Well, after a caffeine and sugar powered trip to Sedalia, Monday, running on 3 hours sleep, I had a nice visit with my Grandma and Grandpa Smith and my aunt Janet. Grandpa is recovering well from his knee surgery and should be home now. Tuesday morning, I hung out chatting with Grandma and watching an Amish man cut down a tree in their back yard, hoping he wasn't going to drop it on the house. All went well and it came down just as he planned. Phew!
Tuesday afternoon, I drove to Dad's and had him help me drop my car off at the shop again. The temperature gauge had been getting pretty high, and I had to put some coolant in it once on the way to Sedalia. We visited my Grandma Mitchell (Dad's mom) in the nursing home and visited my aunt and uncle, Marilyn and Dean. I took my dad to work and went to dinner with my cousin, Mike, and had a really nice time chatting with him.
Thursday morning, I got my car back. They replaced the radiator *again*. Apparently, when it overheated a couple of times after the radiator was replaced, it damaged the neck of the radiator and the cap wouldn't seal properly any more. They also replaced the fan clutch. So far, so good. It seems to be holding up, and the temp is staying down, so maybe it's fixed for good now. *knock on wood*
I had lunch with my dad and an old high school friend, also named Geoff. It was good to catch up a little. After lunch, I headed out to visit my sister near Omaha. We had a nice visit. Her daughter, Liliana, is quite the cutie. It's crazy how much she looks like Sara when she was young.
Friday, I wasn't sure if I wanted to stick around or head out for Denver. Eventually, around 5:00, I decided to hit the road. By about 12:30, mountain time, I rolled in to my friend Aarrun's place in Denver. Today, I went to the Denver Pride Festival with Aarun for a while. Tomorrow, I think I'm going to drive up to Lumpy Ridge to climb. I can't wait to get back on the rock!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Leaving Again...
Well, after an eventful week in St. Louis, I'm on my way again. I'm headed to Sedalia to visit my grandpa in the hospital (he had knee surgery a couple weeks ago, and is going home tomorrow), and spend some time with my Aunt Jan and my grandma. From there, I will head to Lee's Summit to spend some time with my dad, and visit other family. Then, I'll be headed to Omaha to visit my sister. After the visiting is completed, I'll be on my way to Colorado to resume your regularly scheduled climbing trip. Can you believe I haven't climbed in 3 weeks? What's wrong with me?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Hockey Hall of Fame, Niagara Falls, and Homeward Bound...
Tuesday morning, I went for coffee with Danielle, then we walked toward the Hockey Hall of Fame, stopping to get some tasty Thai sandwiches for lunch. Danielle left me near the Hall and headed toward work. I spent the afternoon wandering the Hall, taking in the decades of hockey history.
Stanley And Me
Stanley And MeAfter closing down the Hall, I walked back to Danielle's, stopping at a Poutinerie for dinner. In retrospect, I should have photographed my food. Poutine is a quebecois dish consisting of french fries, with cheese curds, covered in brown gravy. How can you go wrong?
Arriving back at Danielle's, I elected to move my car in order to avoid getting a second parking ticket for being parked on her street after 7:00PM. In the process, I noticed a HUGE puddle of coolant under the car, and that, despite re-filling the coolant, the engine just didn't sound or feel right. I decided then and there that I couldn't risk trying to drive home with the car in it's current state. I was going to have to get it looked at in Toronto. After some rigmarole I won't go into, I found, to my surprise, a mechanic open at 7:00 PM in the evening. They looked at the car right away, and traced the leak to the water pump. I left the car there and they kindly gave me a ride back to Danielle's neighborhood. I had been planning to watch Game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. By this time, I had missed the first period, but found a nearby bar where I was able to take in the last two.
Wednesday, I pretty much just sat around waiting for my car to be ready, which it finally was around 9:00PM. Thursday morning, I said my goodbyes and hit the road.
I figured I couldn't be an hour and a half away from Niagara Falls and not go check it out, even though it meant adding a couple hours drive time to my trip home. I'm glad I did, because now I never have to go back.
Seriously, the falls are pretty, but the area around it is a nightmarish tourist hell. If you're in the area, stop by to be able to say you've seen it, but don't plan on spending more than a couple hours. Whatever you do, don't pay the $18 to park in the lot for the day. On the, Canadian side, at least on a weekday, it's no problem to get a metered spot for $1.50 an hour, and you're not going to be there more than 2 hours anyway, remember?
With Niagara Falls behind me, all that lay between me and home was a 12 hour power drive. By 12:30 or 1:00 AM, Central Time, I was pulling into my driveway.
Wow, the last couple months are really kind of a blur. It actually feels weird to be home, to see places that are familiar. Just driving and knowing where I was going felt strange. It's a feeling I've gotten unaccustomed to. It's good to be home and see my awesome friends, but, already, I've got the itch to be on the road again....
Arriving back at Danielle's, I elected to move my car in order to avoid getting a second parking ticket for being parked on her street after 7:00PM. In the process, I noticed a HUGE puddle of coolant under the car, and that, despite re-filling the coolant, the engine just didn't sound or feel right. I decided then and there that I couldn't risk trying to drive home with the car in it's current state. I was going to have to get it looked at in Toronto. After some rigmarole I won't go into, I found, to my surprise, a mechanic open at 7:00 PM in the evening. They looked at the car right away, and traced the leak to the water pump. I left the car there and they kindly gave me a ride back to Danielle's neighborhood. I had been planning to watch Game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. By this time, I had missed the first period, but found a nearby bar where I was able to take in the last two.
Wednesday, I pretty much just sat around waiting for my car to be ready, which it finally was around 9:00PM. Thursday morning, I said my goodbyes and hit the road.
I figured I couldn't be an hour and a half away from Niagara Falls and not go check it out, even though it meant adding a couple hours drive time to my trip home. I'm glad I did, because now I never have to go back.
Seriously, the falls are pretty, but the area around it is a nightmarish tourist hell. If you're in the area, stop by to be able to say you've seen it, but don't plan on spending more than a couple hours. Whatever you do, don't pay the $18 to park in the lot for the day. On the, Canadian side, at least on a weekday, it's no problem to get a metered spot for $1.50 an hour, and you're not going to be there more than 2 hours anyway, remember?
With Niagara Falls behind me, all that lay between me and home was a 12 hour power drive. By 12:30 or 1:00 AM, Central Time, I was pulling into my driveway.
Wow, the last couple months are really kind of a blur. It actually feels weird to be home, to see places that are familiar. Just driving and knowing where I was going felt strange. It's a feeling I've gotten unaccustomed to. It's good to be home and see my awesome friends, but, already, I've got the itch to be on the road again....
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Backpacking Bruce Peninsula
On the Friday after I arrived in Toronto, Danielle and I drove up to Bruce Peninsula National Park, on the Georgian Bay, about 4 hours north of Toronto.
View Larger Map
Well, in theory, it's about 4 hours from Toronto. A few wrong turns and an overheated engine compounded to make it closer to 6 for us. Frankly, though, our "wrong turns" took us on a rather enjoyable and scenic detour, and, while I was pouring water into the radiator, a guy stopped to see if we needed help who was such a perfect Canadian stereotype I really regretted that it would have been such a faux pas to ask to take his picture. Really, my trip would have been less complete without either experience.
As the day progressed, we scaled back our plans a couple times. The initial plan was to hike about 8km to a campsite for the evening. Plan B was to drive to a different trailhead and hike about 3km to a campsite. When we arrived at the park, at 7:00PM or so, we drove to a car camping campground, and decided that would be a fine place to spend the night. :-) Fortunately, during the trip, we also discovered that, due to a mis-communication we had a day longer than I thought we did for the trip, so losing a day of hiking didn't impact our plans. I also had plenty of food in the car, so adding an extra dinner to the trip was no problem. Sometimes living in your car is awfully convienient.
Saturday morning, we decided on Plan B for our route and set out on the trail for a 3km or so hike to a campsite. There is no dispersed camping allowed in the park. All camping is at designated campsites with tent platforms and composting toilets. I'm not a big fan of the approach, but it is, at least, pretty well done. The campsites are pretty well spread out, so you're not camping right on top of anyone or anything, and the locations are beautiful.
There were lots of sea gulls
Some of them flew around
Danielle on the beach near our first night's camp
Geoff on the beach somewhere along the trail
The Massassauga Rattlesnake I almost set my pack down on (double-click to zoom in)
The tent platform
Pac-Man Heart
Indian Head Cove
Climbing around near Indian Head Cove.
I found out later that "bouldering" is prohibited in the park. Oops.
The sun sets on our first day out....
This tree fascinated me. It was it's own little eco-system.
It was obviously full of insects, which the woodpeckers had feasted on.
There were numerous fungi growing on it, slugs crawling around.... It was great.
In many places, there were enourmous rock shelters in the sea cliffs. Also, there were frequently these chasms in the ground where the rock had split apart, usually bridged in places by tree roots, and dirt. In one place, there were a couple of these these chasms that opened out into the huge rockshelter below! It was kind of creepy to be like 50 feet from the edge of the cliff, look down, and see daylight through a hole below you!
Loons (I think) hanging out on a boulder in the bay.
The coastline.
Kind of a crappy picture, but the only one I took of Dani and I together.
Sunset the second night kind of kicked the first night's butt
It was pretty seriously awesome.
View Larger Map
Well, in theory, it's about 4 hours from Toronto. A few wrong turns and an overheated engine compounded to make it closer to 6 for us. Frankly, though, our "wrong turns" took us on a rather enjoyable and scenic detour, and, while I was pouring water into the radiator, a guy stopped to see if we needed help who was such a perfect Canadian stereotype I really regretted that it would have been such a faux pas to ask to take his picture. Really, my trip would have been less complete without either experience.
As the day progressed, we scaled back our plans a couple times. The initial plan was to hike about 8km to a campsite for the evening. Plan B was to drive to a different trailhead and hike about 3km to a campsite. When we arrived at the park, at 7:00PM or so, we drove to a car camping campground, and decided that would be a fine place to spend the night. :-) Fortunately, during the trip, we also discovered that, due to a mis-communication we had a day longer than I thought we did for the trip, so losing a day of hiking didn't impact our plans. I also had plenty of food in the car, so adding an extra dinner to the trip was no problem. Sometimes living in your car is awfully convienient.
Saturday morning, we decided on Plan B for our route and set out on the trail for a 3km or so hike to a campsite. There is no dispersed camping allowed in the park. All camping is at designated campsites with tent platforms and composting toilets. I'm not a big fan of the approach, but it is, at least, pretty well done. The campsites are pretty well spread out, so you're not camping right on top of anyone or anything, and the locations are beautiful.
There were lots of sea gulls
Some of them flew around
Danielle on the beach near our first night's camp
Geoff on the beach somewhere along the trail
The Massassauga Rattlesnake I almost set my pack down on (double-click to zoom in)
The tent platformAfter setting up camp (and laying around in the sun on the beach for a while), we day-hiked up to Indian Head Cove and The Grotto. The unfortunate part of this is that these areas are also easily day-hiked from the car-camping area, so there were about a zillion other people there. The Grotto is a huge sea cave, that is supposed to be really cool, but we didn't really check it out much because it was absolutely swarming with people. Indian Head Cove, by contrast, was not so busy when we were there, and it was gorgeous.
Pac-Man Heart
Indian Head CoveThere was lots of rock that begged to be climbed, though nothing was terribly tall. Much of it looked like it would fall apart in your hands, but was actually more solid than it appeared.
Climbing around near Indian Head Cove.I found out later that "bouldering" is prohibited in the park. Oops.
The sun sets on our first day out....The next day, we packed up and headed about 8km down the trail to another campsite. It was a pretty short hike, but, although the terrain was reasonably flat, it was pretty rugged.
This tree fascinated me. It was it's own little eco-system.It was obviously full of insects, which the woodpeckers had feasted on.
There were numerous fungi growing on it, slugs crawling around.... It was great.
In many places, there were enourmous rock shelters in the sea cliffs. Also, there were frequently these chasms in the ground where the rock had split apart, usually bridged in places by tree roots, and dirt. In one place, there were a couple of these these chasms that opened out into the huge rockshelter below! It was kind of creepy to be like 50 feet from the edge of the cliff, look down, and see daylight through a hole below you!
Loons (I think) hanging out on a boulder in the bay.
The coastline.
Kind of a crappy picture, but the only one I took of Dani and I together.
Sunset the second night kind of kicked the first night's butt
It was pretty seriously awesome.On the third day, we hiked out in the rain (which, conveniently, didn't start until we had made breakfast and packed up the tent, which had dried out nicely after the first night's rain. The drive back to Toronto was pleasantly uneventful.
Eastern Canada Lightning Tour
Wow! It's been a while since I've posted. Sorry about that. I am writing this from the comfort of my home in St. Louis, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I left Maine June 1st, and drove to Quebec City. Customs had fun tearing my car apart for half an hour. I have my whole life in my car. Searching it had to be a daunting task. By the time they opened the top box, they pretty much gave up. I made arrangements through couchsurfing.org for a place to stay in Quebec. If you aren't familiar with couchsurfing, check it out. It's a cool community. So, I got to Quebec in the early afternoon and called Francis, who I had arrangements to stay with. We met and he showed me his apartment and then we met up with some of his friends and went to walk around old town Quebec City. Quebec was originally a fortified city and the stone wall is still there around the old city. It's pretty cool. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me, so do a google image search and pretend I took the pics. :-)
I had a very nice evening hanging out with Francis and company, then got up in the morning and drove to Ottawa, with a brief stop, on the way, in Montreal. I didn't really know where to go in Montreal, and ended up just wandering around the Olympic Park area, because I was lured there by this building:
I only had a couple hours, so not much time to explore. Oh well, I guess I'll have to go back another time.
I arrived in Ottawa around 5:00, and met up with Mike, who, once again, I hooked up with through couchsurfing. Mike had to go teach (he teaches English as a foreign language classes), so his roommate, Scott, showed me around the City. We walked down to Parliament Hill, then met with a friend of his and went to a pub for dinner and to watch Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals, which was great. I hadn't gotten to see any of the playoffs yet, and it was a great game.
The Library of the Parliament
The front of the Parliament building
Wednesday, I drove from Ottawa to Toronto, arriving at Danielle's in the early afternoon. I spent the next couple days hanging out with Danielle and exploring Toronto (well, more just wandering randomly trying to find my way back to Danielle's, but we'll call it "exploring"). Friday, we would leave for a brief backpacking trip in the Bruce Peninsula National Park, but I will get to that in the next installment....
I left Maine June 1st, and drove to Quebec City. Customs had fun tearing my car apart for half an hour. I have my whole life in my car. Searching it had to be a daunting task. By the time they opened the top box, they pretty much gave up. I made arrangements through couchsurfing.org for a place to stay in Quebec. If you aren't familiar with couchsurfing, check it out. It's a cool community. So, I got to Quebec in the early afternoon and called Francis, who I had arrangements to stay with. We met and he showed me his apartment and then we met up with some of his friends and went to walk around old town Quebec City. Quebec was originally a fortified city and the stone wall is still there around the old city. It's pretty cool. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me, so do a google image search and pretend I took the pics. :-)
I had a very nice evening hanging out with Francis and company, then got up in the morning and drove to Ottawa, with a brief stop, on the way, in Montreal. I didn't really know where to go in Montreal, and ended up just wandering around the Olympic Park area, because I was lured there by this building:
I only had a couple hours, so not much time to explore. Oh well, I guess I'll have to go back another time.
I arrived in Ottawa around 5:00, and met up with Mike, who, once again, I hooked up with through couchsurfing. Mike had to go teach (he teaches English as a foreign language classes), so his roommate, Scott, showed me around the City. We walked down to Parliament Hill, then met with a friend of his and went to a pub for dinner and to watch Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals, which was great. I hadn't gotten to see any of the playoffs yet, and it was a great game.
The Library of the Parliament
The front of the Parliament buildingWednesday, I drove from Ottawa to Toronto, arriving at Danielle's in the early afternoon. I spent the next couple days hanging out with Danielle and exploring Toronto (well, more just wandering randomly trying to find my way back to Danielle's, but we'll call it "exploring"). Friday, we would leave for a brief backpacking trip in the Bruce Peninsula National Park, but I will get to that in the next installment....
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