Furry Creek Panoramic

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Furry Creek, BC

Wandering up the Sea to Sky Highway towards Whistler, we waded through all of the pre-Olympics road construction and kept our eyes peeled for a break, somplace to drop tripod and shoot the beauty of the wate, sky and mountains meeting in one place. We found it in the unlikely place named FURRY CREEK. No Second Life jokes, please. It's a gated community. Well, who knows what goes on behind those gates?

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I have a massive pano to work on - will post later. Also, Zoo grabbed a live mussel from the mossy shoreline, cracked it open and... Well - wait for his post.

Buh-bye Vancouver

Parting images from Vancouver. Wish it wasn't go gray when we were here! I'll never forget the mysterious stains on the back of my jeans.

Gascouver

Gassed up on the way out of Vancouver. OK, I'm no stranger to liters, but 46 liters of gas (12 Gallons) was $44.75 CAN (US $35).

That was only 1/2 tank on the lowest grade.

Night 1: Who Knows What Happens After I Go To Sleep

I started getting sick last night ... I think I sneezed about 50 times over the course of the night.  So around midnight, I headed back to the hotel while Phauxtog went out in the rain and took some pictures.  Or so he said.  When I woke up this morning, I noticed this ...

He claims that he "fell down", but we welcome your theories in the comments.  Gross.

False Creek Panoramic, Vancouver

It was a dark, stormy night.... I was soaked, and had just fell on my ass jumping down onto the river stones by the water. But it's ALWAYS worth it.

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Night Shots: Vancouver, BC

Photographs of a rainy Vancouver night. I fell on my ASS down by the river in slippery stones. Bam. Stitching a pano from river sometime soon.

I came to Vancouver to play pool in Soho?

Apparently, yes.

We're staying in Yaletown, which is very similar to Soho in NYC. Irony abounds. Or maybe it's deliberate. Irony can be deliberate. 

I won a legitimate game of pool by dropping the 8 ball in our first game. W00t! Must be the second time I've beaten Zoo...

We went out for a smoke and met up with Jill and a gal who is also a photographer (I apologize - I forget your name! Beer does that to me. Shoot me an email and I will fix it). She proceeded to berate me about not using a flash and my photos being out of focus. I tried to appease her, and that was my first mistake. After trying that out, I went back to doing it my way with available light and at f/1.4. Right then things got better and suddenly we were best of friends!

BTW, she shot the photo of me at the top of the post. Phauxtogs unite! Brothers and sister in glass, be happy with your depth of field and composition. We went inside and Zoo invited Jill to play pool and she nearly kicked his ass, too.

Zoo almost took himself out with a pool cue, he was so worried.

Fun bar - Fussball tables were hopping.

Not far down the street, an apartment dweller didn't feel like going downstairs for a smoke.

And in our crazy hotel, this is the lighting in the elevators. Too swank. Too swank.

Eats in Vancouver: Oysters and Beer

Some years ago, I went to Toronto with possibly the sweetest of all the girls I've ever dated, Joan (pronouced "Jo-anne") Lee While we were there, we made a point of calling our northern neighbour "Canadia" and Ontario's fair capital "Tortonto" (by the way, I realize that Ottawa is the capital of Canadia, I said Ontario).  That was awesome fun. So while were were there, we stopped at a Toronto legend, Rodney's Oyster House.  It was way out of the way, it felt like it was almost in North York.  Who knows.  I just remembered the fried clams, delicious oysters, and the hot dog.  Yes, I had a hot dog at an oyster house.  Don't ask.  Since then, I'd been back to Tortonto many times -- most spectaculary during the SARS quarantine, blaster virus, and northeast blackout, but I never made it back to Rodney's.

Today, walking around the corner from our Yaletown hotel,  I spotted the classic Rodney's sign.  Of course, that's where we're eating.  Yum.

Photos below, but in short:

Oysters: Yes. Chowder: Yes.  Bread Yes:  Oysters Rockefeller: Maybe. Garlic Shrimp: No. Cougars: Yes.  The place is a bonafide cougar den.  Enjoy.

Vancouver: First Look in Photos

Just a quick tour on an empty mind and tired feet.