AC and Camping: Has it really been a week?
Eep!
Seriously, it feels like the whole camping trip an AC were two days ago.
Either way, figured i should post something before it's all too far in my memory. *chuckles*
Camping trip was very much awesome. To follow the usual tradition of rushed vacation, i left work Friday mid-afternoon to rush home, where Sprout already was waiting for me. Due to work-related bleh and the usual, turns out i wasn't done packing yet, so i had to once again do the whole packing thing in a hurry, which worked out mostly fine...
Of course, as usual, i forgot something important again.
Got to the airport in time, we got moved from the econopark to the proxipark for some reason, which was nice 'cause then we only had to take a bridge across the arrival section to get into the terminal, and not a parking shuttle.
Flight went well, involved watching HTTYD multiple times, since it pretty much was the best thing available in the onboard entertainment system. Also, DRAGONS!
Landed in Vancouver on time, had to wait a bit for the luggages to get unloaded, met up with ShadowKeeper while waiting. Turns out he was already waiting for us there, so that was very easy. *chuckles* Was rather surprised to see him with a brand new-looking Silverado pickup there, which turns out was a rental for the trip... I'd honestly have went with buying one off craigslist for the same price, and instead having another of those insane car-related adventures. *Grins* Especially since i saw some motorhomes for sale for about the same price. Need work, of course, but that's the fun of it!
... but that's me.
Grabbed some food, went back to Shadowkeeper's place, met up with Tenur, MiniMike and Pagan who had gotten there earlier, as well as Lunar who... well, lives there as well. This is also the point where i noticed what i forgot this time... My laptop's power adapter. So that sucked, but it also forced me to take a 'vacation' from the computer as well, so meh. Sleeping arrangements got sorted out with some creativity, and after some randomness we finally went to bed.
Next morning involved loading up the truck, which involved some more real life Tetris as well as figuring out the squishability of various items we had to bring along. Luckily, everything did manage to fit in, as well as all six of us... Barely, but it worked!
We made a quick stop to grab stuff to make the cargo stay in the box, as well as an inflatable bed for me, then headed to the ferry. First time on a big one for me, so that was pretty fun! Those things are huge! And apparently it wasn't even the biggest one. We met up with Morca on the ferry, lots of pictures got taken, no hats flew off.
Once we reached the island, we met up with FireGryph, which turns out is driving basically the Ford equivalent to my Swift.... Oddly, i felt more comfortable in that thing than the Silverado.
We made it to the campsite not too long after, turns out the place is quite awesome. I was worried it would be too tourist-commercial-y, but it was just fine, enough forest not to see directly into other campsites, but not too spread out either, and a run to the beach could be done in a minute or two.
Setting up the tents was... interesting. *chuckles* My vote still is for buying a bunch of plywood sheets and 2x4s and building something on the spot next year. We had a pickup truck after all! I wanted a big hammer really badly, and some of those tents were not designed like anything i had worked with before...
Food happened after that. I think it was meant to be hotdogs. Also some exploring, and going to the beach. I discovered that there's a lot of life there! Craaaabs! Fun to chase around and take pictures of, but they seem quite happy to eat the skin off my feet, as i found out... Of course, i had to be the only one going around barefoot out there. SHOES SUCK! ... but they keep crabs from eating you.
I've surprisingly managed to get pretty decent sleep out there, most likely due to having the big tent, a good inflatable mattress, and both my blanket and a sleeping bag. Which was good, i didn't want to spend this camping trip being a sleep-deprived zombie again...
The next day involved awesome proper non-camping food from a tiny local foodplace for me and Sprout, while others went to Pizza hut. Took forever, but i love those tiny local no-name foodplaces that actually try to do something good instead of just following the corporate plan.
Then we headed to the caves. That involved a fun amount of relatively high speed driving on dirt roads with the HTTYD soundtrack playing, in a car not meant for it at all! I'm glad Fire had it in a good enough shape not to explode from it. In one way, i'd have loved to drive the swift there, so much handbrake fun could have been had. But on the other side, i'd likely have killed it.
The caves were awesome! We only got into the smaller ones since the bigger one was uber-expensive to get into and... well, monitored 'n such. I was actually suprised that they'd let us go freely into the other two. I've discovered that i absolutely love them! All cool and dark and comfy and nice. The rocks inside are surprisingly smooth, and with lots of places to hang onto. The passages are also narrow enough that you can properly wedge yourself in place if slipping, so less of a risk than you'd think! Annoyingly, Fire's flashlight that i had borrowed had a little problem with the power adjustment knob, so it went dark quite often... Luckily, it had two white LEDs that worked out just fine for most of it, and a handle that i could bite into to hold it while keeping my hands free.
The first we went to had a really nice waterfall in the end, and only me, Sprout and Shadowkeeper made it all the way to it. If it had been any warmer, i think i'd just have stayed under it for a while...
The second cave was larger, and went in a loop so we could go in by the bottom passage, and come back thru a higher one. Not quite as challenging, but very fun as well. I wish they had been bigger, or that the passages went further inside...
Then we went back to the campsite and steak 'n stuff. We also made a shopping stop, where i got raisin bread, mini-wheats and iced tea. That made me a properly happy dragon. *chuckles* Could have lived off that for the rest of the weekend, really.
Next day we went to the raptor place Fire used to work for. First time seeing many of those birds so closely...Pretty impressive, especially with how large some of those are! Didn't expect that. I didn't expect to see an owl enjoy scritches so much either!
Went back to the campsite after that for macaronis, and i've once more discovered that "not that spicy" for those people means DEATH! for me. After half a gallon of milk, i hadn't even managed to eat half of what i'd normally eat. And it felt weird even when inside, and i felt sick-ish the whole rest of the day... I'm really not compatible with the stuff. I should have stayed with my raisin bread and mini-wheats!
I've at least finally managed to get deep enough into the water to actually swim! Was really nice, finally the tide was high enough so that i could avoid stepping on too many living things. I've finally understood the true meaning of salt water too! Doesn't taste good... But it's one of those things that just made me go "wow, so all that water out there is really like that? Not like the lake?", and that changed my view of a lot of stuff, as silly as it might be.
I need to go out there again. Seems easier to float in that, kindof...
Then the next day it was time to head back toward Vancouver. Since the truck had to be returned and people needed to get to the Victoria airport, we split up. Pagan, Tenur, Fire and i went down to Victoria while the others went right back to Vancouver.
This is another place i'll need to spend more time exploring. Seems like a nice place, with a slight deer problem, as i found out when we got to Fire's place... One was eating his front lawn. We had some leftover pizza, went around for some stuff, then headed to Vancouver as well. We watched part of a movie on the ferry, watched someone totally fail by repeatedly try to move to the lane being unloaded to get stuck as it stopped moving and the one he was previously in started moving.
We got to experience a bit too much of Vancouver's traffic, then finally made it back to Shadowkeeper's place. Went out for foodstuffs, messed with online stuff, i really missed my power adapter... Things like that.
Sleep didn't quite work out to well that night, but meh. Minimike and Tenur left at some point, then we went to get food, and finally left for the airport.
Flight home was a direct flight, so not too much went on there, beside watching HTTYD a couple more time.
Got home at the expected time, waited for a while for our luggage, discovered that pennies don't make it back when put on the luggage conveyor belt, but that plastic bits do come back. We also totally lost the car in the parking lot, turns out i remembered exactly where it was relatively to the ramp leading up, problem is that the parking lot was perfectly symmetrical, and that the ramp i went in by wasn't the same i got to when i got back. So after a lot of confusion, we found the car at the exact opposite end of the parking lot, two rows from the up ramp, behind the third concrete column, next to the cart return spot... Just as i remembered.
Simply was the wrong ramp...
Made it home, tried to do some laundry, found out that the dehumidifier required for drying clothes was borked again. Fell asleep soon after, due to much tiredness....
The next morning, i woke up at about 9am, sent a text to Bryagh who was our ride to AC to see how he was coming along... He replied that he was only 15min or so away! I was sure we had agreed on that he'd SMS me when he left Québec city so i'd have time to pack, but apparently it wasn't so... Panic-mode packing again! Clothes weren't dry, camping stuff was still in the bags, gyaaah!
But we got things ready quickly enough, met up with Bryagh and Ailé in the truck, as well as another of Bryagh's friend. Saw his new truck for the first time as well, quite nice for an old suburban like that...
Then we left for AC! Loooooong drive, especially when a passenger at the back. Luckily it was large enough not to be squished or squish anyone, and except for some traffic in Toronto, went well enough. The customs agent asked a lot of questions, but Bryagh had a moose plushie on his window that made her crack up, so she let us go before losing it and laughing in front of us.
Made it to pittsburgh a bit past midnight, got to the hotel room, and slept!
Next day... well, convention stuff. Lots of the usual running around between the dealer's room and the hotel room, and various other places, meeting up with people 'n the such. It's still as usual a bit too much of a blur to really remember it all in the proper order.
Athy makes awesome coffee, Sprout isn't allowed to say he can't draw anymore, Gryphons come from various animal's spare parts and are born from Kinder's surprise eggs, i found that i want a pet lizard really badly, vore-people will talk about ANYTHING but vore, i need a way to make people understand my wings damnit!, free apples are awesome, printers are insanely usefull at cons, foodplaces need to be faster, there's lots of strange people in pittsburgh, pigeons aren't that hard to catch, i seem to know a lot more people than i thought, Keaton needs to be dragged along next time, i need to buy normal non-work clothes, magnetic badges are awesome, and hanging out in other people's room is fun when they can be trusted!
Art from there will be posted later. Most of it is still being drawn by people. Seems most were too busy to do art there.
The trip home was once again long, we stopped in Toronto to have dinner with one of Bryagh's uncles, which was surprisingly interesting... That guy really lives a special life. The food was also very good, which made me happy after so much fastfood.
Made it home past midnight, Sprout tried to leave but this city being stupid closed off most highways for road work at night, so he came back here.
And i went back to work late, as with every single time i return from vacation.
And... that's pretty much it, i think! Bedtime now!
Seriously, it feels like the whole camping trip an AC were two days ago.
Either way, figured i should post something before it's all too far in my memory. *chuckles*
Camping trip was very much awesome. To follow the usual tradition of rushed vacation, i left work Friday mid-afternoon to rush home, where Sprout already was waiting for me. Due to work-related bleh and the usual, turns out i wasn't done packing yet, so i had to once again do the whole packing thing in a hurry, which worked out mostly fine...
Of course, as usual, i forgot something important again.
Got to the airport in time, we got moved from the econopark to the proxipark for some reason, which was nice 'cause then we only had to take a bridge across the arrival section to get into the terminal, and not a parking shuttle.
Flight went well, involved watching HTTYD multiple times, since it pretty much was the best thing available in the onboard entertainment system. Also, DRAGONS!
Landed in Vancouver on time, had to wait a bit for the luggages to get unloaded, met up with ShadowKeeper while waiting. Turns out he was already waiting for us there, so that was very easy. *chuckles* Was rather surprised to see him with a brand new-looking Silverado pickup there, which turns out was a rental for the trip... I'd honestly have went with buying one off craigslist for the same price, and instead having another of those insane car-related adventures. *Grins* Especially since i saw some motorhomes for sale for about the same price. Need work, of course, but that's the fun of it!
... but that's me.
Grabbed some food, went back to Shadowkeeper's place, met up with Tenur, MiniMike and Pagan who had gotten there earlier, as well as Lunar who... well, lives there as well. This is also the point where i noticed what i forgot this time... My laptop's power adapter. So that sucked, but it also forced me to take a 'vacation' from the computer as well, so meh. Sleeping arrangements got sorted out with some creativity, and after some randomness we finally went to bed.
Next morning involved loading up the truck, which involved some more real life Tetris as well as figuring out the squishability of various items we had to bring along. Luckily, everything did manage to fit in, as well as all six of us... Barely, but it worked!
We made a quick stop to grab stuff to make the cargo stay in the box, as well as an inflatable bed for me, then headed to the ferry. First time on a big one for me, so that was pretty fun! Those things are huge! And apparently it wasn't even the biggest one. We met up with Morca on the ferry, lots of pictures got taken, no hats flew off.
Once we reached the island, we met up with FireGryph, which turns out is driving basically the Ford equivalent to my Swift.... Oddly, i felt more comfortable in that thing than the Silverado.
We made it to the campsite not too long after, turns out the place is quite awesome. I was worried it would be too tourist-commercial-y, but it was just fine, enough forest not to see directly into other campsites, but not too spread out either, and a run to the beach could be done in a minute or two.
Setting up the tents was... interesting. *chuckles* My vote still is for buying a bunch of plywood sheets and 2x4s and building something on the spot next year. We had a pickup truck after all! I wanted a big hammer really badly, and some of those tents were not designed like anything i had worked with before...
Food happened after that. I think it was meant to be hotdogs. Also some exploring, and going to the beach. I discovered that there's a lot of life there! Craaaabs! Fun to chase around and take pictures of, but they seem quite happy to eat the skin off my feet, as i found out... Of course, i had to be the only one going around barefoot out there. SHOES SUCK! ... but they keep crabs from eating you.
I've surprisingly managed to get pretty decent sleep out there, most likely due to having the big tent, a good inflatable mattress, and both my blanket and a sleeping bag. Which was good, i didn't want to spend this camping trip being a sleep-deprived zombie again...
The next day involved awesome proper non-camping food from a tiny local foodplace for me and Sprout, while others went to Pizza hut. Took forever, but i love those tiny local no-name foodplaces that actually try to do something good instead of just following the corporate plan.
Then we headed to the caves. That involved a fun amount of relatively high speed driving on dirt roads with the HTTYD soundtrack playing, in a car not meant for it at all! I'm glad Fire had it in a good enough shape not to explode from it. In one way, i'd have loved to drive the swift there, so much handbrake fun could have been had. But on the other side, i'd likely have killed it.
The caves were awesome! We only got into the smaller ones since the bigger one was uber-expensive to get into and... well, monitored 'n such. I was actually suprised that they'd let us go freely into the other two. I've discovered that i absolutely love them! All cool and dark and comfy and nice. The rocks inside are surprisingly smooth, and with lots of places to hang onto. The passages are also narrow enough that you can properly wedge yourself in place if slipping, so less of a risk than you'd think! Annoyingly, Fire's flashlight that i had borrowed had a little problem with the power adjustment knob, so it went dark quite often... Luckily, it had two white LEDs that worked out just fine for most of it, and a handle that i could bite into to hold it while keeping my hands free.
The first we went to had a really nice waterfall in the end, and only me, Sprout and Shadowkeeper made it all the way to it. If it had been any warmer, i think i'd just have stayed under it for a while...
The second cave was larger, and went in a loop so we could go in by the bottom passage, and come back thru a higher one. Not quite as challenging, but very fun as well. I wish they had been bigger, or that the passages went further inside...
Then we went back to the campsite and steak 'n stuff. We also made a shopping stop, where i got raisin bread, mini-wheats and iced tea. That made me a properly happy dragon. *chuckles* Could have lived off that for the rest of the weekend, really.
Next day we went to the raptor place Fire used to work for. First time seeing many of those birds so closely...Pretty impressive, especially with how large some of those are! Didn't expect that. I didn't expect to see an owl enjoy scritches so much either!
Went back to the campsite after that for macaronis, and i've once more discovered that "not that spicy" for those people means DEATH! for me. After half a gallon of milk, i hadn't even managed to eat half of what i'd normally eat. And it felt weird even when inside, and i felt sick-ish the whole rest of the day... I'm really not compatible with the stuff. I should have stayed with my raisin bread and mini-wheats!
I've at least finally managed to get deep enough into the water to actually swim! Was really nice, finally the tide was high enough so that i could avoid stepping on too many living things. I've finally understood the true meaning of salt water too! Doesn't taste good... But it's one of those things that just made me go "wow, so all that water out there is really like that? Not like the lake?", and that changed my view of a lot of stuff, as silly as it might be.
I need to go out there again. Seems easier to float in that, kindof...
Then the next day it was time to head back toward Vancouver. Since the truck had to be returned and people needed to get to the Victoria airport, we split up. Pagan, Tenur, Fire and i went down to Victoria while the others went right back to Vancouver.
This is another place i'll need to spend more time exploring. Seems like a nice place, with a slight deer problem, as i found out when we got to Fire's place... One was eating his front lawn. We had some leftover pizza, went around for some stuff, then headed to Vancouver as well. We watched part of a movie on the ferry, watched someone totally fail by repeatedly try to move to the lane being unloaded to get stuck as it stopped moving and the one he was previously in started moving.
We got to experience a bit too much of Vancouver's traffic, then finally made it back to Shadowkeeper's place. Went out for foodstuffs, messed with online stuff, i really missed my power adapter... Things like that.
Sleep didn't quite work out to well that night, but meh. Minimike and Tenur left at some point, then we went to get food, and finally left for the airport.
Flight home was a direct flight, so not too much went on there, beside watching HTTYD a couple more time.
Got home at the expected time, waited for a while for our luggage, discovered that pennies don't make it back when put on the luggage conveyor belt, but that plastic bits do come back. We also totally lost the car in the parking lot, turns out i remembered exactly where it was relatively to the ramp leading up, problem is that the parking lot was perfectly symmetrical, and that the ramp i went in by wasn't the same i got to when i got back. So after a lot of confusion, we found the car at the exact opposite end of the parking lot, two rows from the up ramp, behind the third concrete column, next to the cart return spot... Just as i remembered.
Simply was the wrong ramp...
Made it home, tried to do some laundry, found out that the dehumidifier required for drying clothes was borked again. Fell asleep soon after, due to much tiredness....
The next morning, i woke up at about 9am, sent a text to Bryagh who was our ride to AC to see how he was coming along... He replied that he was only 15min or so away! I was sure we had agreed on that he'd SMS me when he left Québec city so i'd have time to pack, but apparently it wasn't so... Panic-mode packing again! Clothes weren't dry, camping stuff was still in the bags, gyaaah!
But we got things ready quickly enough, met up with Bryagh and Ailé in the truck, as well as another of Bryagh's friend. Saw his new truck for the first time as well, quite nice for an old suburban like that...
Then we left for AC! Loooooong drive, especially when a passenger at the back. Luckily it was large enough not to be squished or squish anyone, and except for some traffic in Toronto, went well enough. The customs agent asked a lot of questions, but Bryagh had a moose plushie on his window that made her crack up, so she let us go before losing it and laughing in front of us.
Made it to pittsburgh a bit past midnight, got to the hotel room, and slept!
Next day... well, convention stuff. Lots of the usual running around between the dealer's room and the hotel room, and various other places, meeting up with people 'n the such. It's still as usual a bit too much of a blur to really remember it all in the proper order.
Athy makes awesome coffee, Sprout isn't allowed to say he can't draw anymore, Gryphons come from various animal's spare parts and are born from Kinder's surprise eggs, i found that i want a pet lizard really badly, vore-people will talk about ANYTHING but vore, i need a way to make people understand my wings damnit!, free apples are awesome, printers are insanely usefull at cons, foodplaces need to be faster, there's lots of strange people in pittsburgh, pigeons aren't that hard to catch, i seem to know a lot more people than i thought, Keaton needs to be dragged along next time, i need to buy normal non-work clothes, magnetic badges are awesome, and hanging out in other people's room is fun when they can be trusted!
Art from there will be posted later. Most of it is still being drawn by people. Seems most were too busy to do art there.
The trip home was once again long, we stopped in Toronto to have dinner with one of Bryagh's uncles, which was surprisingly interesting... That guy really lives a special life. The food was also very good, which made me happy after so much fastfood.
Made it home past midnight, Sprout tried to leave but this city being stupid closed off most highways for road work at night, so he came back here.
And i went back to work late, as with every single time i return from vacation.
And... that's pretty much it, i think! Bedtime now!