The
Squamidian Report – Feb. 6 / 10
Issue #402
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
So here we are, only days away from the Winter Olympics and there is no winter in sight. The organizers keep assuring the world that everything is under control and ready to go. How anyone could ever think they could hold outdoor winter competitions in and around Vancouver is now and always has been baffling. I think I mentioned that they have reverted to ‘Plan B’ for snow prep at Cyprus on the North Shore Mountains above Vancouver. That’s where they are using helicopters to bucket in snow from higher above and drop it onto the bed of straw they have laid down for the events at that location. Well, get this… now they are trucking snow in from Manning Park. That’s about an hour east of Hope making for a 3-hour ride for each load of snow. How much is THAT costing us taxpayers considering the fact that they are running a fleet of trucks around the clock for the next week or more? If I had to guess, I’d say about a thousand buck per load!
The security end of it is certainly in place and ready to go. The whole area has been in lock-down mode for a month now and each day the screws get turned tighter. The military has taken over the outback and the airspace. We have fighter jets patrolling the sky above us. The only possible reason is to intimidate the locals into keeping out of sight. We have helicopters flying in formation watching every back road and back yard. The really amazing thing is that these guys are armed and ready to use those arms. There are also several thousand land based security personnel in the area. The powers-to-be have parked a cruise ship (that our tax dollars have paid for and brought all the way from Greece) at the docks in Squamish to house all those security people.
In a lot of ways we are lucky here in the Squamish area. The important powers-to-be have for the most part over looked Squamish and have dismissed this area as unimportant and of no use to the Olympic effort except as a bus parking location and as a base for the military. They would have preferred to bypass Squamish all together but to their dismay we are here and can’t really be moved out of the way.
Kind of funny how the weather works and we see this type of winter over and over again. When many parts of the great white north have an almost non-existent winter, parts of the world that normally have no winter experience sever conditions. Little to no snow and above normal temperatures in the north often means blizzard conditions in California and North Carolina and freezing conditions in Florida. No winter in Canada often means deadly winter conditions in Europe and Japan. The dumbest part is that we all seem to forget that this happens over and over, has been doing this for centuries. It is not all of a sudden new and earth shattering. It is simply cycles within cycles.
Snowless winter in the north, snowy way down south and in parts of the world that don’t usually get any.
*
Had a chance to go for a ride up onto Brohm Ridge with Warren on his quad. Now as you know, I just finished talking about the fact that this is a snowless winter around here but that does not apply to the high country inland from the coast. Up on Brohm there is a lot of snow. The stunted alpine stands of trees that are twenty tall are barley sticking out of the snow. The wind has carved depressions in the snow around the trees creating holes that you would not want to fall into. But the scenery up there is great.
Warren has a set of tracks he installs onto his quad for winter riding. He removes the 4 wheels and puts on 4 tracks that give the machine incredible traction and floatation. It’s the floatation that lets the quad go the places it goes over top of deep soft snow.
We trucked the machine from Warren’s down to the Cat Lake road and then drove on up the Brohm logging access road to a convenient level area where we could unload. From there we saddled up rode on up to the snowline and then just kept on going. The further up we went the deeper the snow became. It was like riding out of spring and back into winter. Once up on top of the Ridge we rode around enjoying the snow and the view. One of the interesting things about riding over top of very deep snow is that it lets you go places that you could not go if the ground was bare. The terrain would simply be too severe, too broken and rough to cross even on foot but the snow smoothes out and bridges the topography.
Took a few pic: http://www.thedougsite.net/Brohm%20Ridge/Trackquading.html
doug
THE ONTARION
REPORT
Hello
everyone!
Here are a
few words from the beautiful sunny south! We arrived in Pensacola Beach on
Monday around 1pm and without incident during our drive. We encountered some
snow the day after it fell on Nashville. They had their two snow plows out for
24 hours ahead of when we arrived and managed to clear the right hand and
center lanes of their 4 lane highway passing on the outskirts of the city and
both shoulders and the lane out from them were crusted with 4” of hard packed
snow that the plows didn’t get. As we were driving along at 70mph an SUV was
about 100m ahead of us in the center lane and we were in the lane to his right.
Suddenly a red Pontiac Sunbird passed us in the rough curb far left lane
thumping it’s way through the left over snow and ice when without warning it’s
left front wheel caught a ridge and the car was spun and bashed nose first into
the guard rail and then sent catapulting in front of the SUV and across all 4
lanes, bashing into the curb lane concrete wall flat on the drivers side. She
was about 75 m ahead of us so we didn’t have to take evasive action. We just
watched the action from our vehicle.
The driver
was slammed around pretty good and the SUV was stopping to help so we just kept
moving so the traffic behind us wouldn’t hit us in the ass end and cause more
problems. I hope the driver was ok and it looked to us that she was moving
around as we passed her shattered car. They don’t know how to drive in that
sort of weather and obviously they don’t have enough equipment to clean the
roads of properly either. Oh well, the rest of our trip was calm and trouble
free. We took three nights to make the drive and slept in three nice Comfort
Inns along the way. We arrived as I said in Pensacola Beach around 2pm Monday.
Our condo is amazing and is on the 8th floor of a 16 story building
right on the beach. We are in the eastern most of 5 building in the complex and
have 12 miles of white sand to the east of us before seeing any more buildings.
This sand is divided by a two lane road. We have a
direct view of the Gulf Of Mexico across the street
from us and to the left when looking off our balcony, that’s NORTH, we see the
bay that’s between our narrow island and the mainland. The sand is pure white
like out Canadian snow and the island is covered with 1000-year-old natural
dunes with sea grass and sea oats growing sporadically throughout the area.
We’ve been told that even in the busiest time of hear the beaches are very
sparsely populated. I guess most of the people are older in this area and are
more beach walkers than the kind that lay out all day in the sun.
I haven’t
started my metal detecting yet but there sure is a lot of area to cover over
the next month. This condo resort has pretty much everything we could want. We
have restaurants, a complete fitness centre and the use of kayaks, bicycles, snorkeling
equipment, surf boards and paddle boards as well as Cabana’s for rent to keep
us out of the sun when we do want to just sit on the beach and enjoy the Gulf.
Luckily Carole thought to bring the binoculars along so our view from the
balcony is even more interesting. This morning I watched as two huge war ships
from the US Navy passed by about 5 miles off shore. There is a US Naval Air
Base on the far eastern end of this island (Portofino Island) that also has
accommodations for Naval ships. As Carole and I enjoyed a cup of tea on the
balcony I scanned the shoreline with my binoculars and spotted two bottle nosed Dolphins swimming and fishing about 5 m off
shore. It was amazing to see them just out in front of our buildings beach.
It’s really cool to see such different sites from what we’re used to. We’ve
spent today just hanging around the condo and resting up from our drive south.
Tomorrow we’ll start to explore the island and it’s offerings. We went out last
evening after unpacking and did some shopping for groceries,
after all, we are here for a month! We were in a store called Publix. It’s a
standard grocery store and we were surprised by the cost of things here in
Florida. We were told things were cheaper than in Canada but we sure didn’t
find it that way. LOL! Carole commented that we haven’t spent that much on
groceries in years! Our final bill was just under three hundred dollars by the
time we loaded up on eatables as well as other household needs such as soaps,
condiments and other standard pantry stuffs that one has on hand most times and
doesn’t have to purchase every time they shop. At least we can do our own
cooking and don’t have to eat out every time we get hungry! Of course we’ll be
doing a fair share of that too! It’s becoming an adventure without even leaving
the condo.
*
It’s now
Friday evening and we are hangin’ in just fine! This
place is a virtual paradise! We had what was supposed to be a big rainstorm
last night but it fizzled out after flooding Louisiana and Alabama next door. We
got some rain but it wasn’t much to speak of. The Gulf was raging with huge
waves but that was just because of the wind. I haven’t been out with the metal
detector yet but will get out tomorrow for sure. The bigger waves from last nights storm looked good for what they call washing up new
deposits on the beach. The sand was quite visible in the waves and we could
watch from our balcony as they deposited new sand on the beach and washed away
the old stuff too. I’m hoping that the storm washed up lots of “Treasure” for
me to fine with the detector. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted as to what if
anything I find tomorrow.
That’s it
for this week folks!
Thanks for
tuning in and I look forward to talking to y’all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now…. Greg.
PS:
Something To Think About>
The very week we arrive here in Florida and look forward to swimming in
the Gulf, there’s a fatal Shark attack! Yikes!
Have a good one..
the doug
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