Sitting in Nate’s in the Ottawa airport waiting for flight.
Last Canadian meal before beef time!
Dreary weather is looking in on us from the outside world. Overcast and the like.
I’m peering out at a robin’s-egg blue Air Canada plane at gate 17. Ours is next to it.
C-GJWO is our equipment. Airbus 319. Looks air-worthy. We’ve got about 1:15 till lift-off 0:45 till we board.
Update: there was a gate change, we were actually at Gate 15. Don’t know what the tail ID was. Sorry kev.
04/01/08
Hi everyone! Well, although in the strictest sense of the word today was a day off, the effort I put into my day made it anything but a true day off. Today, I decided to try my hand at some of the great mountain biking that surrounds Rotorua. On the plus side, I have now at least justified bringing my full suspension mountain bike with me to New Zealand. It was an amazing day on the trails, I’ll say that much. There were just so many of them, and in so many different grades of difficulty. If it weren’t for a certain minor medical condition, I’d consider staying an extra day just to do more biking on the sweet sweet singletrack around here. For a map showing where I went biking, along with a few pictures from the day, you know what to do. For more info, just read on.
Hello everyone. Well, it’s been over two weeks since we got back from Saudi Arabia, and I figure it’s time I try to make sense of the whole experience and maybe give people a sense of what traveling a bit in the Middle East is like. We had a lot of people ask us about our trip, and I was never really sure how to answer that question. The general answer was simply ‘different’. How can you summarize a place that is literally worlds away from your own home? Although I’m still not sure I can fully illuminate everyone, I’ll do my best to shed a little light on this corner of the world. For starters, I’m happy to report that we’ve got all of our pictures posted now in a single collection. There are pictures from Jody, myself, as well as pictures Andrea snapped with her new fancy-pants camera that she got over the holidays. Feel free to
Welcome to the second post detailing some of the awesome experiences Deanna and I had in Morocco. This time, I’ll take you a bit off the beaten path, and talk about two particularly awesome experiences. Namely, the high of trekking and climbing in the High Atlas mountains, including sumitting the highest peak in North Africa, as well as the lows of heading to the depths of the deepest caves in North Africa, the Friouato Cave system. For Deanna, these were particularly fun, as she had never climbed a mountain before or gone cave exploring. In another post, I’ll visit a first for BOTH of us, but this time, it’s all about Deanna’s firsts. If you check into flickr, you’ll eventually find pictures from both, but for now, only the Atlas Mountain pics are up. Eventually, they’ll all be in the collection though. For now, I’ll just give you a bit of the blow by blow in written words. Enjoy!
EXTRA
Breaking news story just in this morning of March 5th, 2008. With great crowds of cheering supporters, ActiveSteve climbed the world’s steepest street, Baldwin Street, in Dunedin, atop his trusty bicycle, Epicus, while the Burley Kid watched from below in admiration. This feat caused burning lungs and the taste of blood rising in the throat with the pounding heartrate, but the feat was over almost as quickly as it began. Onlookers were most impressed with this achievement, proclaiming aloud their respect for the task. Several keen eyes were even more impressed by the fact that ActiveSteve remained seated for the duration of the entire climb, and choose to attack almost the entire climb straight on rather than weave. However, in the steepest sections, the traditional alpine style of climbing was adopted for a short section, by weaving left and right to ease the slope. To mark the achievement, a certificate was acquired proclaiming the feat. The onlookers, so impressed, were clamouring to become signed witnesses to the act, even though there was no such place on the certificate. A quick addition to the scroll by ActiveSteve made a fellow from Pensacola, Florida most proud to sign his name proclaiming the validity of the climb. With great smiles and satisfaction, ActiveSteve, Epicus, and the Burley Kid continued back on the road, ready to tackle more hills for the day, albeit at much lesser grades!
