The North American West
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'The West is The Best'. The American West is my spirtual home - Stunning, Epic, Beautiful & SuperNatural. After 1700 miles of pure epicness I've come back to this wonderful city with no doubt 'The West Is The Best'. The shear epicness and magnitude of scope is unreal - from the vast forests, endless oceans, living deserts & monumental mountain ranges... this place is unreal.

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The West has always been in my dreams and after living here 14 years , exploring and experiencing the array of locations ... it's deep in my soul - which is nice :) .

Welcome To This Beautiful World

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Congratulations to Flemish Economist & Eastern Seaboard Indie Kid on the births of their beautiful twins - Cedrine & Nicholas. Yeah! Deep Love is in the air.

Big Up Your Senses

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Back in Vancouver. After a day in the office and after seeing all that super nature our soul needed a refresh . It was a beautiful evening so we headed off for a walk around the park. The hyacinth are in bloom - the air was fragrant and arromatic - the waterfall in the evening sun was soothing.

Hunger struck so we headed down to Punjab Village for some delicious all you can eat veggie-curry ... mmmm

Oceanside Paragliders

Paragliders spotted in the skies above Oceanside. This looks like fun!

Epic, Epic, Epic Pacific Northwest Trek

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With some time to spare in the US we decided to go and visit our friends in Southern Oregon, right next to the Californian border. We loaded up the car with snacks and supplies and headed down South following the coast-line all the way. We stopped off at all our fave spots, and new places of discovery. We've clocked in just over 1000 miles now and are making our way back North to Vancouver.

Southern Oregon is beautiful, especially so around Florence and the stretch from Port Orford to California. The forests are healthy and plentiful, the ocean vast and there's no towns for 100's of miles between. The rugged coastline is wilderness like and spectacular.

We had a great time with our friends look fwd to the day we can come back and visit.

Port Angeles, WA

Forks, WA

Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park, WA

Long Beach, WA

Port Orford, OR

Manzanita, OR

Oceanside, OR

Gold Beach, OR

Gold Beach, OR

Vancouver In Bloom

The cherry blossom's have invaded the streets of Vancouver. Spring flowers everywhere - delightful!

Puget Sound Sunset Dinner Cruise

After a monster road trip to Olympia, WA - mostly compounded by a 3 hour border wait (what!) we was more than happy to hear M's brother Captain Marco had planned to take us out on his boat for a Puget Sound sunset cruise.

It was just about perfect - sat on the boat hanging with our nieces and nephews watching the last rays of a super hot day illuminate Mount Rainier as the sillouette of the Olympic Mountains darkened.
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The sun went down, we got out the food and ate as a warm breeze blew over the sound - which was nice. I can't quite quantify why - but the light over the Puget Sound is really unique .. perhaps it's the reflected light from all the bays, lakes and inlets.

So Long, Grandpa J

M's Grandpa J passed away peacefully last night. One of the greatest honours in my life is to have met M's grandparents. Nature lovers, kind and generous people - I treasure the times I've spent with them both. Original homesteaders in the Pacific Northwest they built their own home and family around it.

Grandpa J was sweet, generous and warm hearted man with a million great tales about his adventures in life -- how he used to climb all the Washington Peaks, build bridges in Alaska, walk 100's of miles through the forests with his brother to Southern WA to visit his mother.

Black Mountain - Part Two

The previous show was so great I went to the 2nd show at the University. This night turned out to be a 'lads night out' featuring The Prof, Flemish Economist & DubmasterC. We started mid afternoon on Main Street, drank some tasty microbrews and watched the rain-fall.

Later in the eve we headed over to the venue. Only 150 people attended the show - not sure why, the night before was sold out months ago .. maybe it wasn't advertised. Their loss I guess, because we was treated to round # 2 of the sonic assault of Black Mountain. Once again the show was amazing - everyone loved it.

The drummer was rocking so hard he punctured the snare drum and had to loan the support bands snare. I have to applaud the sound engineer - the sound was flawless. Good times.

Black Mountain - Part One

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It's official - Black Mountain are my fave North American band. M and I headed down to the Commodore Saturday night and settled in for a tour-de-force sonic assault of musical perfection.

The band hit the stage around 11pm and got stuck into their new album. 1.5 hours later they left the stage to massive roars. The show was intense, not a bad song all night .. track after track of flawless reproduction of their songs. They truly are an epic band to see live. Steve McBean and Amber Webber are up their with Lennon & McCartney for being harmony heroes.

So who is Black Mountain? They are a local Vancouver band who debuted a self titled album several years ago to critical acclaim. They recently released the 2nd album and have been applauded by reviewers around the globe.

Facebook - 1 week in
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It's been an interesting first week. I've up'ed my friend count, found and re-connected with two old pals that went AWOL and been threatened with physical abuse the next time I set foot in England for deleting a comment. LOL.