October 18th to 21st BISHOP, CALIFORNIA

Amazing! We’ll write more later, but for now its just pics…we haven’t been around the internet for quite a while now, but we loved reading all the emails from home, and we are having a great time. More to come…were off to Las Vegas to gamble our lives away!

P.S. John and Jon, we want to wish you both a happy birthday. We're sorry we cant be there to celebrate with you, and do it up right. However we're thinking of you both! Take care you two! We'll talk soon.

October 17th

Right now we are driving, a couple hours out of San Francisco, driving past vineyard after vineyard. Jeff and I (Matt) are knockin’ off a pack of grade A beef jerky (a road trip essential). It’s hot and sunny, about plus 20. I want to briefly recap on our past couple days:

In Jed. Smith State Park we spent the day walking around the campsite, then drove the coast for a bit, looking for a certain trail, called the Boy Scout Trail. We stopped at a couple beautiful beaches, with big rolling waves. There were a few people surfing at the beach outside of Crescent City. After driving for a few hours looking for this hyped-up trail, we finally found it once we were nearly out of gas. All the while we drove through amazing scenery lining the banks of the Smith River. We FINALLY found the trail and it was so beautiful I can’t explain it. The forest was prehistoric in appearance, with thick, beautiful ferns, clover lining the forest floor, and moss covering everything else in sight. Most of the trees were a few hundred feet tall. The thick canopy allowed only slivers of light to stream down and illuminate the misty air. In other words the struggle to find this trail was well worth it.

Tomorrow we are off to Bishop, California to do some climbing…we are getting stoked to see this legendary spot. The weather is getting hotter, and our tans are slowly getting darker. Holly’s busy lathering us with sunscreen though, so no golden brown surfer-boy for us.

October 16th

The morning after the rainstorm was clear and sunny. We could actually see that Lincoln City was directly on the coast (literally). After finding access to the local beach, the three of us spent some time walking around, and marveling at the ocean before we started a long day of driving.
The coastal highway is awesome for passengers, and a little stressful for the driver! I try to avoid driving as much as possible…it’s nice that there is three of us so we can at least trade off. Really, the pictures don’t do it any justice, but we tried to put a variety on for everyone to enjoy. We spent the whole day driving along the coast of Oregon before finally reaching our destination in Northern California – The Redwood National Park. We camped at the Jedidah Smith Campground. It was so beautiful and quiet. The campground was right on the edge of the Smith River, and is full of gigantic Redwood trees.
Matt and Jeff confirmed our suspicions that we have been carrying a stow-away or two with us from Squamish, BC. An unnamed member of the rodent family has been quite busy caching food in the engine of our car. The boys are going to get to the bottom of this problem tomorrow night when we get some traps.

October 15th

Well, we got persuaded to stay an extra half day in Victoria after a long night involving cards, and local brew (thanks Schissel and Chelsey). We took Schissel to the local gym for a climb, and had lots of fun. After saying our goodbyes to the Schiz we packed our stuff (which we have become incredibly efficient at…by the way), and headed to Port Angeles to catch the ferry down into Washington. We just barely made the ferry since a lot of people had already made reservations on it. The ferry ride was beautiful again, and the boat was a lot older, so it had quite a bit of character to it.

Surprisingly we were NOT strip searched at the customs office Victoria. I know that we certainly don’t look like suspicious characters, but the fact that we have that car jam packed made us a little nervous that they would want to rip it all apart. They did turn an eyebrow up at us however when Matt and I informed them that we are two young people coming into their country for 2 months…and have no jobs waiting for us when we get home. We had to sign into our online banking to prove that we had enough money to support ourselves. Then the Customs officer in Washington wanted to know the same thing, but he didn’t make too big of a fuss. (I may have let a few comments slip out of my mouth to reassure this guy that we aren’t trying to smuggle ourselves into the country, and we have NO intentions on becoming Americans…I think he was scared of my massive biceps).

We drove south through Washington (and partway into Oregon) late into the night before stopping at Lincoln City, Oregon, at a cheap motel to escape the downpour. We thought we could just drive through the rain, but it didn’t work. The sleep on a real bed was amazing…I don’t think I moved all night.

Schissel…thank you SO much for all your hospitality and tolerance of us! We all loved Victoria, and you were an excellent tour guide. Hopefully we can return the favour someday.

Erin, I’m so glad to hear that the shower went well! I wish I could have been there to see you in all your bow hat glory! Hope everything is going well in Edmonton. Say hi to Steve!

October 14th, 2006 (PART II)

Holly here.

Well, its our last night in Victoria, so this might be the last post for awhile...

Our time in Victoria has been fantastic, and today was no exception. We spent the afternoon at Sooke Potholes Regional Park. It was very quiet and cool today, but still very beautiful. The main attraction of the park is the 'pothole' formations that have occurred through geological formations in this river system. We spent most of our time crawling and scurrying along the rocks like little crabs on a beach (we must have looked like five-year-olds). Jeff even brought his swim trunks and swam through a rock tunnel at one spot! The water was so cold...I thought he was going to die! But we had lots of laughs, some looking at slugs (see pitcure) and lots of exploring.

A personal highlight for me was seeing a Bald Eagle gliding through the river system as it carved its way through the land. The bird was very low, and probably looking for something to eat. It was so big, and beautiful and powerful...somehow it takes my breath away everytime :)

I've posted some pictures of the day for everyone to enjoy. I've enjoyed reading everyone's comments on the blog, and I hope that my words find everyone doing well.

Take care!

October 14th

Hi to everyone at home, I hope things are going well, and that La Ronge is not snowed in yet (for your sake Mom). Lecia, the three of us want to wish you a happy birthday and hope you and William have a safe trip home!

The ferry trip over was beautiful, it was neat to see such different coastal geology and landscape to that of Sask. We also stopped in Nanaimo to visit 3 old friends, professors at Malaspina University College, who led the field trip in Belize which Holly and I both attended. It was great to see you guys Ed, Tim, and Wendy. It just so happened that when we showed up they were having a meeting with students to discuss the 2007 trip, that was a crazy coincidence!

We're having a great time hanging out with an awesome host. Matt (Schissel) has taken us out on the town, showed us some cool shops, climbing areas, scenic areas, and has introduced us to his crew. Jeff now refers to Victoria as his future home. There are nearly enough Starbucks to satiate his appetite for pumpkin spiced lattes, nearly…

Climbing has been nice here too, there's a neat outdoor bouldering spot in town called Flemming park that we checked out, right on the ocean. We also had a long session at the gym last night (it's cool, as it stays open until 1130 on week days, a bonus for procrastinators who don't leave the house until ~ 8pm). The sun's been out the whole time, a supposed anomaly for this time of year I guess.

Holly and I spent friday biking around the coast of Victoria and captured some amazing views. The landscape is so green and beautiful, with lots of different trees and shrubs. We're all falling in love with the city, as it has such a nice feel to it, and everyone is so active and happy (and EVERYONE has a dog that they walk along the coast). It is such a progressive city too with all the green buildings, spaces, and ideas. Holly and I would both like to spend more time here!

We’ll hit the road tomorrow morning and head south. Jeff and I have been exercising our minds, and our poker faces, in preparation for the anticipated poker fest in Vegas… Holly and I have to pay for the trip somehow!

Everybody take care, Gabe it was great to hear from you. You and the Calow’s better stay out of trouble up in LA while we’re gone.

It was good to hear from you too MC Hammered, and everyone keep in touch. Peace out.

October 8th to 11th 2006

Squamish has been so beautiful! The weather is absolutely amazing! Don’t get me wrong, I’m still freezing my butt off at night, but it is totally worth it! The rock is really cold (lots of friction) and the forest is very quiet. Jeff is a natural on the rock…he’s made the transition from plastic look like a breeze (my fingers disagree with this transition…my tips are purple and on the verge of combusting).

Linz and Nevin, the camper is going to rock! You have to let us stay in it for a night…it’ll be like the ritz carlton after tenting for a month. Nah, the tent is awesome, but the camper takes the cake. Linz, I’m expecting it to be stocked full of all the homemade goodness you fed us on the farm. You can nourish our deprived bodies of good food!

Post Script (by Matt): My trip began with a little bad luck, the first fork in the road occurred about 1 minute out of Saskatoon. I managed to turn to Biggar, rather than Rosetown… Ominous? Not at all. The next fork in the road came when we had to decide to either stop in Squilax or drive on to Kamloops, or all night, for that matter. By stopping we were able to check out the salmon run. That was well worth it.

We have had some great climbing, great jokes, beautiful scenery and FRESH AIR!! It has been a blast. We are all climbing hard and close to completing some difficult lines up the boulders, we’ll see how today goes…

The climbing on our last day was so awesome! We all had our projects that we worked till it got too cold in the forest to bear it. All three of us made a lot of progress, and Holly and Jeff sent V4’s (Matt didn’t officially send it, but it was a mere technicality). The pictures don’t do it%2