Edith Cavell

I went fifth-wheeling in Jasper this weekend with Steve, Kristen, Lisa, and Sorin and had a great time. We got to camp, whitewater-raft, and check out a few glaciers I hadn't seen before. All on Saturday.

Tone Deaf Shoulder Tumors

I didn't take a picture Thursday, so here's a video challenge for you: if you can watch more than 10 seconds of this, you've outlasted most of us.

More Vancouver

Being savvy West-coasters, we knew well enough to avoid the expensive suspension bridge and head to the free one instead:Then we headed downtown, which was welcoming in a surprising way:
Our first goal was the Museum of Anthropology, which was welcoming in a more subversive way:
I loved the museum, which had Salish writing for me to pronounce everywhere. It was full of unhappy faces, though:

Actually, this last one looks pretty content. It could be because he's the Tsimshianic representation of the first European.

The museum is on the UBC campus, which made it easy for us to go see Steve's lab. Here he is pretending to do science for us:

And here we are blatantly disregarding a biohazard warning
We finished off the day on the beach, flying Steve's attack kite:
which was totally rad.

Last Day at Camp

So, the reason I wasn't sure yesterday's hike was in a rainforest (until I got expert confirmation from K*) is that today we hiked through a place that was actually called a rainforest:It was a short hike, but we got to see more effects of winter storms:
and horrifying manifestations of primal evil:
We decided to catch the ferry back instead of driving all the way around Puget Sound, and it turned out to be a good move. Also, cucumber sandwiches:
Yum.

Olympic Proportions

Olympic National Park is great. The trail to the alpine meadow is snowed in? How about a temperate rainforest instead?
Actually, even though there was wall-to-wall moss and giant purple trees:...I'm not sure it was an actual rainforest. The trees certainly were tall, though:
In fact, they were tall even when they were on their sides - here's the root system of a big one that had just come down:
The winter storms that knocked down that tree also washed out the bridge we were supposed to use to cross these rapids:
So, we took the natural course of action: lunch.
Two plans came out of our meal-time strategizing: Steve and I tried to throw enough stones into the river to make a bridge (we figured we had enough), and Vinai looked for (and found) an alternate route across the river:It was well worth it. The other side was like a cathedral, a big spongy yellow cathedral that I won't do justice to here.
It took more time to cover less distance than we expected in the cathedral, and we were running short on time, so we decided to ford the river on the way back:
In the picture above, Steve makes it look as the the water were not SO INSANELY COLD THAT YOU IMMEDIATELY REGRET STEPPING IN IT. I literally ran across the river, because the pain of running across wet stones was less severe than the pain of being in water that cold. It was so cold that when I dropped my boot in the river on the way across I thought, for a second, that I would rather continue hiking with one boot than walk back 10 feet in that water to pick it up.

Oh, and Steve did it TWICE. The picture above shows how far he made it when trying to find out if it was too deep to cross.

Anyway, we all made it back to camp alive where there was roast pear enough for everyone.

How to Get Married, Day 3

First, pray.Next, make sure your nephew's turban fits. Use pruning shears if you have to. He's gotta look good up there on that horse with you.
Next, get anybody in your party who consents into a kurta pajama.
Then, head out to see Ganesha. This is an auspicious day.
Then, drive to Hamilton, and wait for the horse.
Then bring out the beard patrol.
...and recruit them for shoe defense. Especially the vicious bear-man beard patroller.
Then, get married, eat, drink, dance, have songs sung and played for you, speeches made for you, slide shows describe your life and embarrass you, sing a song, make a speech, carve a cake, and kiss your bride. (not pictured.)

By the way, we lost the shoes. We (Vinai) had to pay (cash) to get them back. How much cash? That depends on the arm wrestle. We agreed on a base amount, and offered $275 on top of that if they could beat us in an arm wrestle. They chose the combatants. For our side, the man they empirically determined to have the smallest biceps:
For their side, a professional carpenter. I won't say how it turned out, but the bartender lost cash on a bet.