clay planters at Sunnyside Garden Center and filled them with herbs and flowers. Hopefully they bring lots of life and color to our garden!

San Juan de Sur and Managua

The next morning we woke up with plans on catching the 10 am bus to San Juan, a town on the coast south of the beach we were at to spend our second last day there before making it to Managua for our monday morning flight. Jon and I woke up for one last swim but it seemed that dinner at crazy Dave's hadn't been as good for A and A as it should have been and both were quite sick. We made it to San Juan, where we found a hotel (quite a nice one) and left A and A there to recover while we explored San Juan. It took Jon and I all of 20 minutes to realize that it wasn't much but a strip of beachfront restaurants and a great icecream store. We spent the day sleeping and eating icecream until A and A felt well enough for dinner. Then Jon and I ate some more ice cream (it was HOT in San Juan) and I let him beat me at crib a couple of times.

The view of San Juan from our hotel balcony.

Sunday morning we got up early to catch the direct bus to Managua. After being assured that our bus was going direct, we boarded at 7 and proceeded to pick up people all the way through Rivas, and then Masaya and finally arriving in Managua. It ride itself wasn't bad, we had seats and the roads were paved, but it was too early in the morning to be jammed on an old school bus for twice as long as we'd been expecting.

Conveniently, the bus terminal in Managua is also the best craft market in Managua and we spent an hour picking up all the items we'd wanted to buy in Masay earlier in the trip. Jon and I purchased some cloth, a table runner, coffee, some local art and of course, a magnificent hammock. We loaded our treasures and took our last cab ride in Nicaragua.



We spent our last day lounging at the Best Western near the airport in one of the many pools. The next morning we boarded our flight and headed back home to Calgary.

The Best and the Worst of the Beach Life

Surprisingly not too sore after our volcano climb, we all woke up wednesday morning with pleantly of time to spare before the old chicken bus came by on its route to the port city of Moyogalpa on Ometepe. Buses ran surprisingly well in Nicaragua, at least where we were. They were always running and our bus transfers always seemed to go off with out a hitch. This bus was no exception, and was only slightly later than the woman at our hotel had told us.

We arrived in Moyogalpa to learn that one of the ferries wasn't running and we would have to wait a couple hours before the second one left or take our chances on a smaller ferry. It was decided that we would wait and in an effort to get out of the hot sun, we headed for lunch. Lunch was two of the largest pizzas I've ever seen for $5 and although 4 of us tried our hardest, we were unable to eat them all.

Upon arriving back in Rivas, we negotiated a cab and all five of us squished in. Our cab driver navigated over bridges, around bridges and in the ditch along a dusty stretch of road to the ocean. Our destination was Bahia Mahagual but upon arrive at the beach, we learned that the resort we'd been heading for was closed and that we were actually on Playa Madera. No matter, it was a beach with beautiful sand and huge crashing waves. We managed to find two rooms in a beach front building on the nearly deserted beach and set about enjoying the sun and sand.

We spent three lovely days on the beach, sunning and surfing. The waves were a little too large for me, but the others swam and worked on their burns. We were served meals at a little beach shack, where the woman graciously made Jon and I a meat free option each night - deep fried cheese slabs!

On Friday, our last night on the beach (and also our first evening without Maarten), the lovely food shack woman packed up her stuff and headed into town, leaving us dinnerless! We went elsewhere in search of food and ended up at the only other place on the beach, Crazy Daves. We climbed up the cliff from the beach to his house, where we received a strange welcome involving a reenactment of what it sounded like when Dave had thrown a pot out of his house and down the hill. Only a little uneasy we agreed to stay for dinner, which seemed to be spaghetti. We were told we were waiting for a bunch of surfers who had seen Dave "rip a big wave" earlier in the day. Dave was indeed crazy, and regaled us with the same story of his big wave over and over again. One surf movie and a couple beers later, we were starting to wish that we'd never come when we were finally served our spaghetti, although there had been no sign of the surfers. The spaghetti was an interesting creation involving veggies, bread crumbs, an egg and curry seasoning (those who ate meat got the version with ground something in it). We ate as quickly as we could, paid for our over priced spaghetti and hurried down the beach to the safety of our little beach front home to enjoy our last evening by the ocean.

Ometepe

Volcan Concepcion from the ferry

Ometepe is an island in Lago de Nicaragua. Its comprised of two volcanoes, the active Volcan Concepcion and the inactive Volcan Maderas. We caught a bus out of Granada to the town of Rivas, and then a cab to San Jorge, a small town on the shore of Lago de Nicaragua and the location of the ferry to Ometepe.

For me, the 1 1/2 hour ferry ride to the island was horrible. The lake is quite windy, whipping up waves that caused our ferry to slosh about. I was very thankful when the ferry docked on the island and I was able to stagger onto firm ground again. Our destination on the island was Playa San Domingo, home to the best beaches on the island and a strong sea breeze (according to Lonely Planet), also conveniently located near the trail head for Maderas, the volcano hike we'd decided on. Two buses later we were standing in front of the Casa Hotel Isiam staring at the beach. And having sand whipped into our faces by the very strong sea breeze. The beach itself was not a thing of beauty, but the water was warm and if you ignored the cattle drinking out of the lake (or the tanker parked on the shore) it was alright.

Volcan Maderas

The next morning we met at 7 am, loaded into the back of a pickup truck and headed to Maderas. Our group was joined by the interesting Igor as well as our guide, Alan. The hike started off fairly easy, wandering through scrubby brush but soon turned into a muddy uphill climb through a cool cloud forest.

Jon in the forest

Four hours later, we reached the peak of the volcano, looked out into the mist and headed down again into the crater lake for lunch. It was too misty to see the lake, except for a brief moment. Soon it was time to turn around and we headed back into the forest for the decent down. The return trip was un-remarkable until we neared the bottom of the trail and were treated to a troop of monkeys playing in the trees.

Monkey

We returned to our hotel in time to have a quick swim before the sun set. Exhausted from our hiking it was an early night, since we had plans of catching the first bus out of there the next morning.

Summer maybe?

Its finally May, and that means I've only got 4 more months left of school! In past years today would have been the first day of summer for me, usually coinciding with the first day of treeplant and freedom from boring school for a whole 4 months. This year, like last year, it just means that the halls are a little quieter and my supervisor has more time to check and make sure I'm working.

With no effort on our part, two bunches of daffodils sprouted in our front garden over the weekend. The crocuses are also out in full bloom at the off leash park. It really makes me wish that I wasn't still inside!

We are currently trying to re-grow our back lawn and spent the weekend fencing off a section and seeding. I've checked every day since, but the lush green carpet I'm desiring hasn't appeared yet. Patches got his pool put out on Saturday and all three dogs have been enjoying the mud bath created in the backyard.


We got a little bit of ulti playing in this weekend and Patches showed off his skills. He getting quite good at catching the frisbee. (thanks to Mic for taking the shots!).