stubsadventures

As all my great adventures have, this one came from a suggestion. Actually, it started with a dive site in Scotland… but that’s a different story. The Chuuk Lagoon (one of it’s names) is a haven for wreck divers. Over 70 wrecks, in this one lagoon, in the middle of absolutely no where. It will take three days to get there, with an over night in Hawaii and on a tiny island (tiny being 5kms by 5kms) called Chuuk, before I board a live aboard for six days of constant diving. There will be 16 other divers on the boat but there are so many wrecks that you each virtually get your own wreck to explore.

February 17, 1944, the Americans launched an attack on the Japanese who were staged at the lagoon. In that attack, the Americans sank 60 ships and 275 airplanes, which are now all resting at the bottom of the lagoon. Also, among all the wreckage are the remains of their occupants.

Diving is what gets my blood flowing, the challenge and the adventure of it draw me in. In the last few years, I have been reading lots of books about diving and although they get me pumped to get out there, they have also instilled a tremendous respect for the sport. The more I experience and push, the further I want to take it but now it is much more calculated. I research, and for this trip I look forward to memorizing the wrecks before I get there because for the first time, I will be exploring the inside of the wrecks. Some of these wrecks are massive and I plan on seeing as much as possible.

I’ll do two certifications when I’m there, my Nitrox and Trimix. Both have their own benefits, I just like to have my options. Trimix will allow me to go deeper than I have ever gone. Normally, I wouldn’t push the limits just to achieve a certain depth but I will go when there is something worth seeing, as there is in the Chuuk Lagoon. In addition to the first time going in a wreck and deeper than ever before, I will also be diving with two tanks for the first time. I have been diving since I was 18. Although the first couple of years the dives were far and few between  the last couple of years I have stepped it up and figure I have more than 50 dives under my belt. Now, that I’m comfortable in the water, comfortable with the unexpected, I’m ready to take on technical diving. I’m just going to be a sponge and soak up all the information I can during my time on the boat.

March 2013.

Stubs.

Getting my motorcycle license wasn’t something I really talked at all about doing. Deep down inside of me, I was really prepared to be terrible at it. I am one of those people who is not super good at one thing but pretty good at most things in general, so I’m used to picking things up quickly but in the times that I don’t, I get hilariously frustrated. My need for perfection driven by my strong sense of competitiveness can really work against me when things aren’t going well. In the last few years though, I have come to realize that you really can get good at most things, you just have to practice. So, that was my attitude going into this weekend but I was really unsure of which way it was going to go.

The first night, was “the classroom night”. This involved eight of us sitting in a room in the size of my entry way practically, listening to someone talk and watching short video’s on motorcycle basics. This is when I am at my worst. I have the worst case of adult A.D.D. when it comes to classroom settings. I am a doer. Always have been. My attention span is not the greatest at the best of times but it is non-existent in that environment. Watching a bunch of corny, terribly filmed movies about how to brake a motorcycle was not my idea of a good time.

The first morning of actually being on the bikes was freezing and it rained for a little while. Miserable is a good word that comes to mind. Luckily as the morning wore on, it improved. Driving a motorcycle is one of the most concentration required skills I have ever tried to learn. I used to think that diving was bad… you have to be aware of what is going on in every minute but not only that, you must have at least one, maybe two plans of what you’re going to do if something goes terribly wrong. On a motorcycle, it is the same situation but every decision has to be made in a split second. All that, plus, the fact that you are utilizing both hands and both feet at the same time.

Because I have been driving a standard for years, I am pretty good at it (if I do say so myself) so I’m really comfortable with throttle and clutch and how that whole deal works, so that was like one huge thing off my plate that I didn’t have to worry about. I barely stalled at all and never stalled at all on the portion where you take off while you’re on an incline. If I didn’t know that, I would have been in serious trouble. Knowing how to drive a standard is one thing, doing that while bugs are flying in your face, shifting gears with your left foot, breaking with your right, clutch on the left hand, break AND throttle on the right hand. Crazy talk. I look forward to the day I can just hop on one and ride without thinking about it. I do not anticipate that day will be any time soon. I am a motorcycle grasshopper.

Stubs

In the last few days, I have started to explore more and more of the “back 40” they call it here. A system of paths that go through the hills. The main trial system has a trail loop that is 5km but there are so many interlocking trails, you could make a good hike out of it if you really wanted to.

Unfortunately, that is the area that the cougar is hanging out in right now, so I’m a little anxious to do some of the further, more remote parts of the trails until that friendly little fella is removed. Even with it hanging around the neighbourhood, I have stayed closer to the houses and explored a couple of different sections of the river also. The river is fairly shallow the entire length of it but you can kayak it early in the season. This time of year, you can pretty much walk from rock bar to rock bar as long as you don’t mind getting a little wet. Caper does mind. She still to this day hates the water. Sometimes, I can’t believe she’s my dog.

The last couple of weeks, I’ve been filling up the pantry, and preparing my emergency kit. It snowed three days in a row. It is going to be a long winter. With the closest store being 20 minutes away, I want to make sure I have everything to hibernate in comfort this winter. I have a fire every night now because it’s pretty cold when the sun goes down. It’s been below zero at night for the last two weeks or so. I actually love cold weather for some reason, so I’m not worried about the long winter but everyday more and more I realize how much work it takes to live outside out of the city. Between chopping wood, preparing for the winter, trying to unpack the house, painting for four days, and managing to hike around and have lots of awesome people come out to check out the place, the days have been exhausting. Because the room that is eventually going to be the den needs a lot of work, I just decided to leave the room empty until it’s done and all that furniture is piled in the future “adventure planning centre” aka, the office. That means that I haven’t had any TV since I lived here, not even to watch movies (I haven’t had cable in the last five years). I thought that was going to really bother me, especially at night when it is quiet but I find myself often just sitting next to the fire and enjoying the quiet. I know it will end, eventually I have to go back to work, haha.

Stubs.

Well, the first bear experience here wasn’t exactly what I had pictured but I suppose I’ll have to take it. I was in my room and I could hear it from in there. You could hear it breathing, clear as day. I had my canoe on the side of the house and it was filled with a bunch of stuff from the garage, so I wasn’t overly concerned with getting that unpacked right away. It was just sitting in the yard with a tarp over it. I could hear the bear trying to get the tarp off the canoe. From any of the windows, I couldn’t see it  unfortunately but I stood by the window and listened for a while. The next day, I was talking to the neighbour, who had seen it pulling on the tarp and she said it was a big black bear. Luckily, I didn’t have anything worthy of bear food in the canoe, so nothing was damaged.

The next day, a friend came out to check out the place, and we headed out for the first time in the Waiparous back 40 they call it. You can get there from my house, so it’s an ideal place to walk Caper. When we get to the trail head, there is a sign saying that there is a problem cougar in the area and fish and wildlife were attempting to remove it from the area. Needless to say, that’s the kind of hike you’re never really very comfortable on. “Problem cougar” never really sits well with me.

The house sits at about 4500ft about sea level, which means the snow is early to come, and long to stay. Yesterday we got the first snowfall of the season and not just a few flakes either. Almost time for snowboarding.

Stubs.

The sleepy town of Waiparous that I have moved to, so far is very quiet and peaceful. There are some “neighbourhood” deer that are always around some where. Today, I came home to the family of six of them in my backyard. The fact that there are piles of their poo in the grass would indicate that this isn’t the first time they have stopped by to say hi. They still have some wild in them, if you make a sudden movement, they’ll dart but they will let you come surprisingly close if you move slowly. They let me take some pretty cool pictures of them. They also ate right out of a planter right in front of me! It was ants in Drumheller that were my nemesis. Looks like here, it will be the deer.

The day times have been filled with beautiful sunshine and perfect temperatures since I have moved in. For my vacation at least, the weather is cooperating. The house during the day is full of sunshine and the sounds of animals and the river.

During the night, I would say I am not quite as comfortable with my little piece of Utopia. There are no curtains or blinds on most of the windows in the house. There really is no one around to see directly in, unless they were outside directly looking in. When the sun goes down and it’s dark outside, it is almost worst case for someone with an overactive imagination like myself. For those two know me well, they know that I love scary movies, I love doing things that scare me, I love going to scary places (see Ghost Towns blog). So, having said all that, at night when the lights are on in the house and it is completely dark outside, you can’t see really anything outside of the windows at all. And note: there are a lot of windows. I’ll be sitting on the couch and look out the window, just trying to see something and all of a sudden I will think: what would I do if a face popped through the darkness right now? So then I’m thinking about it, which isn’t good. So, for now, the night times are clearly still filled with some anxiety. I think it’s just going to take some getting used to.

The transformation of the house continues, it is slow but steady and starting to see some changes helps keep the momentum!

Stubs

One of the things I love the most about this house is that I can see myself staying here for a long time. It is worth the effort to put in the work here to make sure this house is exactly the way that I want it because I know I’ll be enjoying it for a long time. That being said, one of the first things to be done was to paint. As much as the yellow really screamed “the west” it was a little too much for me. I dubbed it, the New Mexico Yellow. The mud room, although not yellow did require a bit of a facelift as well, and I figured while the getting was good, I might as well paint the whole main area. Luckily, Jo was around and able to lend a much needed hand. I was running out of motivation painting alone.

The hardest part was painting over the baseboards, the color they had was a deep matte gray. It required four coats in some spots. Hence now, my hands being in a claw shape from hours of trim work.

Yesterday, I had the scariest encounter in the shed. I was in there, just minding my own business when the biggest wolf spider came running at me. He practically tried to push me over. It was so big and so hairy, I wasn’t sure if I could even kill it but I managed to squish it. Flip flop foot and all. There are so many spiders everywhere when you live in the woods. I have found them everywhere. In my shower, almost all the corners and don’t even get my started on the wood pile. Going to get wood for the fire is like a test of my heart strength. I will say, I have noticed over the last week, I freak out a lot less when I see them. I’m not super pumped to see them either, don’t get me wrong, they are still going to die but the fact of the matter is, it’s just part of living in the woods.

Stubs.

Well, the title says it all. I mean, there is no avoiding it at this point, I live in the woods. The three days of moving were a bit chaotic to say the least but it was all worth it when I was handed the keys. Some of my closest girlfriends, who I work with up north were here to help me celebrate (and I obviously put them to work immediately after).  The first person dropped by to introduce themselves within the first hour. This is a smaller place than I thought. In the winter time, there are only about 30 residents. That is not very many when you are that far away from a town. I timed it finally, 20 minutes almost exactly to Cochrane.

Within three hours of being here, I found myself enjoying the silence when I hear someone at the door, again. I answer expecting another villager introducing themselves but to my surprise, I find a delivery driver, who was trying to turn around in my drive way and smoked my fence. At first, a part of me thought that this was like a “welcome to the village” joke or something, and I honestly looked around to see if people were hiding the bushes. When I walked down the driveway though, he had in fact smoked my fence and totally busted up the chicken wire around the dog run. I just stood there and scratched my fence. He asked me if it was my house, and I told him that I had just literally taken the keys. He felt so bad. I told him to not worry about the fence, that I would fix it and I could only laugh to think about the fact that this is just the beginning of this crazy adventure I have set out on. Little things all add up when you live out here, Lobster and I decided to have a fire. I forgot, that meant chopping wood… there is so much to do before the winter!

Tonight, the painting started. Lots of pictures to come.

Stubs.

Go figure. The new awesome house is even more awesome after todays inspection. Although there were a few minor things and a few things that will need to get done for the winter, nothing was a deal breaker and the house is mine, free and clear. It feels fantastic.

I did see the grossest spider I’ve ever seen in Canada today and it was on the side of my house, which was discouraging. I’m pretty sure it had a hard shell. Hopefully my can of spray Raid can penetrate this spider force field. We also saw a really big spider run across the floor when we opened the big shed. So, at this point, it looks like I won’t be spending much time there.

Here are some awesome things I learned about my house or the area today:

– This will now be the second house I’ve owned where my truck doesn’t fit in the garage.

– Bear are common and there is a neighbourhood “pet deer” who sleeps on people’s porches and is very friendly. They also call the      river that runs behind my house the migratory trail for lots of different animals

– My neighbour was attacked by a cougar and says the neighbourhood gets stalked about once a year.

– There is a path that runs along the river a short distance either way from my house. One way ends up at a pool you could swim and the other ends up on a rocky beach and when you look west, there is a huge mountain.

– There is a path that runs from the end of my street into what they call “the back 40”. Neighbour said she hikes it all the time, never comes across another soul and you can go as far as your imagination or legs will take you. That is where she got attacked by the cougar.

– My hot tub seats 8 people!!

Those are just a few of the awesome discoveries of the day. I can’t wait to make it a home. Check out the pics from today.

I didn’t want to post the MLS listing because I’m not crazy about people knowing the price of my new house. So, instead, I copied the listing description (also, that way I would have it forever) and have posted the pictures from inside the house. The outside pictures were taken in the spring, and they have done lots of work to the landscaping, that will show up in the later pictures.

Check out… my dream house… that requires a little bit of work. See below the pictures for the MLS description!

Stubs

While diving in Iceland, our dive master was taking pictures of us the whole time. I have finally uploaded some of them to the blog. All of these pictures were taken by Val, the dive master who was awesome! We used a company called Arctic Adventures in Iceland and I would recommend them any day of the week.

In most of the pictures in Silfra, I’m the one with my arms crossed, just trying to stay a little colder. There were five of us on the first dive and just he and I on the second dive.

The third and fourth dives it was just Val and us, diving in the volcanic crater. So badass.

Stubs.