Serendipitous Security Screening

I know, I know, TLDR, but this is why I’m stunned by how well this morning turned out.

For my job site visit in Kelowna, in an environmentally conscious vein, I took transit instead of my car which meant I arrived about 15 minutes behind my ideal schedule.

And to make matters worse, as soon as I was halfway down the airport escalator the full consequence of my folly was realized. The day after the Labour Day long weekend is no day to cut corners on timing. The queue snaked through its full complement of posts and ribbon permutations to extend outside the security zone which meant about four more rows of people had been added even before entering the security screening lobby.

I was silently doing the math in my head of how I would probably JUST make my flight if I jogged straight from the secure area to my gate (alas, no breakfast!) when a uniformed woman interrupted my trance to say I’d been selected for security pre-screening, based mostly on the bulk of my backpack I surmised.

After effortlessly being allowed to bypass probably 400-500 people in line ahead of me I realized I was enjoying a breakfast sandwich and an Americano only about 20 minutes after exiting the Skytrain. Unbelievable how things turn out sometimes!

And plus, my flight was only about 2/3 full, meaning I enjoyed more elbow room with no one else in my row. And plus-plus, it was sunny and I had a south-facing window seat. A good start to my day!

A Hike-and-a-Half

To be clear, the title is not to be confused with a hike-and-a-half marathon combo. That's just silly. :-) Our running group has just completed its 2nd annual hike. Last year we went north along Lynn Canyon to Lynn Headwaters. It was a good hiking distance for noobies and plus Philip guided us to a semi-secret location of a massive boulder in the forest. It was quite a surreal sight.

This year we started from the same parking lot but veered a bit northwest towards Norvan Falls. Turns out we covered about 20 km round trip. Perhaps jogging and cycling aren't preparatory enough pursuits to train oneself for that distance. As our Scottish friend Jacqui would say, we were nackered!

Here's almost all of us at the start. Just look at that naive enthusiasm!

A-hiking we will go, a-hiking we will go...

I guess this one grew out from under a downed tree for its
formative years until the horizontal log decomposed.

I would not have thought it likely that such a large tree
could have grown atop a boulder. And check out the
buckboard chop-outs in the stump behind it.

And here's the payoff we hiked 10 km to see; Novan Falls.
Impressive, but not exactly Niagara. In order words, we weren't
deafened by the pounding water or drenched by the mist
upon our approach. :-)

Crossing this suspension bridge is the way one continues to Grouse Mountain.
We only did it for the photo op.

Whipped cream on a tree? Not sure as no one in our group would sample it.
Fungi in all likelihood.

Remnants of the old skid road. It's a wooden track along
which loggers used to drag cut logs.

With the high humidity we experienced during the hike
there was an abundance of trailside mushrooms.

One of our canine hiking companions, Geordie, knows
how to relax after a day hike.

Fortunately, no bruins were encountered. This sign was
actually directed at a trail we didn't take.