Saturday, we took our 101 Hikes book on the road to Brandywine Meadows for promised vistas. We drove about 2 hours North, almost to Whistler, but on arriving, saw meadows brimming with snowmobiles and learned that the snow-pack was still 20 feet deep. The guide said, "you're not from around here, are you?" His eyes added, "ha ha ha."
We headed back to Squamish again, and this time did the Chief Peak trail. This trail was much easier than the Upper Shannon Falls trail, and we reached the peak in an hour and a half or so. It wasn't until near the very end that my legs were getting shakey, and overall, it was a nice workout. As usual, we saw joggers blowing by us, several hikers with super-dogs, and even hikers toting babies up and down big rock shelves and ladders. At the top, we had sandwiches, gorp and mint tea. ahhhh
I won't say I have developed Vancouveritis, but calf muscles (and not bike-grease smudges this time) have made their timid debut, and this before bike season has been truthfully committed to.
I was re-reading Margaret Laurence's The Diviners last week (published 1974), and came across some passages about Vancouver. Her writing being much better than mine, I thought I'd reproduce her impressions of the city, via her main character, the inimitable Morag Gunn:
Down at the harbour, where Morag sometimes walks, hoping to understand the place, the vast ships cluster and creak, groaning and shunting, wallowing herds of ungainly sea-monsters. Then, surprisingly, one will glide majestically from the harbour, transformed into movement, as clumsy waddling seals are transformed to eel-like litheness when they swim. The gulls scream imprecations, their tongues hoarse and obscene, but the white flash of their wings is filled with grace abounding.
The boardinghouse is in Kitsilano, the rundown part of the area. A tall narrow frame house, last painted around the turn of the century, no doubt, and now a non-unpleasant uniform grey, not the heavy hard grey of a uniform, but the light sea-bleached grey of driftwood, silver without silver's sheen. Having once hated the unpainted houses along Hill Street, Morag now feels at home with this shade, shade in both senses, or perhaps even three, a colour ghostly as shadows, welcoming cool. It has no pretensions. Weather has created it. She prefers it to the jazzy split-level houses in the west side of the city across the Lion's Gate Bridge. She likes the bridge's name, but not the steel-girded giant itself.
The house in Kitsilano is neighboured by others of the same ilk. Firetraps, lived in by people who can't afford to live anywhere else.
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I went to the MLS site, and the least expensive house in Kits (actually I don't think 16th ave really counts as Kits...) is an 80 year old place for $799,000. The second cheapest was for $889,000, and it's truly modest for almost a million bucks!
Things have changed a little since Morag's day.
Today, I am all abuzz on Robaxicet again. I have a nice sharp kink in my neck. I think I've gone too long without a maintenance massage, and am paying the price. Happily, Kate downloaded the last two episodes of the L Word last night, and the absolute highlight for me, making me forget myself and whip my neck around to laugh with Kate (crunch! d'oh!), was when Jenny (aka the pariah) put herself out to sea on a tiny zodiac raft, leaving Saunders 2 racing along the beach, like a brainless version of the Littlest Hobo.
Is that my I.Q. dropping, or is the writing much much better this year?
