Photo Drop Part 3 (Fishin’ Buddy and An Old Hiking Photo)
Hey, this week I was camping in Jasper so I didn’t get much time, or internet access, to write a post for this week. I don’t want to leave my faithful readers high and dry (I can’t risk losing all 6 of you). So here’s a few old photos that just never could find their way into a story but I still feel merit some exposure to the world.
It’s Important To Have A Fishing Buddy
Everyone who knows me has likely met my dad and his dog, Rose. She goes with him everywhere, that includes hunting and fishing. This picture more or less sums up every fishing experience they’ve had: my dad catches a fish, and gets Rose to inspect it thoroughly before he throws it back… every single time. Believe me when I tell you that Rose is a fishing fanatic, you can’t hold a fishing rod in that boat without hearing her bark and squeal with excitement, its a bit annoying, but at the same time anyone who fishes can understand her excitement.
Carefully Stacked Rocks Work Almost As Well As A Camera Tripod
Shortly after Erin and I got back from our big New Zealand Trip, in 2011, we had started to do a lot more hiking. If I recall one of our first day hikes was up Bald Hills in Jasper National park. It was a nice hike, but nothing worth writing a long story about, so here’s the highlights. We hiked through some beautiful trees, then up a steep hill and used my cameras timer to take this photo of us next an inukshuk we found and added a few rocks to (I had to Google the proper spelling of inukshuk). We then hiked to the top where the winds were amazingly strong, then we hiked a little way down, had lunch, and then found our way back to the car. I highly recommend this hike.
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Hiking A Yasawa Island
Lately I’ve been spending all my time at work, but I would still like to post somewhat regularly. As is part of my writing tradition I often complain to Erin about having nothing to write about, then she’ll say “Why don’t you write about that time we _____” Some of my stories aren’t exactly fresh, but usually they’re at least funny.
Erin and I, as part of our Fijian tour, did a trip along the Yasawa Islands. The Yasawas are a chain of islands off the coast of Fiji and many companies have small hotels on the little islands.
When I Say Little I Mean Little!
We got a package that gave us, if I recall correctly, five days on three islands, none of which were quite as small as the one pictured above. Of the three islands I can only remember what happened on two of them, I completely forgot about the first one we were on and so has Erin, we don’t even have pictures from it. The other two islands I don’t remember the name of, instead I just remember the accommodations and activities.
The first of the two, remembered, islands was quite large and seemed to really stick high out of the ocean it had nice private bungalows and terrible food, a common combination in Fiji. On the first day Erin and I kayaked to a very nearby island in two clear plastic kayaks. I was very excited to see all the marine life below me, but was quickly disappointed when I saw the kayaks were far too scratched up to see through. I still enjoyed myself but Erin, who often complains about lacking upper body strength, seemed to have a very hard time kayaking on a windy ocean, I asked if she wanted me to tow her home she replied with “No its fine! Leave me alone” my relationship senses tingled. To my knowledge “its fine” is usually my cue to get as quiet and far away as possible. We next opted to relax and do some reading while lounging in the hammocks… because life is so hard when you’re on vacation, its important to relax. I had long since finished my Capstick book, but I was unwilling to trade it in in the book exchange. Luckily Erin had an old book for me to trade in, the selection was limited and a lot of it was German, but I picked the best of the worst, a book titled “Perfume” and it was certainly…. not something I would read again. The next day we headed to the final island where we would spend the majority of our time, and make the most memories.
We arrived to find we were staying in undoubtedly the nicest accommodations I have ever received. This was the first time during our trip that we stayed in a place that looked like a post card from Fiji. It was a large private bungalow with a small main room at the front and a large bedroom and bathroom at the back. We settled in, grabbed some borderline OK lunch, and read our books at the beach, I finished that terrible book and was thoroughly disappointed. Erin started reading my, now favorite book, “The Last Ivory Hunter.” We then had some dinner and made plans to go on a short guided hike in the morning.
We arrived where they told us to meet the “guide” and found that Erin and I were the only two people who showed up. We paid our guide his fee, about $3 each, and we headed up. As soon as we started walking the guide started talking on his cell phone, this would continue the whole hike. I brought my backpack and Erin and I both wore our hiking gear. Our guide brought his cell phone and machete and climbed this mountain barefoot, it was very impressive. A few minutes into the hike I saw what I think might be the most frightening thing I can think of, off in the distance in a small clearing there was a spider web that had been built horizontally, it was about 6 feet in diameter and what ever was in the middle of it was heavy enough to pull the trees in towards it. I didn’t go investigate, in fact I picked up the pace a little. Just as we came above the tree line we found ourselves walking through some very tall, lush grass, about 10 feet tall. I read a lot of safari books and they always talk about long grass and the dangers of following a wounded animal into it, until this time I had never fully comprehended the lack of visibility and just how tall this grass really was, I just couldn’t picture it in my mind.
After the grass it became much rockier, and elevated. I didn’t really think about all the elevation we gained while walking through the heavily treed areas. Suddenly the trail ended, but the guide kept walking, right across a sharp ridge with a nice steep smooth rock face down each side. Erin, without flinching, walked right behind him and then remembered my dislike of heights and looked back and if I recall she offered some encouraging words. I wasn’t about to quit, but like I always do with heights, I crawled slowly across on all fours while calculating what events and time frame would be required for me to get to the hospital if I fell. At least I knew for sure the guide had cell service. On the other side of this knife edge walk-way was a large natural platform at the top of the island and the official end of our hike. Erin and I took a lot of pictures and she went on and on about how proud she was of me for making it across that rock… I then realized I had to go back over it..
That’s Our Resort At The Bottom
Erin And I Just Climbed A Mountain On A Fijian Island!… Our Guide Had Just Another Normal Day.
Erin and I were taking in the view and talking about how glad we were that we took this trip and various other lovey dovey things when it happened… Possibly the longest and loudest fart either one of us had ever heard! We looked at each other, with eyes wide open, then looked at the guide 20 feet away from us, chuckling on his phone. This hike will forever be known as “the Fijian hike with the farting guide” and we laugh about it all the time.. even years later we still laugh about it.
I crawled across the rocks and we made our way down, all the while trying not to burst into laughter about what happened. We made it without breaking into hysterical laughter like teenage girls, barely, we thanked our guide and returned to our bungalow to shower, laugh, and then grabbed some lunch.
A lot of other interesting things happened on that island, we saw a man climb to the top of a very tall palm tree and cut down coconuts, he went up without any harness or safety gear and those coconuts came down like cannon balls, luckily no one was hurt. On another of the nights we met a nice group of Australians wearing sailor outfits, they seemed intent on perpetuating the stereotype of attractive Australians, they were very successful. Before the night was through we ended up somewhat befriending them, we ate together and got very drunk. I remember at one point they were all singing a drinking song to me while I was chugging a beer, it was great. A few also did a very impressive choreographed dance to a Taylor swift song. I wish I had gotten some contact info for them, Erin and I are planning a trip to Australia and I wouldn’t mind bumping into them again.
The next day I was a rather slow moving unit, on account of my recently discovered enjoyment of gin and tonics. We decided to spend the day reading and recovering by the pool. I took in that awful book I had finished and looked for something to trade it off on. I combed through the collection and the only thing that seemed to stand out to me was an old dime store western. It was titled “Longarm and the frenchmans gold” or something along those lines. I like westerns, so I figured I would give it a shot. I sat beside Erin at the pool and began reading. The first few chapter were slow and poorly written, so I assumed it was a book for young teens, that would explain the rather… ahem, chesty woman, depicted on the cover. I was wrong, very wrong. Around chapter three it turned into a very graphic adult novel. I suddenly felt very embarrassed, like when a sex scene comes on in a movie you’re watching with your parents, kind of embarrassed. I slowly closed the book and set it down, I must have had a strange look of surprise on my face because Erin took one glance at me and asked “Whats wrong?” I casually picked up the book, opened it to the appropriate point, handed it to her, and said “here, read this.” She thought it was hilarious, so did I, but I was annoyed that I had to go try and find another book. We also still laugh about this and occasionally joke that we should have kept that book as a memento for such a funny story. Good literature is hard to come by when you’re travelling I guess… So hopefully when you go out into the world you can still access my site, right?
On this trip I learned the importance of bringing a good book, otherwise you end up with some mighty strange stuff. Also if anyone knows some goofy, attractive Australians who visited the Yasawas while dressed as sailors during 2011, send them my way. Honestly even if they aren’t the people we met, if they meet that criteria I want to be friends with them.
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The Bird Feeder Incident
Most people who know me will likely agree that I take pride in the fact that I’m pretty handy with a rifle. Also pretty awful with a pistol… luckily I’ve never had much use for one. Where was I going with this? Oh right, marksmanship! I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately, also I’ve been working a lot so I haven’t had much time to go out for new and exciting adventures. Being an adult is way less exciting than I thought it would be.
I come from a house that really promotes firearms and firearm safety. My dad had a rather genius approach to firearms safety. Instead of hiding all his guns and keeping them secret hoping we would never find them, he kept them safely locked and would show them to us and take us to the range every chance he could. That way they weren’t some big taboo exciting secret, they were just those things that we could only use when dad was around. I also remember my dad showing us pictures, in a gag calendar, of gophers that had been shot, and saying things like “that’s why you’re always careful with guns.” It was pretty gross and maybe a bit extreme but it sure was effective and even to this day I’m one of the most anal-retentive people I know when it comes to firearm safety. But more to the point of our story, we also always had air guns, and we had a pretty big back yard which meant we had our own little shooting range. We were even occasionally trusted to be out there shooting on our own and it all happened without incident… well except that one, let me tell you about it.
I believe I was in about 1st grade at the time, and my older brother and I were shooting his crosman airgun. For the most part we would shoot at soda cans and milk jugs. Years later I was informed, by my mother, that the bottle depot guy would often give her dirty looks when she brought in these shredded remains of cans. By some twist of fate or onset of boredom my brother left me alone to keep shooting his BB gun all by myself. After a while I got tired of hitting the same cans at the same distance over and over, and like many cases of boredom I’ve had in my life since then, this led to a bad idea. My mother had a clear plastic bird feeder on an aluminum post,that sat just above my eye level, but more importantly, it was just a few yard behind my target. I assessed the situation and made sure there wasn’t anything fragile or expensive behind it, like a window. I loaded the gun, steadied myself on our shooting bench/picnic table and let loose with a small steel BB. I heard a delightfully loud “tunk!” as it hit the nearly empty octagonal feeder, and I felt very satisfied. I looked at it through the scope and saw no damage, so I walked up and had a look. Sure enough it looked just fine, so I fired a few more from the table each time being rewarded with that same fulfilling plastic thud that made me feel like I could probably shoot just as good as my dad. For the record, I still cant out-shoot my dad, and I hope I never have to get into a competition with Kyle, my older brother… maybe it’s something in the blood. Eventually I got tired of hitting so easily, so I moved back a bit to our little trampoline and thought, “going that far I better use pellets since they shoot better” I loaded up the gun, lied flat, took aim, pshhk and thunk, I hit it again.. and again.. and again. After a while I moved back to the tree line and found even more success. Eventually I figured I may as well go in, I walked up to the bird feeder and sure enough it was trashed, riddled with entry and exit holes. I can still picture myself looking up at it and feeling the terror of ruining my mothers bird feeder. For those who need a visual, it looked kinda like Bonnie and Clyde’s car.
I did what any 8 year old boy would do. I put the gun away same as always and didn’t say anything to anyone. Of course, someone noticed almost immediately that our bird feeder had been ventilated, maybe they heard it whistling in the wind? It also wasn’t really a case for CSI since I was the only one using the BB gun all day. That said, I wasn’t admitting anything to anybody.. deny.. deny.. deny. That was of course until my dad had a chance to cross examine the defendant during dinner. After some tricky questioning, I was still able to keep my story straight. Then out of nowhere came some classic fatherly trickery. It went something like this:
“well whoever hit that bird feeder must have been a pretty good shot to be able to hit it from the picnic table”
“No, I hit it from the trampoline and then the treeline!”
I realized what just happened and my eyes forced themselves wide open. Everyone looked at me and grinned, it was in this moment in life that I first realized I may not be a particularly clever individual. It was then decreed that I had to apologize to my mother for wrecking her feeder, I also recall emptying out my piggy bank and offering it to my mother as compensation for damages. No surprise she didn’t take the, what I now assume was about eight dollars in loose change. My private range privileges were also revoked indefinitely and my family still likes to reference “the bird feeder incident” from time to time.
The bird feeder incident taught me a few important things about firearm safety, and it not being worth it to lie about your mistakes. I also learnt an interesting child interrogation trick that I feel will come in useful someday if and when I have children.
P.S. Mom, I still owe you a bird feeder and since I now have slightly more than $8 in my piggy bank do you like this one? Its a little fancier than the one I perforated but you’ve got almost 20 years of accrued interest on that debt.
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