more stuff we did on my friend's kid's spring break

Also, while my friends were here, we headed up to one of my favorite places, the Coombs Old Country Market. So many renovations over the winter, and this was my first trip of the season since it opened again last month. I could stay all day and spend a fortune, if I had time enough and money. But, I don't. Have time enough and money, that it. So we stayed just for one afternoon, ate lunch there and spent too much money anyway. There is this old bus graveyard along the way. Must be 15 or 20 of these old double-decker sightseeing buses parked side by side by side. They might have once been used in Victoria or something. I don't know. But I can't seem to pass them up without stopping for photos. I don't know how many photos I have taken of these buses over the past four years. Too many to count.

I always have the wish to take one of these and make a guest house out of it. I would need a bigger yard, that's for sure. Maybe someday. Or? Maybe Michael and I will live in one someday...move out to the boonies, live on a converted bus in the trees near a river, never see another crackhead or deal with city planners with no insight. Never have to move a hooker along from working in front of my neighbour's six year old daughter again or have to throw up my hands in exasperation of the idiotic endeavours of yet another social service agency so focused on their idea of what is best for their clients(and their own paychecks) that they can't see the damage they are doing to the neighbourhood.

Maybe we could move so far away that....never mind...sorry. I digress.

I woke up grumpy today after dreaming all night about the 7-10 Club going in across the street.

And about seeing John Horn, our secretive, behind-closed-doors-kind-of city social planner, across the street, too...only that part wasn't a dream. That really happened. It's infuriating that the City, in any way, shape, or form, is looking to either condone another social service or help fund a social service in this neighbourhood (given every study the city has paid for says it's a bad idea), let alone in a building owned by one of the city's most criminally negligent and ethically corrupt landlords. The City should be walking the heads of every social service agency through the rest of Mr. Saroya's holdings so that they can see just what type of person they are dealing with...housing so filthy and gross nobody should be allowed to live in it, let alone PAY to live in it... direct deposit from the government, in most cases...and just how much does the city spend each year in dealing with his properties? Emergency calls? By-Law calls? Police? Health code violations? Etc., ad infinitum ad naseum. Blah blah blah.

Dangit....I digress again.

I am so tired.

Anyhow, it poured and snowed and sleeted and hailed on the day we went to the market, but the skies broke sunny and warm long enough while we were there to enjoy the whole touristy-kitschyness of the place.

The goats came out.....they live on the roof there, ya know? Well, not this one. He was in the yard. Isn't he a doll? Don't you just want to bring him home with you?!? Me, too!!! Me, too!!!

We also went on a new walk. One that I hadn't been on before. I was inspired by Olly.

It's not that easy to find directions to this place. Halsam Creek. And then, after you find directions? It's still not easy to find. The directions do not say that you have to go through a rock quarry and an active logging sight( not so pretty)... that there will be no signs pointing you towards something as nationally unifying as the Trans Canada trail.

We had to stop someone on the road, and he said "just go up this road...."

"Past that giant KEEP OUT sign?" I asked.
"That doesn't mean anything," he said. "Then you just head up the road and there's a place to park, some signs...you can't miss it."

"Thanks," I said.

He doesn't know me very well.

I guess he meant this 3 inch by three inch sign 15 feet up the tree, on a craptastic logging road and the place to park was the wide spot that barely looked like a pull-out.

Or maybe he meant this sign....no expense spared on the Trans Canada Trail markers, now. Is there? But we had to backtrack to find them at all cuz we did miss it....despite him telling us that we couldn't possibly miss it. So we took a wicked ride along some bumpy logging roads. My friend's kid was having a good time with it. I just kept praying we wouldn't be swallowed up by one of those potholes up there.

Eventually, we figured out that we had overshot the "well-marked trail" and retraced our route until we found the two-year old, winter and rainy-seasoned Sharpie Sign pointing out the trail.

Finally we found what we had to set out to find.

The suspension bridge.

Cool, eh?

Looking right from the middle.....

Looking left.

Turns out, once you have walked 1.5 Kilometres down the trail, there is a really nice signboard with a map that shows the way to walk all the way from the Sharpie Sign to here and then, eventually, here. Two of my favorite dog walking spots. Maybe we should try to make that whole hike one day...one very long strenuous day.....

So, okay, speaking of dog walks, I better get out of here...got to get a move on today so I can rest up before my running class tonight. Ugh.

And I better get out of here before I start ranting again, too.

I need to save all that up for my letters to the City Social Planner, City Council, the papers, VIHA, the 7-10 Club.....I don't want use up all my big words here, now, do I?