Road trip USA: Part 3

Ok, it seems that I posted parts 1 and 2 three times, which is a bit odd. I think I pressed back instead of editing or something. Oh well, it's fixed now. The trip's almost done, but before the stunning conclusion in part 4, you'll need to read...

Desert detour
(Where the streets have no name)

Driving to Joshua Tree National Park took us away from the coast and into the desert regions of the California, erm, desert. We drove through the Coachella Valley, where I had spent a few days about a month ago, to arrive at the national park's southern entrance. Unfortunately, the ranger station had already closed. We got in without paying the parks fee, but we also had no idea what to do at the park apart from what our Lonely Planet guides told us. We soldiered on, however, and stopped at places that looked interesting, including a rather treacherous bit of road (due to road work) to a vista point that overlooked the Coachella Valley.

At that point, the sun was beginning to set, so we decided it was probably a good idea to head to our campsite and set up camp before it got too dark. When we got there, the campsite registration office had also been closed, leaving us rather confused on the procedure for pre-booked campsites. We headed over to the area where we were meant to camp and found it completely desolate. There were barely any facilities, which was to be expected, and there were also no other campers there. This made the landscape under the setting sun behind clouds look very alien, which was neat, but it also made things rather spooky. We were afraid we'd get eaten by coyotes or something. The registration office was closed when we left early in the morning, so we left Joshua Tree National Park as clueless as we were when we entered.

The next leg of the trip was the Grand Canyon, which we were hoping would have more people and give us more information upon entry. The drive to Arizona's most famous national park was quite uneventful with the exception of the car trouble that left us stranded for 4 hours. Almost right after we passed the California-Arizona border crossing the Colorado River, we hit an unavoidable (and quite random) piece of wood on the road, completely messing up a wheel, a tire, and our plans.

We called the insurance company that we took out the car insurance with and they said the earliest they could get a replacement car to us was four hours, since they would have to send it out from Las Vegas. Fortunately, a kind tow-truck driver named Carl saw us pulling over to the side of the road, and towed us to the nearest city, Lake Havasu City, where we would then sit and wait for our new car. We spent our four or so hours there buying more stuff for our trip (mainly really cheap air mattresses - floating swimming pool beds for $1.50) and rethinking the next few days of our trip.

By the time the new car arrived, we had decided to spend an extra night at the Grand Canyon so we would have more time to take in the sights, thus scrapping our venture to a couple of eastern Utah national parks.

The Grand Canyon itself was huge. To our relief, we saw that the campgrounds there were much more populated, meaning no more coyote scares. It immediately showed that this national park was much more popular and thus more organized than Joshua Tree. We didn't get to do much the first night, but we did visit a fair few viewpoints on the second day, and on the day we left.

The consensus we reached was that we would go on to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for the Friday night instead of going all the way to Moab to see Arches National Park, saving us a lot of time and gas money. We set up camp at around midday at Jacob's Lake, which was really just a tiny little pond in somebody's yard. In contrast to this anticlimax, the highly recommended cookies at the Jacob's Lake Inn were very good.

The North Rim of the canyon was better than the south rim for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the higher elevation meant cooler temperatures, allowing for lush vegetation in and around that region of the park. Secondly, since the northern part of the national park was less accessible from the south (about four or five hours drive from the South Rim), there were generally less visitors, which is always a good thing (except in the case of completely empty campgrounds).

We drove around, again seeing the view of the Grand Canyon from several points, then headed back to our campsite, where we had more cookies from the inn. Bryce Canyon was the next stop, this time being a very forgiving two and a half hour trip across the Arizona-Utah border.

Breathtaking is the perfect word to describe Bryce Canyon. The Grand Canyon may have been amazing in its scope, but Bryce Canyon's beauty was incomparable. The red rocks that got their colour from iron oxide blended with the white/gray sandstone in just the right way to make the rock formations in the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater truly a sight to behold. I wish I could have been here for longer to venture into the bottom of the canyon and see the rocks from there, or been here for the winter when, I would imagine, the cross-country skiing views would be unlike any other place on earth.

The last few nights of sleep had been in very cold conditions, I suppose due to the high altitude. Temperatures reached below freezing on some nights, and I found it hard to sleep with my nose and ears stinging from the cold. In stark contrast, it was very hot when we reached Zion National Park. We were pleased to learn that the overnight temperatures don't often reach under 60 degrees Fahrenheit (around 15 Celsius). The park itself was also different to the two previous ones in that it was situated within the canyon instead of above it like Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon were (well, you could go into the canyon in those parks, but they involved rather hefty multi-day hikes). Zion would be our final desert national park stop before heading to Las Vegas.

Road trip USA: Parts 1 & 2

Okay, I'm in the middle of that road trip right now, stealing wireless from some random campsite. I've been blogging every now and then about our adventures, and I'll be posting them in parts. This first one is called...

San Fran frenzy
(Scooter quest)

The road trip really began a few days before we got the car. Liza flew in on Memorial Day Monday, and after an early night, we commenced being tourists when we hit downtown San Francisco, doing a tour of the city's sights. We did the outer landmarks, including the Embarcadero, Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Liza also got persuaded into buying some lenses for her camera since they were being sold for a really low price at Fisherman's Wharf (in some cases more than half off of what she would have paid in England). Unfortunately, the weather was quite cloudy when we went, which is rather typical of San Francisco, so the photos that were taken weren't incredible. After a short photo shoot at the bridge, we decided to head home. We ended up taking a bus that ran for about an hour before it reached the train station, and by the time we got home, it was about 9 at night.

The next day was a bit of a mission to find some mini scooters. We hadn't originally planned to get them, but as we were walking to the bus stop in the morning, we saw a kid riding along on one, and agreed that it would save us a lot of walking, as well as provide a lot of entertainment. We reached the city a couple of hours before noon, and had a bit of a feed after checking out Union Square. The shopping mall where we ate (a Westfield, oddly enough) did not seem to have any of the scooters and, according to one of the clerks in the Volcom shop, there weren't any places nearby that sold them. Fortunately, she gave us an address of a shop that she thought might sell them, and it close to where we were headed, so we soon set off.

The next stop was Chinatown. Hiking was not something that we were very happy to do, as we were both tired from the previous day, but we braved the hills to reach our goal - the fortune cookie factory. It was just a little hole-in-the-wall in a small alley, and at first we couldn't really locate it, but a nice old man called us over and ushered us in, giving us a free hot sample to eat and urging us to buy a bag. I'm not really a big fortune cookie fan, but Liza loves them, so she bought a huge packet of them. The store that supposedly sold the scooters was nowhere to be found and, the two of us not wanting to climb any more hills, decided to finally head downhill towards downtown again.

We stopped off for a smoothie at Carl's Jr. then headed off back to the Golden Gate Bridge in the hopes of getting shots in better weather. However, that was not so easy. After looking for the proper bus stop for 10 minutes, we waited about another hour for a bus that never came. We decided that catching a different route would be the best idea, but that didn't quite work out as planned either. The next bus ended up getting delayed 10-20 minutes, and when we finally got to the bridge, we find out that the weather had not greatly improved over the past day. We took a few more photos both off and on the bridge, and finally headed home, a lot earlier than the day before, with no scooters in hand.

A ray of hope finally shone upon us when my aunt informed me that the nearby Target possibly stocked the elusive devices. Like little children on Christmas morning, the two of us got impossibly excited, topped only by our childish giggling when we finally bought the things that we had struggled to find all day. At last, success!

We didn't do much at all the following day. A bit of scootering around was about the extent of the excitement for that day, which mostly involved watching some TV and getting food.

We finally picked up the car on the first of June, the Friday, and we promptly loaded it up with food and water supplies as well as some of our bags. Liza got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road pretty quickly, and we once again watched TV for the rest of the day. That was, of course, until I went to watch Arcade Fire at Berkeley.

It was a rather stressful drive over to the UC Berkeley Greek Theatre. I was driving alone as Liza didn't really know who Arcade Fire were, and couldn't afford buying a ticket to the show anyway. It was all well and good until the start of the Oakland Bay Bridge, which had the most horrible merge ever imaginable. Combine that with a car with really bad blind spots, and it was a recipe for a bad drive. Still, I did make it to the gig fine, after about an hour of driving and 10 minutes of looking for somewhere to park. It was a really great set at a nice outdoor venue. I got home just past midnight to fall asleep for about four hours.

Part 2

Bad weather
(A cruise down the California coast)

The road trip proper began at around 6am on Saturday morning. Liza took the first shift of the driving, which ended up being a marathon 10-hour shift (stops included) as she didn't really feel like switching around. The trip itself wasn't too remarkable. We only did a few stops at some scenic points or points of interest, and stops for food and fuel. Fuel was quite ridiculously priced on the road, even more so than in San Francisco. We filled only as much as we needed at expensive stops, and as much as we could at the cheaper ones.

At the end of the scenic stretch of beaches in the south part of highway 1, we finally reached Santa Monica, quite earlier than we had actually expected. Despite Liza being stressed out by the city driving, and thus getting me to find parking once we reached the city, we still had enough time to check out the beach at Santa Monica. I went for a bit of a swim, which was quite pleasant. We went to bed kind of early to try to get up early for the next day of tourism.

The agenda for Tuesday was going to Hollywood in the morning, and then back to the beach in the afternoon, and to some extend that did go to plan. We made it to Hollywood at about 9:30 after a good hour of public transport. The main attractions were Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the walk of fame, and the Hollywood sign, which was barely visible through the LA smog. I gotta say that while the charm of Santa Monica has changed my view of LA, I still think that most areas are quite unlivable.

When we got back to Santa Monica in the afternoon, it was still rather cloudy, so instead of going back to have a swim at the beach, we instead decided to check out the Santa Monica pier, home of a carnival type atmosphere, and have a scooter around Venice Beach. It was an experience that was both relaxing and tiring at the same time. Due to this, we soon went to bed after having an early dinner.

Disneyland was the next stop. The cloud soon subsided once we reached the park and the heat wasn't very welcoming. We tried to stay in the shade as much as possible, sometimes even going on a long indoor queue for a ride just to avoid the sun. The theme of the day was breakdown. For some odd reason, 3 of the rides that we wanted to go on were at one point temporarily out of order. Space Mountain was the most notable because of the fact that we were walking around for about 3 hours doing random stuff while we waited for it to be reopened, which was a bit annoying, because Space Mountain is probably the best ride Disneyland has to offer. Rumour has it that somebody had gotten stuck on it. When it did manage to reopen, there was a stampede after somebody shouted "Space Mountain is open!" and the queue was cascading within minutes of operations commencing. We were lucky to have a 'FastPass' that got us to the front of the queue right away, which was handy.

We soon left as the sun started to go down, and went back to our hotel room across the street. It was very conveniently located, but rather expensive. After short tourist moments at Laguna Beach, which was plagued once again by the bad weather (it had actually started to rain when we got there) and San Diego the day after, we were headed into the desert, where the bulk of our journey would take place.

Random notes about stuff

Golf: Had my first ever swing at a golf ball today. 60 balls in fact. Had like 3 or 4 good hits, that was about it. Used a 7 iron. I'm a bit sore from it.

Awesome: I'm staying at The Canadian in Vancouver for a week in September. Looks frickin' spectacular.

Canada: Plans for my return to Canada are solidifying. Huzzah!

Public transport: In San Francisco seems excessively pricey.


That is all.

Road trip update

I guess I should do a quick update on what I've been doing in the past week... not a whole lot! The most exciting thing that's happened has been experiencing the tail end of the ING Bay to Breakers, a race similar to the Sydney City to Surf marathon, in that it's a race from the San Francisco bay to the beach at the end of Golden Gate Park via the streets of San Francisco, and involving some pretty damn wacky costumes.

On the most part, though, I've been planning the finer details of my upcoming road trip around the southwestern states of the USA. Since my previous post, the direction for the trip has been reversed to save a bit of money (cheaper accommodation at certain places on weekdays) and some stops (Yellowstone National Park being the main one) have been removed to make room for other stops that are not too out of the way. Most things (hotel/hostel accommodation, camping reservations, and car rental) have been booked with some things, such as first-come first-serve camping, being left to chance, just to make things a little more interesting.

The Internet connection where I am currently staying is a bit iffy at the moment, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me until mid-June, because the road trip starts in about a week and a half, and I don't know how often I'll be able to update, if at all, in that period of time.

San Francisco

Well, I've finally gotten around to uploading some photos, which can be seen here. Still no videos though (sorry)... I haven't really gotten a chance to convert any videos to any decent quality due to lack of hard drive space, but I'll see what I can do before the end of the month. In the meantime, enjoy the photos, and this short summary of what's been going on in the past couple of weeks.

Escape from LA

Los Angeles was pretty uneventful. The most I really did there was check out the public transport system and buy a book. I wasn't too interested in doing a lot of things in LA due to the pollution. Even on a sunny day, it still seems overcast due to the smog. I'm probably a bit biased due to the fact that I've gotten sick every time I've been to LA in the past (presumably because of the pollution) but I just was not motivated at all. I'll probably go back there to visit Santa Monica though (which I'll touch upon later in this post).

After the farcical experiences of the Amtrak delay and the Greyhound queue, I decided it would probably be best to pay a little extra and just fly to San Francisco. Getting to the airport was convenient enough. There was a nearby station that ran an airport shuttle for $3 one-way, which was quite a bargain. Peak-hour traffic meant that it took a little more than an hour to get to the airport, while a delayed incoming flight meant that the departure time for my flight was about half an hour late, but after dealing with a 10-hour lineup for a bus, I had definitely become a lot more tolerant for shorter delays.

The Bay Area

I was picked up from the airport by one of my many aunts that live in the San Francisco Bay Area and wasn't really given a lot of time to rest, as another one of my aunts was taking me to Monterey the next day. Monterey was pretty cool. A seaside community in an area full of quaint little towns and lots of golf courses. I visited the aquarium, which was cool albeit quite small, then went to visit a couple of the famous golf courses in the area, namely Spanish Bay and Pebble Beach. After that, we took a slight detour and visited Carmel, which was full of really old-school looking country homes, some of which looked like the stuff from fantasy books.

After a family dinner at a Chinese restaurant for my grandma's birthday, I went over to my cousin's place in the city, where I've been staying for the past week and a bit. I haven't really done too much so far. I've had a few short strolls in the city, but mainly I've been watching DVDs and reading stuff at the bookstore across the street.

It's a kind of exciting time to be in the Bay Area right now, because the local NBA team, the Golden State Warriors, are currently in the second round of the playoffs. Sadly, they're 3-1 down against the Utah Jazz after 3 mediocre performances in several departments, so they could go out as soon as tomorrow night. I'm hoping they win 3 straight to make it to the conference finals.

Road trip

While I've been relaxing a lot as of late, it should only last until the end of the month. At the start of June, Liza is visiting from England for her summer break, so we're going to hire a car and do a loop around the southwest. The current plan is to visit some national parks, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon, and also some cities such as Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. We'll probably loop back around through Los Angeles too, and have a look at Hollywood and Santa Monica, before heading up Highway 1, taking the scenic route back to San Francisco. It'd be harder to do than taking a bus tour, but it gives us more time to visit what we want to visit, instead of having to stick to a tight schedule and a fixed itinerary. I'm really hoping that the parking and camping isn't too rough.

Anyway, I guess that's it from me for now. If anything exciting comes up, I'll be sure to post something about it. Ciao.

Lack of postage

Due to computer issues of late (in particular, the laptop kept crashing due to a faulty driver), I have not had a chance to sit down and write anything of noteworthy length, nor have I been able to upload any recent photos. The problem has since been rectified, and things should be getting back on track soon. I'm hoping this weekend, if I don't party too hard.

Indio

Well, I'm back from Coachella, and had an absolute blast. The following is my full write-up on the event. It's not exactly a review of any of the artists that played (although I will have some opinions on that) but rather a recollection of my time there, just like most of my entries on this blog. Be warned, it's quite a long entry.

Day 0 (Prelude to a festival)

I woke up early on Thursday morning to try to co-ordinate where I would meet up with John, Kelly, and Cam. We decided to meet up at the LA Greyhound station at 2. That proceeded to fall to pieces the moment I got to the Greyhound station in Hollywood, where there were several bus loads of people waiting in line just to get to the LA station. Thankfully, there was a direct bus to Indio, which I only slightly hesitated to catch. I later found out that the LA Greyhound station was packed with people going to Coachella.

I got to the Empire Polo Fields at about 3 in the afternoon. The line to get into the campgrounds was pretty short at the time, and I got my bags inspected by security but had to stand there waiting for the others, as Kelly still had my ticket, including my camping ticket. I got a call from John at about 4 saying that they had just gotten on the bus at LA, which meant I needed to wait another 3 or so hours. The wait was both boring and interesting. It showed me just how badly organized certain aspects of the event was.

The Coachella campground queue

First of all, there were 3 lines to get into the campgrounds, nowhere near as much as there should have been for the amount of camping tickets they sold. At one point, the queue, which was mostly outdoors, in temperatures well above 30 degrees, was over a hundred meters long, and was moving very slowly. The flow problems came from the fact that the will call line was right past the security check, and a lot of people had will call tickets, so there wasn't a lot of wiggle room, which brings up another funny thing.

At the start, when it wasn't too busy, I was sitting down right past the bag check. A security guard came up to me and told me to move. He said that I was creating a fire hazard by blocking the way there. I can guarantee that if there was a fire, the huge amount of people packed together in a queue with two fences surrounding them would be more of a worry than a single person with 3 small pieces of luggage in an open space. It turned out that getting to the festival early wasn't really that much of an advantage, as I had to line up again once John and co. arrived. They got there at about 8 o'clock, and were also lucky enough to get dropped off at the campground like myself. It should have occurred to them that so many people were coming to the festival and arranged more chartered buses that would stop directly at the polo fields.

Once we got in, we set up camp and got some food from the overpriced food stalls and some beer from the overpriced beer garden. It's not much of a complaint, I guess, because it's to be expected that food and beverages at any musical event would cost a fortune. Our camp consisted of myself, John, Kelly, Cam, Natalie (who found us at the beer garden), and Jesse and Nick, two Aussies John and co. met at the LA station. We had a few drinks and went to sleep, looking forward to the first day of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2007.

Day 1 (Burn, baby, burn)

I was promptly woken up by the warm morning sun just before 7 and, although I was very groggy from the lack of sleep, I got up and prepared myself for the day ahead. When everybody was up, we decided that some shopping was in order. We walked over to the local grocery store and bought a few things for the next few days, then caught a cab back to the fields. It was still only 11 at the time, so we sat in the sun doing not much at all until we had the wisdom to head over to the beer garden for some shade. We went in at about 3, walking past the will call queue, which snaked around for what seemed like forever, and had a scout of the field where the festival was held. I felt sorry for the people in the will call line, waiting for their tickets for several hours, and potentially missing bands that they want to see. Yet another mistake on the part of Goldenvoice, the organizers of the festival.

The first gig I watched was Satellite Party. I was very amused by Perry Farrell's antics in between songs, and took note that the bassline in one of the songs was the same bassline from Hybrid's Dreamstalker, suggesting that Hybrid helped out on the album on more than one song (Wish Upon a Dog Star took its lyrics from Hybrid's Dogstar - a track that Perry Farrel did vocals for). The crowd went wild when they played Stop!, a Jane's Addiction song, and some people who had just gotten into the fields had thought that it was actually Jane's Addiction playing.

Perry Farrell and the gang

After Satellite Party finished playing, I wandered around for a couple of hours and eventually caught the end of the Arctic Monkeys. They were okay, but I was never a big fan, and the frontman didn't really have good skills in interacting with the crowd. I had dinner while listening to The Jesus and Mary Chain from afar, not knowing that Scarlett Johansson had supposedly gotten up on stage and sang with the band for a song. After JAMC finished, I went over to the tent where Peeping Tom was scheduled to play. Another celebrity popped up, when Danny deVito, dressed incognito, introduced Peeping Tom. Mike Patton entertained the crowd for the entire set, but was topped by the beatboxer in his band, who was unbelievable.

We all met up back at our designated meeting spot (in front of a couple of bins in one of the beer gardens) and listened to Interpol from a distance. Once Interpol finished, we went to try to get a good view of the main stage, and waited for Björk to make her grand entrance. Björk certainly did not disappoint and performed 16 songs, including many classics, some new songs, and an encore. The DJ was particularly impressive due to a device he was using, called a ReacTable.

Day 2 (Camping out)

I didn't see others for most of the afternoon on day 2. In the morning, a couple of the boys bought a gazebo for the campsite so that we wouldn't have to endure too much of the sun during the day. We chilled there for a while then headed into the fields at about 3 once again. I went to the front of the main stage, and found a good viewpoint, where I would stay for most of the day. I camped out at the front because I wanted to see Arcade Fire close up, and knew that it wouldn't be possible had I gone there later in the day. Regina Spektor was the first artist I saw from that position, and was really great. She seems like a really nice young woman, and played her uncompromising anti-folk music.

Regina Spektor sings a tune

Travis and Kings of Leon were next up, and were not too bad, but I've never been too fond of their music, so I just sat there relaxing, and observing the antics of the crowd, who were crowd surfing more and more as the day went on. By the end of the Kings of Leon set, there was a steady stream of crowd surfers getting yanked out by the security staff. Watching them kept me amused until Arcade Fire went on. Arcade Fire were, to put it simply, explosive. Their energy on the stage was electric, and the band brought the crowd along for the ride. Win Butler even got off the stage and started walking alongside the barriers where the people were. The only bad thing about the act wasn't the band itself, but the damn staff that were spraying the crowd with water. It was a good idea, but they neglected to pay attention to the people holding cameras, trying to take photos or, in my case at the time, videos of the stage. I was in the middle of recording a song they started spraying some water. Idiots.

Arcade Fire

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were on next, and the only complaint I have about them was that they weren't on last, which meant they couldn't go for longer or do any encores. Flea and John Frusciante jammed for a while before Anthony Kiedis and busted out Can't Stop. The crowd, as the cliché goes, went wild. The set was full of hits, with the notable exception of Californication. They did play Dani California, so they probably didn't want to overdo the whole California thing. Flea and John Frusciante did some wicked solos, and even sang a couple of songs by themselves. It has to be said that John Frusciante is one of the best, if not the best, guitarists today, maybe ever. Flea told a joke but stuffed it up. The joke was meant to be "What do you call a sheep with no legs?" ("A cloud.") Instead, he said "what do you call a dead lamb?" The crowd had a big laugh at it. I finally left my position at the front after the Chilis finished, and had a bit of a peek at The Black Keys and The Good, The Bad, and the Queen before heading back to the campgrounds early. All in all, another excellent day of music.

John Frusciante is an absolute legend

Day 3 (Rage against the Rage Against The Machine fans)

The third day of the festival was a bit strange. It was kind of a amplification of everything that was great about the festival as well as everything that was bad about it. It was the first day that we all got into the concert grounds before the first act. We saw Mika and Lupe Fiasco before going to the AT&T tent to use the net for a while. After checking my e-mail as well as the NBA and NHL scores, I headed back to the main stage to see Explosions in the Sky, an experimental rock band who were kinda cool. I didn't stay for the whole thing, though. After a while, I went back to the meeting spot, and met up with Nat.

Creed does indeed suck

We went and saw Rodrigo Y Gabriela, an acoustic rock duo, who were very good, and kind of set a theme for the day in terms of music - seeing a wide variety of music. After a couple of songs, we went to watch the Roots, who put on a great set. The notable highlights were a medley of various songs by other artists, and a phenomenal cover of Dylan's Masters of War. It was probably the best cover of that song that I have ever heard. The first part was sung to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner, which was pure genius.

I stuck around to watch Willie Nelson, which I was very surprised by. I hadn't really listened to a lot of his music before, but once he started he proved why he's been around for so long. There were a few solos from members of his family, including a blues number by his son. I was almost tempted to crowd surf just so I could say that I crowd surfed to Willie Nelson. I wandered around a bit after he finished, catching some of Placebo and José González, then went to see Crowded House.

Neil Finn and the gang played several hits and a few songs from their upcoming album, and was very well-received by all the Aussies and Kiwis. During Don't Dream It's Over, some idiot at the front decided it was a good idea to throw a water bottle at Neil Finn. It hit him and dislodged his microphone, so he needed the help of the crowd to sing the chorus while the mic was replaced. I assume that whoever threw it was a stupid Rage Against The Machine fan who had no sense or respect for other people's musical tastes. I hope that he got beat down by security. Neil Finn had a bit of a laugh about it after the song ended, saying "it was a good shot".

Neil Finn shown on the big screen

Natalie, Kelly, and I were all very pumped up after Crowded House finished their (unfortunately short) set, and all agreed that going to the dance tent to see Paul van Dyk was the best course of action. We stayed there for a few minutes, dancing our asses off, then did the same at the Do Lab, where the music was a bit slower, followed shortly by the Dome, where the DJ from Pendulum was playing some mad drum and bass. After the dance fest that lasted longer than expected, we sat down and watched Manu Chao from afar. There was a huge buzz in the air of the humongous crowd after Manu Chao finished in anticipation of Rage Against The Machine.

Rage came on and put on a great show, but I have to be unbiased and say that it was also a bit disappointing. The crowd was way too large to enjoy the performance completely, and there were a few sound problems throughout the set. When it started, the bass was barely coming through, and once they fixed that, the sound levels for Zack's vocals kept changing, and were sometimes inaudible above the music. It also kind of sucked that I had to skip Adam Freeland and Infected Mushroom so I could see Rage. Still, it was pretty good, and it was pandemonium when they played Wake Up to finish the first part of the set, then finished off the encore with Killing In The Name Of, ad-libbing the words "some of those that burn crosses are the same that hold office" into the lyrics.

We were all feeling pretty dead at the end of the day, but apparently others weren't feeling the same way, because people were partying hard until the very early hours of the morning. It was a good thing that I had earplugs, which helped out in getting me to sleep.

Day 4 (A long epilogue)

We packed up the campsite shortly after waking up and started heading to the bus station before hitching a ride from a local. There was a very long line at the Greyhound station, and only a few buses throughout the day headed to LA, so the others decided to get a taxi to Palm Springs and head to where they were going by rental car. I already had a return ticket, so I decided to wait around. It turned out to be a wait of almost 10 hours, with precious little shade during the middle of the day, and nothing to keep me entertained except for a deck of cards that I purchased after a few hours. I finally got back to LA almost 12 hours after I left the Empire Polo Fields, making for a very boring day of unnecessary nothingness.

After 3 very hot days (in more ways than one) of musical goodness, I ended up seeing around 25 acts (some I stayed for the whole way through and others I didn't), and the ones that stood out definitely made the festival worth the price of admission (which, due to bad timing in terms of exchange rates, was quite expensive) despite all the problems that could have easily been remedied by a bit of common sense. I guess, as was the mantra way back at the health and safety talk at Panorama, common sense is not that common.

I just realized that I've forgotten to mention the various art installations and demonstrations throughout the festival, all of which were very cool. I suck at describing stuff like that, so I won't attempt to try. The pictures should show off a few of them.

Indio overview

Days spent: 5 (although it should only have been 4)
Time spent waiting for something: About half a day (mostly in a queue)
Danny deVito spottings: 1
Theme song/s: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

The seedy streets of downtown Los Angeles

I was picked up by my cousin at the LA Greyhound station, which was located in a very shady area of downtown LA. On the day before Coachella, Jesse had mentioned that they saw a car chase in that area. Now it all made sense why. I stayed at my cousin's house for the night, and he showed me around the area in the morning before I headed back to my aunt's place, where I was almost bitten by the guard dog (random, I know). I later heard that there was a bit of a small riot during an immigrant worker demonstration in downtown.

Photos from the last few weeks of Panorama, the Whistler trip, and the day in Vancouver can be found here, while photos from Coachella, as well as other photos from the USA taken in April can be found here.

Southern California bound

I spent most the final day at Whistler packing my bag and relaxing at the hostel. I did end up going to the village to see some free outdoor concerts, for which it was drizzling, with the threat of rain. It was ironic that the bands that were playing that afternoon played some surf rock music. The first artist I caught was Hayley Sales, which I was very impressed by. She played some beautiful acoustic/surf rock and entertained the slowly growing crowd despite the threat of rain. I was so impressed by her band, in fact, that I decided to buy her EP at the merchandise tent for $5.

Next up, and the final band to perform at the outdoor music series for the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, were Aussie band The Beautiful Girls, and they rocked the crowd both soft and hard. I would say that it was a fitting end to the festival, but I had only really attended this event for the entire festival, so I can't really talk. In any case, it was a nice end to my Whistler trip. I caught the bus to Vancouver the next morning where I took care of some things early on before meeting up with the others who had just come from Whistler.

A long evening in Vancouver

After taking a quick afternoon nap in my hostel room, the Pano crew got together and invaded a nearby tattoo and piercing parlor. Six people ended up getting a piercing (myself not being among those six) and all of them were generally satisfied with their decorative yet pricey purchase. We all went for sushi afterwards (and oh boy that sushi was great) before heading back to the hostel to watch game 7 of the playoff series between the Vancouver Canucks and the Dallas Stars.

It was quite a spectacle watching a playoff game in Vancouver. Whenever the home team would score, you would know it, even if you weren't watching the game, because of the screams of ecstasy from pubs in the streets and the beeps of horns from passing cars. I did, however, watch the gripping final game of the series, and Vancouver ended up victorious 4-1, after 2 late open net goals.

We headed over to watch Electric Six afterwards, and marveled at the jubilation on the streets, as fans, both on foot and in vehicles, expressed their joy at their home team going on to the next round. I can only hope that I will be able to watch the next series, which will be against the Anaheim Ducks. On a slightly tangential note, it was good to see the Golden State Warriors not only make it to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years, but also upset the western conference's number 1 ranked team, the Dallas Mavericks, in the first game of the series. Maybe both of my teams can make a double against Dallas this year.

Anyway, we showed up at the concert just as the support act was finishing up. Much of the Pano crew was there, and soon after all of us had a Jager Bomb, Electric Six got on stage, and things started getting crazy. The band exuded a unique presence, something that I had not seen before, not even in some high-energy gigs that I've been to before. The mosh pit was not very big, but it somehow managed to be the most - I don't want to say violent, but I guess a word to describe it would be animated - crowd I have ever encountered. The fact that it was a small venue made sure that the craziness continued. The security was quite lax, and I ended up crowd surfing no less than 3 times without once being called to come down.

All in all, the gig was off the hook, and well worth the $20 cover charge. The group splintered off after the show, and a few of us decided to visit some bars. After a bit of bar hopping and a few more pieces of sushi, I finally ended up going to sleep at around 2:30, only to wake up 2 hours later to get ready to go to the train station to make my way to LA.

A long train ride to LA

I'm writing this while I am on the Coast Starlight train from Seattle to LA. This leg of the trip to LA, which will last about 34-35 hours, comes after a good 3-and-a-half-hour bus ride from Vancouver to Seattle at about 5:30 in the morning. I'll end up arriving in LA tomorrow evening at about 8, making it a bit of a marathon. Thankfully I've brought along a book and the new Pokemon game to keep me entertained, and will hopefully last me the entire trip. Otherwise, there's always the moving scenery, which reminds me a bit of the train trips around England and a around Wollongong. It's rather nice, but I'm much looking forward to getting off at LA so that I can finally make my way to Coachella. It's been a long time coming, and I'm quite excited.

Training day

This is my second stint on the laptop, writing a blog entry during this train trip, and I must say that I will be very happy once I get out of here. That's not to say that it's been enjoyable, because it certainly has been. I've seen some great sights along the way, and I've met a couple of Brits from Whistler who are also heading over to Coachella. The reason why I've grown rather tired of the trip is the amount of time in which the train is running late. As it stands it is somewhere between 2 and 3 hours behind schedule. What's funny is that apparently that's actually pretty good for this service. I've actually managed to finish reading Ender's Game (great book), volume 3 of Scott Pilgrim (which didn't really take too long as it was a graphic novel), and have made steady progress into Pokemon Diamond. It was certainly worth the experience to travel using this method, but next time I'll be going on the plane for long trips.

I live!

Short entry - I made it out of that train alive. Woohoo! Man, that was a painfully boring last few hours. Anyway, right now I have to hold up my laptop above chest level next to a door in order to get any wireless signal, so this update shall be short. At least the post itself was big. Indio tomorrow! I'll give a full Coachella rundown and hopefully a long-awaited picture update when I get back.

Whistler

The last few days of Panorama were probably a bit less bittersweet than expected, mainly due to the frenzy of packing and cleaning. In the end, it was a nice way to farewell the season. I had the last few days off work, which was really nice, and took some of the pressure off getting things sorted before having to leave. I pretty much had everything packed before the staff party, which was huge. Almost everybody was drinking out in the Great Hall deck, and there was a bit of skiing and snowboarding on the bottom of the hill too. There were a lot of emails exchanged and a lot of goodbyes.

The day after had a very familiar feel to it. Walking around the village was eerily quiet, with primarily staff wandering the streets, much like how it was at the very start of the season when we had all gotten there. It had come around full circle, and was kind of appropriate considering how the season had gone. A ragtag group of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and people from all over the world had come to Panorama to enjoy the snow. They had gotten that and much more, and the last day here was a reminder of just how that journey had started.

As the airport shuttle bus, which I had arranged for a handful of us, arrived at the staff lodging, it was time to say a final goodbye to the place which had produced so many memories, much of which will probably last a lifetime. A good 10 minutes or so passed after we loaded the luggage trailer as a huge round of hugs and farewells (and a few tears) commenced. It seemed for a moment that nobody wanted to leave, but once the van started, we knew that, at least for some of us, it was only the start of the adventure.

In my previous overseas trip, I had a small section to sum up each stop, and although I don't intend to do this for every single city that I visit during this trip, I decided I should bring it back, with some slight adjustments, for each significant leg of the trip. And so, without further adieu, I present you the new and improved travel stats section, version 2.0.

Panorama overview

Dates of residence: Dec 01, 2006 - Apr 17, 2007
Nicknames: Man-o-rama, Pano-drama, home
Days on the hill: 39 days snowboarding, 2 days skiing, 1 day Nording skiing, 7 days snowboarding at other resorts
Theme song/s: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here, Green Day - Good Riddance

Whistralia

After spending a night in Vancouver so that I could see Social Distortion, I headed over to Whistler to meet with a few of the Panorama crew, and it turns out that there are a fair few of us here. Another group of people that are featured predominantly in Whistler are the Aussies, hence the nickname Whistralia.

So far it's day 4 of my stay here, and it's been very enjoyable. The terrain here is just incredible, and I've been able to find some powder in the past few days. The unfortunate thing is that because Whistler is so well-known and well-renowned, it attracts a huge amount of tourists, meaning any run that is easily accessible is tracked out within seconds of any powder hitting it. You really need to look for the good spots.

Yesterday, I did some backcountry riding. It was great to get fresh tracks, but the 1 and a half hour ski-out/hike-out was more than a pain and a half. I was really exhausted by the end of it, and took it easy last night. It's about 12:30 right now and I haven't even decided whether or not I will go out on the hill today. I probably will, but not for very long.

Anyway, I guess that's it from me for now. I haven't had a chance to upload any new photos lately due to how busy it was before leaving Panorama, and the fact that there were a few power outages in that period that prevented Internet access. The next update will probably come when I hit LA or San Francisco.

Fun in the sun

Saturday was both national stretchy day and national one-piece day. This meant lots of wacky outfits out on the hill. Not only that, but it was also quite a warm day (and by warm I mean around 10-15 degrees) so a big group of staff got together in various forms of attire and had a relaxing sunbathe at the summit hut, which brought back nice memories of Australia Day. The most memorable moment was when MJ showed up wearing a maternity bathing suit... and not much else but his skis. Talk about one-pieces.

I did a bit of one-piece skiing myself, before I dressed up in a different kind of one-piece - an Easter Bunny costume. I worked as the bunny for a couple of hours on Saturday night for a kids event where they had inflatable playgrounds (which some not-so-young kids momentarily hijacked) and performers. It was quite a scary experience having so many kids have so many different reactions to you while in costume.

It wasn't as scary as the next day, however. I didn't need to put the costume back on, but I was 'hiding' Easter eggs for a big Easter egg hunt in the village. It wasn't exactly hiding because the kids would hound you the moment they saw that you were carrying around a bag full of Easter eggs. Those kids are good. After a while they would yell out, as if part of an angry mob, "follow that man!" Needless to say, I was relieved when the eggs ran out.

On Sunday afternoon, there was a big air competition out on the hill. I completely missed the competition due to poor anticipation (I left home too late), but I did manage to catch a massive snowball fight that happened at the end of the competition. It was great because it was still nice and warm and a large portion of staff had drawn battle lines and were throwing snowballs at each other. I eventually joined in, and didn't get wet until afterwards, when a few of us decided it was a good idea to toboggan down the bottom of Showoff (the ski run directly next to the Mile One Quad) using only a canvas banner. By the end of it, the four of us were unavoidably covered in wet snow. It was lots of fun.

Perhaps one of the finest periods of the week was Monday night - the final jam night of the season. I finally got up and sang for the first time in a long time, but the best bit was when a group of people from the housekeeping department (myself included) got up on stage and sang Stand By Me. It was very moving... but also mostly very amusing because we were all quite drunk. The other songs I sang To Her Door (Paul Kelly), Black (Pearl Jam), and Good Riddance (Green Day), and did an encore request for Ian (singing Last Kiss) before everybody got up on stage again at the very end and did a spectacular rendition of American Pie for the final song of jam night '06/07. I'm pretty sure a few of us woke up the building when we got home after singing American Pie again really loudly.

Quest for the cup

The Stanley Cup Playoffs started today. It was great to see hockey playoff action live on TV, something that I don't think I'll ever see again when I return to Australia (at least for as long as I stay in Australia). I was feeling a bit sick so I didn't stay up longer than about 10, right after the San Jose Sharks won a thriller double overtime game against the Predators. I figured the game that my team, the Vancouver Canucks, were playing (against Dallas) wouldn't really be as exciting, so I went to sleep. When I woke up in the middle of the night, at about 1:30, the game was still going, locked up at 4-4 on quadruple overtime. It was crazy, and I was glad that I managed to catch the end of it. The Canucks managed to get a goal late in the fourth overtime period to win the opening match in the series. At that moment, I knew I was definitely gonna miss the hockey on the TV.

I've got photos and videos of events described above, but I've been far too busy or tired to post any up. I'll probably have them up by the end of the week, as tomorrow (a.k.a. today) is my last day of work... which I suppose I should go back to sleep for. I hope I'm feeling better in the morning, because I sure need that money for my travels.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... again?

The weather is cruel. After almost all the snow had disappeared from anywhere in the lower village, the temperature dropped on Monday morning and gave us a huge dump of snow. Naturally, as is always the case on every powder day this year, I was working. The bad thing was that I couldn't get any time off work until Wednesday afternoon, so I only caught the back end of some awesome snow. Still, it was pretty sweet seeing powder this late in the season. I'm doubting it'll snow some more, but I've said that countless times in the past few weeks and the weather keeps proving me wrong, so anything can happen in the last week of Panorama's season.

"Spring" snow at the lower village

Photos from March can be viewed here.

Exodus

A considerable chunk of the 2nd and 3rd floor's residents left today. Ben, Leigh, John, Alex, and Shane all drove off for their road trip to various resorts on the way to Whistler (something I would have done if I weren't traveling around in the summer), and Kelly left to go home for a few weeks. So for the next 3 weeks it's going to be eerily quiet around the place. Mind you, it is only 3 weeks left, which in itself is kinda scary. It's really sad to know that our time is almost up, but it's gonna be a damn sweet period right after the season ends, with a week in Whistler, and Coachella almost right after, not to mention one or two gigs in Vancouver before heading to LA.

Ski free

I borrowed Jessalyn's skis for a day last week, and had a lot of fun learning on my own. I actually picked it up pretty quickly. I guess once you know the mechanics of one sport (i.e. skiing or snowboarding) then you can figure out the other easier than somebody who hasn't tried either. Anyway, after a couple of hours I was linking turns comfortably. The only downside was that I could go fast, but I had trouble stopping fast, so I was still very cautious, as there were lots of other people on the hill. Still, it was a great experience, and I can see myself doing more of it as the snow gets softer in the next few weeks.

More photos should be coming soon. I took some great shots when I went up to Taynton Bowl and rode some phenomenal powder last week.

Of course, it doesn't always pan out that way...

Well, just a week after the supposed end to winter conditions (and on the day that the season officially ticked over to spring, no less), the weather decides to pull another one on me, as the summit of Panorama got another dump of snow (about 15cm on Monday night, and more yesterday). I was working yesterday, and, despite it not being a busy day, could not find a way out of work, so I was looking out of the window all day and seeing the snow just puking from the skies. I guess that means that I'm going back up to the summit again after all.

To make things decidedly more interesting, I was (am) meant to go to Lake Louise today for a staff trip. It's $15 I'm thinking about throwing away for another great day of riding at Panorama. I was out bowling last night and told Alex and Shelley that I'd go riding with them today, so I don't exactly want to ditch them to go to Louise for a measly 10cm over the past 2 days, especially when Pano has gotten more snow in the same period of time. That's not to say that they'd pike too, but I'd still feel bad either way.

I still haven't made my final decision. It's 6:30 now, and the bus for Lake Louise leaves at 7:15, so I have about half an hour to choose between Panorama or Lake Louise. I'm kind of leaning towards Panorama.

Speaking of plans going haywire, it seems that even more people are leaving soon. It kind of sucks to see them go, but I guess people have good reasons to stay or to go (as is my case), and I'm gonna farewell everybody else in about 4 weeks anyway, so it's not such a big loss. I'm sure I'll see most of these folks again somewhere in the future.

The last beautiful day

Well, I think I'm done. I think I've gone to the summit for the last time of my stay here. It was almost a perfect ending to my season of doing runs from there too. It all really started two days ago, just before midnight, when, out of nowhere, it started to snow at the village again - something that Panorama hadn't seen for some time.

It continued to dump throughout the morning and early afternoon of the next day (which was yesterday). Add to that the fact that it was in negative degrees for the first time in a while, and it was a recipe for some fresh tracks. The only problem with this situation was that I was both working yesterday and was meant to work today. Thankfully, a series of events occurred that led to me being able to get the day off, and oh, what a day it was.

I didn't actually go riding too much today. I did two runs... one was a practice run while I waited for Taynton Bowl to open up, and the other was through Taynton itself. I had committed to this being my last run at the bowl (unless there's another massive dump of snow before the end of the season), and I wanted to make sure I had some nice powder for it, so I decided not to do Devil's Drop (which I had wanted to do all season) because it was too tracked out, as per usual. Before I headed out, I had an excellent sandwich at the Summit Hut, my last meal at the top of Panorama, and took in some of the beautiful scenery for one last time. It was a shame that I didn't bring my camera along, as it was a beautiful day.

Then, it was time for my last hurrah. It's still a month away from the end of the season, but I knew that this would probably be the last time I would bother to take three lifts up to the top. I took my time to scout out the tracks, and eventually found some attractive powder in between Kinbasket and Whitetail, two of the last runs down the bowl. I didn't hesitate to strap in and there began my final descent, making some fresh tracks and surfing some nice fluffy snow. I was not only riding through good snow but was also riding really well. It was so good that I decided not to go up again, in the fear that I'd have a bad run and spoil my big finale.

It doesn't mean that I won't be going riding at all for the rest of the season, though. I will still do a lot of riding, but I'm probably going to restrict myself to the bottom half, cruising through groomers or getting better at the terrain park. And, of course, there's staff trips, and my end-of-season trip to Whistler. But it's goodbye to the summit of Panorama, at least for 2006/07... I know I'll be back here some day.

KA-SMACK!

My very massive bail about a month ago can be seen here. Enjoy.

Slush

Conditions have been deteriorating over the past couple of weeks, and in more ways than one. First and foremost, spring has decided to come particularly early this year. There's still been some precipitation on the mountain, but the state of the runs are what you would see in an average Australian season - ice or slush - because of the increasing temperatures that haven't allowed for any decent powder. The champagne and summit runs were closed for the first time since the start of the season yesterday due to high winds, and will probably close permanently some time soon due to the lift operator staff thinning out (as a lot of them have left or are leaving).

That seems to be the general theme around work lately. A lot of people are taking off early because for some it's not really worth it to stay - there's not a lot of good snow anymore, and there's only about 4 weeks left in the season. The lifties in particular have been hard hit, and they've had to poach a lot of housekeepers to keep their numbers up, which has meant that we've been losing lots of staff too. Not only that, but a good portion of the support staff in housekeeping have left for other positions or have headed home. It's gotten so bad that I'm taking on a different position tomorrow, just for one day, because the new trainees for that position are still being trained, and are all off tomorrow.

The bad conditions have also thrown my goals out of whack. I no longer intend to ride every run on the mountain because of the cover becoming thin and exposed, and have become consigned to the fact that my 75% coverage will have to do. I've also stopped at 5 other resorts visited throughout the season, as I can ill-afford trips to any of the resorts that are a little further away (with the exception of Whistler after the season). I have a feeling that I'll be back to visit some more resorts somewhere down the line, just not this year.

As for my plans for the season, I have all intentions to stay until the end. I need to save up some money for my post-season travels, and it would be mighty handy having a few more paychecks, and to get my bonus too. They're not making it an easy decision though... there's a staff day on the day after the season ends, which means people would probably head off on the day after. The bad thing is that the buses stop running on the day the season ends, which means a lot of people would be stranded here. I'm trying to get a charter shuttle going from Panorama to Calgary Airport, but it would cost too much if we don't get a full shuttle. I'm hoping for at least 3 or 4 more people, because it would then be worth it to get one. Otherwise, it'd be a free-for-all on the 17th of April to get on that Greyhound to Calgary, which would then be followed by an expensive taxi to Calgary Airport.

The post-season

In any case, my plans for where to go after the season ends are solidifying. Some travel details still need sorting out, but the locations I want to visit are pretty much locked in.

I fly out of Calgary on the 17th, going to Vancouver then heading straight to Whistler for 5 days, as I get 5 days free at any Intrawest resort for finishing my contract (another reason why I want to stay until the end of the season). After that, I'll be heading from Vancouver to LA (by plane or train - that hasn't been decided yet) then catch a bus to Indio for Coachella. I'll probably hang out in LA for a few more days after Coachella, then go to San Francisco for a month or so. I've got tickets to see Arcade Fire at the Greek Theatre in Berkley (which is near San Francisco) on June 1, which I'm really looking forward to, even though I'm already seeing them play a condensed set at Coachella. I then head to Chicago for a few days in mid-June, followed by New York, then to Montréal for the International Festival of Jazz.

Montréal is the first stop of my eastern Canadian adventure, where my goal is to try and visit all the eastern provinces, as well as major cities like Toronto and Québec. Speaking of Toronto, I'll probably be visiting the city twice. The first time will be around the time of my birthday, because I've booked tickets to go see Roger Waters there, and the show just happens to be on my birthday. The second time will be around early September, when I'll be in town for the Toronto International Film Festival. I'm very much looking forward to both of those trips. My last stop will be Vancouver, which is convenient because my flight to Sydney leaves from Vancouver, and because the Vancouver International Film Festival takes place not too long after the Toronto one. I'll probably visit Vancouver Island while I'm there too, as I hear it's beautiful there.

I don't have a great deal of new photos, and most of them are of people partying, so I won't bother uploading them yet. I'll put up some new ones when I get some good shots.

Canadian vacation

I ended up getting a room at the Banff Center's Lloyd Hall for around $70. It was twice what I would have paid at a backpacker's hostel, but all the ones in Banff were booked out for that day. The good thing was that it was a nice little hotel room. It obviously had to be classy-looking because of all the international conventions they had at the Banff Center.

After checking in at the hotel room, I headed into town for some dinner. After seeing the big line-up at The Keg (steakhouse), I went a few doors down to the Elk & Oarsman, a pub and grill. I had a bison burger, which tasted quite nice. Afterwards I ran into a trio of travelers from New Zealand and proceeded to get drunk. There was a guy playing tunes on the stage and knew some NZ and Aussie songs like Crowded House and Paul Kelly. I eventually got drunk enough and went up on stage and sang a couple of songs (rather badly), and I got a free Jager bomb from the barman for my troubles.

Mike turned up at the bar after he finished work, and after a couple of drinks we went across the street to Tommy's, a nice little pub, for a couple more drinks. We had a few games of darts and eventually headed back to the Banff Center with Mike's girlfriend, Lindsay. We hung out for a bit then I crashed at my hotel room until about 10 in the morning.

Splurge!

Despite the late start, Sunday was a pretty full day. I took a scenic trail over into town, which was great. I hadn't done a walk (as in, a nature walk type of walk) in some time, so this was a nice scenic experience. I saw the Banff Springs from a distance and eventually ended up in town after going along the Bow River. By this point, I was pretty hungry, so I stopped over at Evelyn's Again, a coffee chain in Banff (the chain is called Evelyn's, this particular one was Evelyn's Again, the third one in town is Evelyn's Too). The food there was pretty average. There was something advertised as an Aussie Meat Pie, which was nowhere near what an Aussie Meat Pie should be. Needless to say, I was not very impressed with my purchase.

The Bow River meets the bridge at the end of Banff Avenue, and makes for some good photos

What I was happy with, however, were my other purchases on Sunday. I bought some new DVDs and, after meeting up with Mike, some new clothes. I finally bought those gloves I've been looking at buying for ages, as well as a new tuque (what Canadians call a beanie), a shirt, a sweater, and a windproof North Face shell, which was the most expensive of the lot. I won't even say how much I spent on that day of shopping, let alone for the entire trip. It had to happen eventually though, I had been planning to buy new stuff for a while.

At the end of the day, Mike and I were very tired for reasons we could only attribute to the energy drink we had earlier in the day. We lounged a bit at Mike's room then went to see a show at the Banff Center. We saw Mae Moore and Lester Quitzau, a Canadian folk-pop duo. They put on an incredible and entertaining show that everybody in the small intimate audience really enjoyed, myself included. The plan afterwards was to go to Aurora for 25c beers. Sadly, there as a DJ playing that night, and they were charging a big cover charge and coat check fee, so we just went to McDonald's for dinner and went to Tommy's again, where the drinks were also fairly cheap. It was an early night out as we wanted to go to Sunshine for a full day of snowboarding the next day.

Monday was pretty straightforward day to explain. We woke up early, snowboarded until about 4:30, had dinner, and went to bed. An entire day of riding really takes it out of you. Mike and Pat took me out to Sunshine's backcountry, which is not nearly as good as some of the stuff we have inbounds at Panorama, but was still a fun adventure. I started becoming comfortable with jibbing small features in the middle of runs, which we don't really have here at Panorama.

Mike and Pat hike up to do a kicker at Sunshine's backcountry

More complications

I had a long, albeit interrupted, 12-hour sleep and woke up just as Mike was going snowboarding and Lindsay was going to work. I left and took the scenic trail to town again, this time to have breakfast at a much nicer bakery-style place, the Wild Flour. I generally just had a stroll around town and ended up on the other side of the Bow River, doing the start of the Bow Falls trail. Unfortunately, the rest of the trail was closed off for reasons unknown. Consequently, I just went to the Fairmont Banff Springs instead. It's much more grand up-close, and the inside was just insane. There were probably more rooms and more shops in this huge castle than there was in the entire Panorama village. I'd like to think that one day I can afford one or two nights in that place.

They don't call it the 'Castle in the Rockies' for nothing

I headed back downtown after checking out the hotel and had a milkshake from Cow's, which Reader's Digest had once highlighted as having Canada's best ice-cream. I must admit, it was pretty darn tasty. My next stop was meant to be an art gallery at the Banff Center, where I would hang around for the next couple of hours waiting for Mike to get back from snowboarding. Alas, the gallery was closed for the day, and I just sat around the lounge area outside Mike's apartment reading Popular Science and Ender's Game for a couple of hours. Mike was stuck in Sunshine until about 4:30, so when Lindsay got back, she let me leave my stuff in their room while I went out and got dinner.

I had dinner at The Keg, which had one of the most phenomenal steaks I have ever eaten. I had their biggest cut of prime rib, which was 14oz, and it was juicy and tasty all over. The accompanying baked potato was also about as great as the steak. After chomping down this huge cut like a machine, I walked back to the Banff Center to get my stuff. I caught the taxi to the Greyhound station early so that I wouldn't miss the bus, which seemed pointless later on as the bus showed up about 30-40 minutes late.

As we approached Radium, I turned on my phone (which was running out of battery) and tried to make some calls to get a lift back to Panorama (the last bus to Panorama was 9:05, which I was not going to make even in the bus from Banff was on time) but alas, the phone went dead before I had any success. At this point I was consigned to the fact that I had to hitch a ride back up, which would have been hard at 10 at night. By sheer luck, when the bus pulled up to the Petro-Canada station in Invermere, Justin, one of the people from the cash office at Panorama, was waiting there. He was picking up his friend from Toronto, who had just flown in, and so I was fortunate enough to be able to get a ride up from him.

Right now it's back to the normal routine. I was slow at work yesterday due to exhaustion from the Banff trip, and today I'll probably only go riding for a couple of hours before calling it quits. I got a whole weekend of work ahead of me, and I don't wanna be feeling dead for that busy period. New photos are finally up on my Photobucket album for February. The video of me crashing spectacularly at the terrain park should be on Ben's website, but I don't know the URL for that yet.

Banff

I have nowhere to stay tonight. I'm currently in Banff, at the Banff Center, anxiously awaiting on whether or not I can find some lodging for the night because, due to certain complications, my first night's accommodation has fallen through.

Complications

It all started when I woke up late for the bus (as I had mentioned in my post this morning) and had to end up hitching down to town. After about 10 minutes of waiting by the side of the road watching a very small number of cars pass by as I stuck my finger out, a nice man from Calgary (with a rather nice BMW) stopped and told me to hop in. We had a chat, as you do when you get a ride from somebody, and before I knew it, we were at the Petro-Canada gas (a.k.a. petrol) station where the Greyhound buses stopped. I hung around the general area for an hour before going back to the station to wait for the bus, which was, naturally, about 10-15 minutes late.

I caught a bit of sleep on the bus, and when I woke up we were getting close to Banff. Last night, Justin told me that Mike could no longer give me some accommodation for Banff for tonight. I was originally going to stay at Zach's place, but he was going to Edmonton tonight, so I decided I'd try Mike. Alas, that fell through, so now I sit here at the lobby of Mike's accommodation, using the Internet, as I wait for him to find me some slightly less free accommodation at the Banff Center (where he works and lives). Fortunately, I hear it's quite a nice place since they have lots of important international guests visiting here on a regular basis, so maybe it'll be a bit of money to buy a bit of the experience. Anyway, I have to wait for Mike to go on his lunch break before he can try giving the reservations desk another call (as he got put on hold for about 10 minutes just before he had to start work).

To go on a bit of a tangent, but still sticking to the general theme of things not being as simple as they could be, I decided to buy a board bag today. I figured that I'd be needing one for the end of the season when I set off on my adventure and have to haul off my two boards, bindings, and boots, among other things. All the ones that I had seen so far at other places had been too large for my board, so I decided that Banff would be an ideal place to get some more variety in terms of size. I ended up buying an LTD board bag... just a cheap padded carry-on bag (i.e. no wheels). However, it wasn't my first choice. There was this really cool looking Drop bag that I bought, but once I got my board in there, it turned out that the handle was a bit off-center, making it a bit of a pain to carry around. The good thing was that the LTD bag was the same size and the same price, so I went for a straight swap for it. Should teach me to look more closely next time.

Action plan

I'm not sure if I'll get much done today. It's already 4:45, and I'm still waiting on that accommodation to be sorted out. Assuming it does get sorted out, I'll probably just take a leisurely stroll around downtown Banff and maybe buy a couple of items I've been meaning to buy for a while, mainly gloves since mine are breaking apart. There's always tomorrow to do some more shopping (which was one of the main purposes of this trip). I'll probably also get some nice food to eat for dinner, as I am quite famished. I only had a sausage and egg (and hash brown) sandwich for breakfast, and a few snacks for lunch, and the greater variety of food establishments that Banff has compared to Panorama is calling out to me. Mike finishes at midnight tonight, so we'll probably end up going out late. Not quite sure where the night will take us, but it'll be short (bars close at 2) and hopefully pretty damn sweet. The big night will be tomorrow night, when Aurora serves 25c beers, kinda like Cowboys in Calgary but with bigger glasses. Time to get drunk on a dollar again.

The plan for Monday is to go to Sunshine Village for some backcountry snowboarding. Since Mike's a local, he knows all the sweet spots that not a lot of people go to. Jacky, Andy, Tyler, and possibly a few others might be coming to Sunshine on Monday too. I'm not entirely sure that I'll go again on Tuesday. I've only got a reciprocal letter of introduction (for free lift tickets) for Monday, so getting some tickets on Tuesday might be a bit of a hassle. Another hassle is going to be getting home on Tuesday night. The Greyhound gets to Invermere at about 9:30, and the last bus back to Panorama leaves at 9:05. I'm hoping that I can get a ride back from one of the people coming back from bowling.

Oh yeah, speaking of which, there's now a regular bowling get-together every Tuesday. I obviously won't make it this Tuesday, but I went last Tuesday and it was great fun. It's not your regular 10-pin bowling though. This was a Canadian variation on the well-loved sport... 5-pin bowling. It's pretty crazy. You get 5 pins positioned in a V-shape (each pin worth a different amount depending on position), 3 shots at knocking them all down (like regular bowling, you get a strike if you get them all on the first, and a spare if you get them all on the second), and have to aim at these targets with a ball that is about half the size of a regular bowling ball, and has no holes. It certainly takes more precision aiming to get a good score in this variation of the game. It's just about as fun as 10-pin though.

I guess I should get going soon. I gotta wait for Mike for any updates, and I've been hogging this computer for about an hour now. Ciao.

Marathon man

Well, I survived the craziness of working 8 days out of 9, and came out of it in one piece. I am, however, incredibly exhausted and just missed the bus to Invermere that I needed to catch. I guess snowboarding all day on Thursday didn't exactly help.

It all started on that fateful Thursday of last week when I started work, when I thought I'd be working my longest shift ever. Alas, I was mistaken as, after 6 days in a row of hovering around the 10-hour mark, and about 6 or 7 hours of snowboarding on my day off, I experienced a true marathon of a 14-hour shift yesterday. I came home at 11 at night, which threw my plans for Banff completely out of whack. I was meant to sleep early so I could catch the 7:40 bus to Invermere and wait for the Greyhound over to Banff, which leaves at 10:25. Sadly, I woke up at about 7:25 and couldn't be bothered walking over to the bus, which I probably would have missed. The current plan is to hitch a ride down, which usually works out. I hope it does again today.

The actual marathon was meant to happen on Thursday, when I had planned to do a 9am to 9pm snowboarding bonanza. It was all talk though. I was dead tired by 4, and Mark, Jacky's friend, hurt his shoulder on a run, so everybody decided to call it a day early. I guess it was a good thing, as I wouldn't have lived through that 14-hour shift if I had boarded 12 hours the previous day.

Anyway, I better start heading off and try to hitch a ride down to town. Photos when I get back, I promise.

Ch-check it out

Well, I ended up getting that job. They started me off on the same day that they told me I had the job, so it was a bit intense. Add to that the fact that it was a fairly busy day and it all equated to a 12-hour marathon of work. I was actually going to finish at about 7:30, but there was a bit of an emergency at the last minute, which I volunteered to help out in, and I ended up finishing at 9 on the dot, quickly rushing to Laura's going-away dinner soon after, for which I was about an hour and 10 minutes late for. But anyway, I guess it's pretty good that I get paid for 12 hours on a higher rate than what I usually get paid for... and that's just my first day for the week.

The annoying thing is that I gotta work for the next 6 days, making it a full 7 days in a row. It only really sucks because the heavens have finally opened up today and is giving us some insane snowfall, and by the time I have a day off to go snowboarding, all the snow be chopped up. It's a really busy period too, so any new snow is almost guaranteed to be tracked within days of fall. My only hope is that it keeps snowing until Thursday (or it snows HARD on Wednesday).

Road tripping

The Fernie trip on Monday was pretty epic. The resort had gotten 11cm overnight for a 24 hour fall of 14cm, so everybody on the bus was pretty excited to have a great day on the slope, and it certainly didn't disappoint. I rode with Nugget for most of the day, and he's a bit of a crazy snowboarder, so we did some pretty crazy stuff. The most memorable run was the short but oh so sweet ride down one of the Knot Chutes, which were some crazy double black chutes off of one of the ridges. We also managed to get stuck in a creek (with no paddle) after going too deep into some trees. We somehow managed to navigate our way out of there. All in all it was a crazy day, and I was just so tired by the end of the day that I completely skipped jam night.

I went on a bit of a road trip on Tuesday. It was an impulse decision after finding out in the morning that Tyler and Andy were driving Georgie to Calgary (with a slight detour at Banff) so that she could catch her flight home. The general plan was to drop Georgie off then go back to Banff for some sightseeing and shopping. Unfortunately, as we were leaving the Calgary city limits, Tyler's car had a bit of a cough up and the 4-wheel drive gave way. It was still fine in 2-wheel drive mode but they didn't want to risk prolonging the trip so, apart from a stopover at the mechanic at Banff (which was just about closed), the side-trip was canned.

I was meant to go to Lake Louise yesterday but decided not to after feeling lazy in the morning. I got up early, but unlike the morning of the Fernie trip, the snow report on the net wasn't that appealing. It was only about 3cm overnight, and the weather was freezing, so I decided to just surrender my $15 (which is what it costs for a staff trip to another resort - quite a bargain) and chill out at Panorama. I did a few runs, trying out a smaller board that Becky donated to me, and decided to call it a day early on. I ran into Leigh and Ben and we hit the park for the last run of the day. It turned out to be a bad call, as I had a massive bail (caught on camera too) off one of the jumps. Nothing broken, but I got a bit of whiplash and a few bruises.

I'll try to upload that video and some new photos this weekend... if I get the time. It's going to be the busiest period for the resort since Christmas, so it should be a hectic few days in a new position. Talk about trial by fire.

Worn out blues

It's been another full-on week. I had two days boarding at other resorts (Fernie and Kicking Horse), two days of pretty long days at work, and another two days at work when it was fairly quiet. The other day was spent at an interview and in town. The interview went pretty well although I won't find out who they decide will get the position until next week. I hitched a ride to town (I love how easy it is to get a ride down to Invermere) and spent about 60 bucks on groceries, mostly consisting of various meats that will hopefully last me for the next few weeks.

The trip to Fernie was pretty good despite the icy conditions. I spent most of the day doing groomers and had a few runs at the terrain park too. I can definitely see how the resort would be great on a powder day. Kicking Horse had some pretty epic terrain too. The visibility was pretty bad but that was because it was snowing all day, which made for some pretty sweet riding. The only really bad thing that happened that day was Denise having a huge crash. She got a concussion and was taken to the hospital as a precaution. Fortunately, it wasn't anything major.

I have the next three days off, two of which will be more staff trips. Tomorrow shall be a return to Fernie, where it has been snowing on and off for the past week, and on Thursday, I'll finally go back to Lake Louise where it probably won't be as good as it was the first time I went, but hopefully it won't be icy either.

The vibe around the staff housing has been getting a bit weird lately. There have been a lot of parties but they have mostly been for people leaving, so it's kind of a bittersweet feeling. A lot of the people are going back to Aus or NZ because of uni or because they simply want to get on with their regular life. It's strange to see people leaving so early when it's only just halfway through the season.

Going to California

Plans for my post-season travels have been uncertain due to the many options that I've had to choose from... until now.

Earlier in the evening, Ben, John, Kelly, and Leigh were making plans to see Tool in San Diego at around mid-March. I was tempted to go but wasn't sure because of the total cost of that trip, which would have had to have factored in return travel (bus to Calgary then plane from there), concert tickets, and accommodation. I then decided to research other bands who were on tour, and found out that Arcade Fire were doing a few dates to promote their upcoming album, Neon Bible.

The tour date that caught my eye was their appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Coachella have had pretty solid lineups in past years, including some of my favourite bands. I decided to investigate further, and to my amazement, I read through one of the best festival lineups I have ever seen. I had no other choice but to throw caution to the wind and commit to going to this event. The 3-day pass and camping fee alone is around $400 [side-note: I speak in Canadian dollars because that's what is most familiar to me right now] but the 3 headlining acts (Björk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Rage Against The Machine) themselves makes it worth the cover charge.

I guess the loose plan right now will be to visit some relatives in LA and take a 4-day side-trip to Coachella. There's about 6 of us that are going so far. I think most of those people are taking a week-long trip to Mexico right after the season ends, but I don't know if I'll join in on that. It'd probably be a good idea to save some money after that $400 splurge, especially if I want to see a specialist about this rib problem. I'll definitely need to start dipping into the Australian bank account some time soon.

Curling is a dangerous sport (and other winter adventures)

On Sunday, some people from housekeeping and guest services, along with a few others from a variety of departments, went to Invermere for some curling. Curling is one of those sports that you wouldn't think would be very interesting but, upon closer inspection, is quite a neat little game. I would equate it to lawn bowls, with the obvious differences of the lawn being sheets of ice, the balls being stones, and the people sweeping to help the stones along.

Anyway, during a few practice games, I got a bit too enthusiastic about sweeping the ice, and slipped over, falling on the stick, with the stick hitting me square on the ribs. It's been hurting ever since, and was probably not helped by the fact that I took on some more physical activities this week.

On Monday, we had the weekly broomball game where, quite spectacularly, we lost 1-0. Drama was added to the game late in the first half as I scored a goal that was soon disallowed because the ref couldn't see the goal too well (which I thought was a bunch of crap). I was pretty angry for the rest of the game, especially after the other team scored. By the end of the night, the pain in the ribs was intense.

I wasn't going to do anything on Tuesday, but ended up going out to buy some new bindings for my board and tested them out for a few runs. A couple of weeks ago, I had a huge crash on a run rife with moguls. I flipped over a few times and ended up landing on my board. The front strap of the back binding (probably the weakest part of the bindings) ended up snapping, and I had to ride down to the bottom with one dodgey binding. It wasn't really too bad because it was the front strap, and I guess it was bound to happen eventually, seeing as I got those bindings about 6 years ago. Anyway, the new bindings ('06 Burton Cartel) feel so much better than the old relics that I used to ride with (Burton Custom from ages ago).

I wasn't going to do anything on Wednesday, but again I strayed from my plans and went ice skating on Lake Windermere. Cara, my supervisor, knew somewhere to borrow some skates for free, and it was free to skate on the lake, so this helped my current financial situation. Oh, and it was lots of fun to go ice skating again, and with a bunch of friends too. The only downside was that the ice was a bit uneven. That, and I was quite tired by the end of it. Read as: ribs hurt like hell.

They were very sore again today after a few hours of Nordic skiing (aka cross-country skiing). A few of us that went ice skating yesterday decided to give Nordic skiing a try, and we went on a couple of the easy trails, which weren't all that easy due to a few big dips. There were several spills but nobody was seriously hurt and the general consensus was that it'd be great to go again some time.

One of the many great views witnessed while Nordic skiing

Today is also the end of my 3-day weekend, and I now have 3 days straight (possibly more, depending on next week's roster) of work. Fun times. I applied for a different position within the department that has slightly better pay and a bit more consistent hours, so I hope I get that. Otherwise, I'll probably be applying for a transfer to a different department as soon as the 3-month probation period is over (around the start of March) because my current position just isn't getting me as much money as I would like.

$1.86

That's how much I owe the company after rent was taken out of my last pay. It could have been a lot worse, I guess. It's still a bit annoying though.

Earlier in the week there was a staff trip to Kimberley, another nearby resort. We were lucky enough to catch it on a powder day. Unfortunately, I had, in the previous day, accidentally left my board and gear at the office. Consequently, I was riding with Jacky's board and boots all day, which felt a bit weird.

Yesterday saw a massive party at Paradise as the Aussies (and a few non-Aussies too) listened to the Triple J Hottest 100. It was a grand time, matched only by the BBQ today, followed by beers at the summit. As the new batch of photos will reveal, we hoisted the Australian flag up at the summit and generally had a ball.

That's it for now. I'm about to go to an Australia Day party at the Crazy Horse. Hopefully it'll be good, though I won't drink a great deal due to aforementioned money issues and work tomorrow.

Ain't nothin' goin' on but the rent

Well, after (somewhat) recovering from that illness that I had last week, I found myself in the unfortunate position of having 3 out of my 4 days at work with very little to do. I didn't work a great deal of hours, and I'm unsure on whether or not I'll make enough to cover rent.

One of the better things to come out of this week is my new guitar. It's a 1/2 size acoustic guitar that I got from eBay for about 40 bucks, and it's great to finally be able to play some songs in my spare time.

Dave called me the other night to catch up a bit. I was half asleep when the phone rang but couldn't sleep after the call after finding out that a good mate's sister had recently passed away. It's that kind of news that you don't want to hear, especially when you're overseas. You feel so helpless when all you can do is make a phone call and see how they're going.

New photos!

Yay.

The Internet is still as slow as ever in our building, but thankfully, it's working perfectly in our sister building, Paradise (FYI, our building is called Monument), so I've taken the liberty of uploading some photos with their connection. As always, they can be found at this location. Here's one I prepared earlier...

You're probably wondering one of two things right about now: 1) What the hell is he wearing? and; 2) What the hell is that thing next to him?

First, let's go into the story of the suit. I bought this suit waaaay back at the start of the season. It was the week leading up to the '80s theme party, and I desperately wanted to find some really cheesy '80s style fluro ski suit. Out of sheer luck, I found a proper heli-skiing one-piece suit at just about my size at the children's consignment store for a very reasonable $25. I picked it up without hesitation and was quite pleased when I found out it was actually quite a warm and waterproof outfit. In fact, it's a bit warmer than the ski jacket that I brought with me. It's also good for riding in powder because you don't get any snow down your pants (because it's a one-piece). I've been wearing it more than my normal ski gear due to the amount of powder we've been getting.

Now the deal with the wolf in the Santa suit is a bit more straightforward. This was on Christmas Eve when I went riding for a bit in the morning then headed down to the village to chill out for a bit. I found out that Santa was going to be around, and ran into this mascot walking about. I just had to get a photo with it. It turned out there was an actual human Santa as well, but that wasn't nearly as fun as the costumed wolf Santa.

I called in sick again today. I worked yesterday but didn't feel the greatest and couldn't really get a lot done, so when I woke up today, feeling a bit better but still not the best, I decided not to risk overexerting myself for another day and just took the day off. I'm hoping I'll recover over the weekend. I guess I'll just have to pay for rent out of my pocket for the next pay period. The good news is that I got about $360 today (pay day), so I have a tad bit of wiggle room for the next bunch of weeks, as long as I don't splurge too much.

Crazy days and lazy days

It's been more than 2 weeks since my last post, which is probably due to the craziness of the past few weeks. Work has been really busy, and in between work were New Year's celebrations. My first day off for the week was Saturday, and I spent that snowboarding and generally being lazy.

Work has been okay lately. It's been really busy, and I've been really slow, but I'm told it's better to be slow and get everything done than cutting corners to be quick. It's not earning me a lot of dollars, but it's not too bad. Still, I wouldn't mind getting a different position.

Snowboarding-wise, I haven't really gone too often lately, mainly because the resort has been pretty busy, and it's not really worth it to go out a lot unless it's a powder day. I've been trying to cover much of the resort's runs so that I could claim I've done all of the runs by the end of the season. It's looking pretty good so far, but there's still a fair bit to go.

My other mission is to visit as many other resorts as possible. That started on Tuesday, when I went on the staff trip to Lake Louise. The trip wasn't as great as I would have hoped, mainly due to the fact that I've been feeling pretty sick lately. I had almost no energy during the trip and only managed to go up 3 times before giving up. On the plus side, I did have some incredibly tasty (albeit incredibly pricey) prime rib burger.

At the end of the day I had worked up quite a fever and ended up calling in sick today, although half of the reason why I called in sick was because of a temporary limp I had acquired from playing in the staff broomball league. Broomball is a game that is pretty much a bastard child of field hockey, ice hockey, and football (aka soccer). It is played, oddly enough, with brooms and a ball. Similar to ice hockey, you can bat the ball down with you hand, but only the goalie is allowed to grab the ball. Like football, you can kick the ball, but you can only score by using the broom.

Anyway, a teammate and I, and a player from the other side, were all going for the ball. My teammate accidentally hit me square in the calf, and it's literally been a pain to walk ever since. I still have a bit of a limp, but I'll probably go to work tomorrow since I only have 2 working days left (requested the Lake Louise day off and had today off sick), and I want to make rent for the next pay period.

Despite the minor misfortunes of late, it had just recently hit me that I am living in a beautiful and friendly mountain village where I get to snowboard often and am surrounded by great people. Life is good.

Photos may be delayed for a bit longer, since the Internet connection seems to be moving along at a snail's pace lately. It really sucks not having admin or physical access to the router to be able to mess around with settings and whatnot. I'm just mooching off the other staff building's net connection at the moment.

Oh yeah, I hope everybody had a great Christmas holiday period and a safe New Year.