3 April 2007
Vancouver

It was a silvery full moon over the western states on the flight to Vancouver and the morning revealed a fresh dusting of snow on the north Vancouver mountains and bought home the fact that summer hasn't yet arrived in Canada.

A call to Keno confirmed this, with reports of it being minus 20 degrees there. This reinforced my need to visit an outfitters and get some warm boots - and since they are rated to minus 50 I think the pinkies at least shall stay warm. Needless I also got some doubly insulated gloves and a polarfleece hat at the same time. Otherwise I hope that I have enough layers in my bag - that includes the old down jacket originally purchased in Alaska way back when, but today I might not be able to get quite so many layers under it as I did then.


I have enjoyed two days of beautiful sunny spring weather and the blossoms are out all over town. Have done lots of walking and reminded myself what a beautiful place is when it is not raining - as it seemed to do every time I was here last year. It has been a little different not to have Aaron, Kerry and the Monkey here, especially as I walked past their old haunts on Commercial Drive this afternoon.

The city keeps growing steel and glass towers, and I am reminded from walking downtown that the Canadians are in general a pretty ordinary looking lot, even though it seems that at least 50% of them are of asian ethnicity, 1% of them are bums and homeless pushing shopping trolleys of cardboard boxes and pickings from the garbage bins or are begging on the street corners, and I guess the others are all in the glass towers since they certainly were not on the bus I took down Broadway.



Tomorrow the Yukon !

Al