Central BC Winter

As part of a portfolio of work I traveled to Quesnel and 100 Mile House a couple of weeks ago. We're swamped with work this month so it's taken me a while to blog about it.

Front row seat for the engines spooling-up prior to take-off as we waited in queue.

I never tire of the scenery in this province. These photo ops are the advantage
of low altitude flights.

I'll have to try to find out which lake this is. It's somewhere
between Whistler and Quesnel I think.

About -20 C when we landed. A bit of a shock to the system crossing
the tarmac to the terminal.

My rental vehicle was pretty plush I have to say, perfect for all the highway
driving I did this trip.

My trip also included 100 Mile House so I did a side trip to
Horse Lake to see the cabin our family used to own. It hasn't
changed much; I'm glad to see it's still there.

A frozen Horse Lake viewed from a boat launch.

Pop-up Concert

OK, you've gotta keep a secret for me on this one. I've been sick with a cold/flu the last three days (i.e., home from work), but I felt well enough, and was hungry enough to drive to Duffins close by to get a sub sandwich for lunch. As I was parking the car it was announced on the radio that the Arkells were going to play a "pop-up" show at a local doughnut shop called Cartems on Main Street.

It crossed my mind that it was only about 15 minutes away and I thought, "Why not go?" So I did. It was pretty cool to see them play their short 3-song acoustic set in a doughnut shop setting. Turns out they played a gig in Cancun (!) on Monday night, then Edmonton last night. I think they went straight from the airport to Cartems, then they're playing the PNE Coliseum tomorrow night. At home later I turned on CBC radio to hear the end of one their songs; turns out I just missed an on-air interview. They probably did a tour of radio stations this afternoon. Talk about a packed itinerary.

The first two songs were beside the front window.

They moved to the centre of the store for their last song.

I guess "merch" in this case is a custom-frosted doughnut instead of a concert
t-shirt.

We last saw them live at a cold outdoor venue during the 2010 Olympics at Holland Park in Surrey. They mentioned that show today between songs.

Chilly Chase 2019

Our running group participated in the Chilly Chase again this year. It was last Sunday morning. It's a dash of varying distances (5K, 10K, 15K or half marathon) starting at Olympic Village and heading along the north side of False to the Inuksuk and then retracing (for 10K).

Here's our happy group full of pre-race enthusiasm.

And here's post-event. My official time was 63:20. The start/finish line clock indicates a slower time but we started running at the drop of the flag; it took a couple of minutes to shuffle forward
to actually cross the start line.

And here's Shauna. Her time was actually around 70:00. According to her stats
this event was her second best ET ever! 

Believe it or not, the hillside adjacent to the Inuksuk at English Bay was
full of early blooming daffodils.

Snow drops are blooming in our East Van front yard.

Even our rhubarb thinks it might be Spring already.

But don't call off Winter just yet. The forecast is for snow on Sunday.