This morning, we drove down to the Crowsnest Pass to meet our friends Ian and Nathalie, so they could shoot some engagement photos for us.
We had originally discussed camping down there and coming home tomorrow, but in the end we decided to head home tonight. The weather is a little cool and wet, and we're sooo tired!
As we turned onto Hwy 22, we noticed that a little blue Westfalia pulled in behind us. He saw me taking pictures, and we waved. Passed each other back and forth until we were 3 minutes from home! Each time we passed, we waved - and when we went our separate ways, flashed our lights at eachother.
Maybe a silly thing, but it was fun to drive in caravan with this guy for a while. His license plate is from Maryland, but that's all we know about his story. We wish him safe and happy travels!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Little Blue Westy From Maryland
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
New Website!
Our blog has moved!
You should be automatically redirected, if not, visit
http://www.twobsinablog.ca
and update your bookmarks.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Jamaica!
We just arrived home from a week in Jamaica. It was amazing, of course. Brian's first tropical vacation, and my second. We were there for the wedding of our friends Shawn & Tanya. We stayed at the all-inclusive Riu Ocho Rios. The all-inclusive thing was new to both of us, and not bad. It was very nice to be able to eat, drink, and be merry without ever pulling out our wallets (after the first lay-out, of course).
Last Thursday, we left Calgary at about 20 minutes past midnight, and flew to Toronto. Had a 2 hour lay-over there, and then flew down to Montego Bay, Jamaica. From there, we boarded a bus to our resort - Riu Ocho Rios. After checking-in and getting settled, we all (about 30 of us) met up for dinner.
On Friday, Brian and I spent the day on the beach and in the beautiful turquoise Caribbean ocean. In the evening we went on a sunset catamaran cruise. Left the resort at 4:30, returned around 9:30. It was absolutely magical and romantic - only about 20 passengers, on the good-sized boat. Improving the ambiance even that much more is the fact that the moon was full that night. So just after the sun went down, the brilliant moon crept up.
On Saturday, we floated down a perfectly crystal-clear river in inner-tubes. I've had vivid dreams about rivers like this. So lush and green and clear, I wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't there. From there, we went up to some water falls. Not the famous Dunn's Falls (if you find photos of them, you'll see solid line-ups of tourists all around), but a little further up - FAR more private. The only name I heard them referred to was "Secret Falls". There were deep blue-green freshwater pools to jump or dive into, caves to swim through, waterfalls to swim under and climb up. We floated on our backs in the sun streaming through the jungle-like treetops. Again, the water was so sparkly and clean, I could barely believe it! At the end of this long and inspiring day, we headed back to the resort for dinner and drinks.
Sunday we spent close to the resort, being still pretty tired-out from the huge day before. We wandered down the beach and bought some souvenirs (jewelry, carved wood, t-shirts). The resort has several reservations-only restaurants, and on this day we managed to book dinner at the Japanese restaurant. It was fantastic.
Monday was the wedding day. Tanya and Shawn got married at a little gazebo on the beach. It was beautiful... and I've said it before, but... Perfect. Tanya looked absolutely amazing, the weather was great. After the ceremony, a little band with steel drums played. We had some drinks, then dinner, then some more drinks. During their first dance, the rest of us held sparklers. I'll be interested to see how those photos turned out!
On Tuesday, Brian and I were invited along for the 'Trash the Dress' photoshoot. We started out with some ruins/stone walls/metal gates, with vines and leaves all curling about. From there, we stopped outside a broken-down, but colorful little building, with 'MORE LOVE' painted on the side, in big block letters. After that, we stopped at a small school house, and got some shots of Shawn & Tanya playing with the kids, talking to the kids, etc. It was really interesting to meet these kids. About 20 of them, from about 3-6 years of age. It was a really tiny little 2-room school house. The younger kids were learning about family, and the older kids were learning about travel - so the bride/groom thing was a good lesson for some of them, and for the kids learning about travel, we talked about where we're from, and how we got there (on a plane), etc. It was a lot of fun. I would have spent all day there if we could-have! We also gave the school a cash donation. From there, we headed back to 'Secret Falls' that we were at earlier in the week - for some shots of Shawn & Tanya in amongst the waterfalls, jumping in the pools, and floating in the clear blue water.
Wednesday was our last full day, and we spent it relaxing at the resort. We went out in a kayak for a while, and then played on the beach and in the water. Brian built a sand castle, and I taught him and a younger (11-year-old) member of the group how to make little 'evergreen trees' by dribbling wet sand in a pile. We made little tree-lined ridges and mountains until the tide came in and washed it all away...
On Thursday morning our bus left the resort at 10:30. Back to the Montego Bay airport, then back to Toronto, then back to Calgary. We landed at 10:30pm, local time.
We've been home a day or two now, and we still miss it so much. It was so warm and humid and colorful and exotic.
We were warned before we left that it would be scary and dangerous - but honestly, there was never a moment that we felt uncomfortable or unsafe. And it wasn't like we stayed on-resort the whole time, either. We saw more fire-arms in Europe than Jamaica. In fact, we didn't see a single one.
I don't know if we'll be back or not. We have a tendency to want to go to places we've never been. However, it was fantastic, and certainly on our list of "places we've been, but would love to go back to".
Keep an eye on our Flickr pages for photos of our trip... They'll be uploaded as we get to them, bit-by-bit.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Early Winter Update!
It got put off. For months. Again, apologies. So now, some updates.
The rest of our Burningman trip was amazing. To me, it was the best of all my 4 Burns. It was really windy/dusty/stormy for a lot of it - but I can't complain, the extreme climate is part of what I love about it. And hate about it. Ha!
We camped with Midnight Poutine (Address: 7:30 & Biology) and met dozens of awesome new people. Midnight Poutine was a HUGE success. I was pretty sure it was going to be my last year (at least for a long time), but the experience of it was so amazing. I really want to go back next year now. Haha. That's why I've been 4 times, and have seen SO little of the rest of the world. Ack!
...We'll see.
We left Burningman with Kay and Shine in the back of the van. We drove SW to Sacramento, where we dropped Shine off at the Hostel. It is in this huge old monsion... Absolutely beautiful! We had dinner there, and walked around for a bit... It looks like a really beautiful city, and would like to go back again, to explore a little longer.
From Sacramento we travelled to Jacksonville, Oregon - just west of Medford. Brian has an aunt and uncle who live there, so we stopped to say hello and chit-chat with them for a bit.
From there we headed out to the Coast, and took the 101 all the way up along the ocean. That highway is our favorite little stretch of highway. So beautiful, so perfect. So many little beaches and little towns, all the way along - We'd like to take this stretch slowly over the course of a week or two sometime. It's on the list. :)
We stopped in Seattle and had a nice dinner with Kay, right by the Harbour, and then on to White Rock - stopped in to surprise Brian's mother, but unfortunately she wasn't home. We left a note, and headed over to Abbotsford, to drop Kay at the airport so he could fly home (Montreal).
We carried on East - To Vernon to visit Brian's dad (he was home, and we got to say hello to him) - and eventually home to Calgary.
We camped the whole way in Ziggy - only spent one night in a Hotel - in Reno, our first night out of the desert. It was the showers that sold us. We had a couple showers each.
The van was awesome - was everything we needed her to be. We had some minor technical issues, but Brian could go into those better than I can.
That trip marked the end of a VERY full summer, with almost constant travel for 3 months. It was exciting, it was exhausting. We love our travel so much, but on top of full time jobs, we can only do so much. Trust me - if we didn't have to bother with those pesky jobs, we'd travel WAY more.
We did drive up to Bragg Creek for a day in early November. Wandered around, took a few pictures, bought chai lattes, and came home.
In late November we went to Edmonton to visit our friends T & M. They have 3 perfect and adorable children: K(5), I(3) and G(6 mos). I spent the weekend holding the baby. I just couldn't help myself. We had a nice 'adults only' night out, sending the kids to their grandparents' place. It was awesome to see them, and we can't wait to see them all again! We stopped at West Edmonton Mall on our way out of town, and met up with some other friends for a quick visit.
At the moment we're close to home - working a lot, as the year is coming to an end soon - and Christmas will be upon us soon as well.
We're going to Jamaica in a couple of months, for a wedding - we're pretty excited about it. Brian's never been anywhere tropical, so it will be another new and exciting adventure!
Aside from that, we have a couple other weddings to attend next spring/summer in New Brunswick and Kelowna. Nothing else has been set in stone yet. We'll likely do a lot of road trips with Ziggy to, when weather allows. Ciao for now, and if we don't check back in before The Holidays, we wish everyone good/safe/happy ones!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
In a Van, Down by the River
I'm sorry we're posting without a photo yet again... But sometimes half is better than nothing. Our maiden voyage in Ziggy is going well.
We left Calgary on Friday night around 7pm, and headed for Cranbrook. We camped at Norbury Lake, about 30km shy of Cranbrook.
This morning we headed into Cranbrook to buy the max amount of beer we could take over the border (24 cans each) - because Canadian beer tends to be a hot commodity at Burningman. We also bought an extra battery and a solar panel at Canadian Tire, and then hit Timmy's one last time, and crossed the border.
The crossing was non-eventful. The guard even joked with us a bit "no weapons? Come on now, everyone has weapons these days." and "no more than $10,000 cash? Are you sure? You must." etc. I've never had any trouble getting into the states, actually - but have been searched on my way back to Canada. But that's a different story...
We've spent our whole day in Idaho, driving down the 95, along the Western border of it, pretty-much. We stopped in Lewiston for some groceries, and now we're in a camp ground near a town called White Bird. And... we're in a van, down by the river. It's true. We're all tucked in and cozy, listening to the crickets and the water... Pretty nice and peaceful.
Not a lot to report, really - just lots of driving. We intend to kill some time tomorrow, as we seem to be getting too far, too fast (don't want to arrive in the desert before Monday). We hope to find a river to swim/wade/play in, and we still have some errands to run in Ontario (Oregon).
Also, I (Brandi) seem to have some kind of cold... I've been sniffling and sneezing all day, but it's not that bad - I've been taking decongestants and hoping it passes before long. I have always been thankful I haven't been sick in the desert... I can't think of a worse, more uncomfortable, inhospitable place to feel ill... But like I say, I'm thinking positively and it's really not that bad - just sniffles and sneezes. Brian is generally the one who is sniffling and sneezing, so he says it's about time, and it's my turn. Probably true.
And - This fancy dancy campground we're in has wi-fi. Who knew?
Anywho, Brian's falling asleep and I should be doing the same - big day of adventuring tomorrow.
Ciao for now!