Life of Dave

Life of Dave

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Vancouver Staycation Day #1

Our lazy Sunday Staycation day began on a mixed note. We stopped in at our favourite coffee shop knowing it was its last day of operation. "Bean Around the World" on Main at 20th has had their lease terminated so the building's owner can re-develop the property. I'm not impressed. The brick building itself has a lot of heritage charm complemented by wood frame windows and a great south facing patio. And plus...it seems to have the best selection of baked goods of all its other locations.

I'll miss this one.

Once loaded up with coffee, a panini-grilled breakfast wrap and a "Quickstart" muffin we headed to Stanley Park, not as early as we'd intended, but we still beat the downtown weekend rush to the Lion's Gate bridge. We would have traveled via Transit bus, but our dog Tannah was coming with us to enjoy a summer day. I must say I find it annoying that dogs aren't allowed on the Transit system. They are in three other cities we've visited: Toronto, Zurich and London, UK.

This may be a topped tree left over from the great wind
 storm of  2006. I wonder how big the sapling will grow 
before the nurse trunk deteriorates.

It seems almost every time I visit Stanley Park I see a blue heron. A big
nesting site for herons is on the English Bay side of the park.

Our trek included the highrises of Coal Harbour just west of the
Convention Centre.

This hotel across from the Convention Centre looks to me more like something
one would see in Florida than Vancouver. It reminds me of a still photo I saw years
ago in the opening montage of Miami Vice.

Seagulls in the harbour in front of a moored cruise ship. This guardrail vantage point
appears like a holding cell as if the birds have been jailed for some offense. 

A trio of house boats in the Coal Harbour marina.



Tannah taking full advantage of Happy Hour.
We'd seen this crazy dog bed chaisse lounge at Coal Harbour on our morning walk. They advertised Happy Hour starting at 3 pm so we made a mental note to return later. At first Tannah needed a bit of direction as she'd placed herself facing the wrong way, and to be truthful, she's a smidge too big for this canine furniture. It's more meant for micro dogs I think.

I think she preferred this seat to lying on the steel manhole cover,
even if she was slightly over-size.
She certainly got a lot of attention from passersby. Even the manager of the pub came out to photograph her. I wouldn't be surprised if she finds her way onto the pub's website.


Monday, July 24, 2017

The Caravan

The event, or rather pre-event, I'd never heard of in relation to the Tour de France is the Caravan. It's really a carnival on wheels. On preparation for our grand trek in search of a personal glimpse of the famed Tour I'd photographed a couple of pages on my phone from a French newspaper I'd bought in Beaune. I hadn't even fully appreciated at the time why I'd needed two maps; one with approximate times printed for the Carvane and the other for Tour approximate times. Once we got to the village of Longvay, Shauna, being competently bilingual struck up a conversation with a local couple waiting next to us who explained that "la Caravane" would pass by ahead of the race itself handing out sponsored merchandise to the spectators.

So the deal is that "la Caravane" is the parade of race sponsors. It truly was a spectacle and a half! It's basically all the sponsors' bling. They literally threw it at the crowds as the brightly decorated vehicles sped past. And I do mean "sped". This was no slow, stodgy North American-style parade. They were moving at a good clip; alarmingly fast actually. It's a good thing there was a big police motorcycle presence to keep the crowds back on the sidelines behind roped barriers. According to literature I read later, 600 people on about 170 vehicles representing 35 manufacturer sponsors make up la Caravane and they distribute 18 million pieces of bling during the 3 week Tour; from keychains, candy, cycling hats; basically anything small they can throw at you and not cause harm if it hits you. I learned that the caravan is about 12 km long. No wonder it takes half an hour to pass.










After the caravan had concluded we waited about another half an hour for the actual Tour competitors. A yellow motorcycle complete with two yellow-clad riders preceded the peloton by a few minutes. The motorbike flew up the road, pulled in quickly to a curve in the road beside us and the passenger displayed a yellow scorecard of some kind. I don't know what it meant, but it must make sense to the Tour riders. They whipped through a minute or so later. I was expecting the main group to be broken up into smaller groups, but I learned later that no one had yet made a firm move for the lead.



This is probably the best shot I got of the peloton, although I didn't actually capture the rider with the leading yellow jersey, which would have been Chris Froome at this point I think, even this early at Stage 7.

Us in Longvay. This is pre-bling, or else I would have been wearing my new
green cycling cap.
The sweep vehicles.
Then as quick as that, it was all over.

Le Tour de Citroen. 
This is actually one of my favourite shots of the Stage 7 portion. It's from online coverage. I was thinking about it later; it reminds me of a couple of old 1960s Land Rovers, complete with safari photographers, racing alongside a herd of gazelles on the Serengeti.


Sunday, July 23, 2017

Velo Vineyard

Our Tour de France day began with bicycling ourselves. We rented bikes to ride through the vineyards; something lifted straight from a postcard.

Me and my hat. I tried repeatedly to get a picture of Shauna and me cycling side
by side, but of all my attempts she likes this shot the best.
Shauna was impressed by how straight the vineyard rows are; a result of them
being surveyed we later learned.
Being somewhat newbies in the world of wine prior to this trip, we learned quite a bit from our host, Darren, our friend from Zurich. He informed us that the vineyard rows are indeed surveyed; hence the straightness. Rows are legal property that in many cases have been passed down through families over generations, having been subdivided many times by inter-family marriages, the end result being that vineyard ownership can vary by single row.

The crew bicycling in Beaune.
Us with the prototypical French car, the Citroen 2CV. These cars seem ageless,
but I think this a newer one judging by the rectangular headlights.

Vineyards adjacent to Romanee near Nuite-Saint-Georges
Darren informed us that the vineyard behind the cross is owned by Romanee, and their top wine, Romanee Conti, can sell for as much as $10,000 per bottle! I'm even having trouble figuring out by how many multiples that is removed from our modest price range.

Us at the famed Romanee Conti vineyard. At the reported price per bottle
you'd think there'd be 24-hour security or a razor wire fence!



Just by chance I happened to see this (empty) box of Romanee Conti on a top shelf in the restaurant in Beaune where we had lunch after our cycling excursion.

Pre-Nuite (Saint-Georges)

It's already the last day of the Tour de France, and I have yet to post my Tour de France experience. We've been back from our European vacation for 2 weeks. It certainly was a nice break, but immediately I've been thrust back into 50 hour work weeks; short-staffed.

The last portion of our vacation was in Beaune, in the Burgundy region of France. Our friends who live in Zurich are wine connoisseurs, and they frequent the area. There's nothin' like touring with people that know their way around. The first day there we were at a wine tasting in the vineyards of Chambertin close to town, and as casual conversation our host asked if we were going to take in the Tour de France as it passed through a neighbouring town the following day. All four of us looked at each other..."What?..." We'd had no idea. But sure enough, Stage 7 was to pass through Nuite St. Georges the next day.

These are the wines we sampled at Chambertin.
Jazzy, the ultra-friendly vineyard dog at Chambertin.
Then it started to sink in because we'd seen cycling decorations in Nuite St. George as we'd driven through to Beaune. We were so not expecting it that it never sank in.