Vancouver to Yosemite

Despite the fact that I've been in Yosemite for the best part of 2 weeks, I'm only just getting around to writing this.  The trip from Vancouver to Yosemite took about seven days, and was a total of about 2,500 km.  I left Mitch's place a bit after lunch on the 10th of October and rolled into the valley on the morning of the 17th.  I definitely should have taken more time to do the journey, but I did get to see Mt St Helens, some rugged Washington coastline, and the dunes in Oregon.  I also had an amazing day driving down the northern Californian coast and through the giant redwood forests, although I haven't uploaded the pics to Flickr yet.  I'll get around to it at some stage...

The Future

The Future
Originally uploaded by duncanmacinnis

Imagine you had a friend who was always saying something like: "Hurrr, remember that time you dropped our dinner while trying to strain the pasta?" To which you reply: "Yes I do Steve, because you HAVEN'T SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT SINCE IT HAPPENED!" Well, check this out - it's a pot lid with a built in strainer. We're through the looking glass here, people. I've seen the future, and it works.

Leaving Vancouver

I'm a few hours away from heading out of Vancouver and onwards into the US in my sweet new 1999 Ford Explorer (that I've dubbed Betty).  I'll do a more complete entry at some stage, but for now here's a summary: I've drank some good beer, eaten some great food and seen some nice stuff.  Vancouver is a pretty sweet city.  I also spent some time in a suburb called Hastings.  Hastings is not sweet.  The zombie apocalypse could happen in Hastings and no one would notice.  It may already have happened.  Seriously, the sheer volume of insane, smacked out, cracked out, weird people in that suburb is hard to describe.  They're so good at weird, that they spontaneously invent new craziness - crazy freestyling, as I like to call it.  My favourite was the guy in McDonalds who combined impressively good percussion skills, including foot stomping, with realistic duck noises.  I also liked the very wasted-looking dude in his mid-twenties getting around on a mobility scooter with an umbrella tied to it.  The picture was completed by his jacket: black, with large stylised marijuana leaves all over it, and in case that was too subtle, it was also covered in the word "weed".  Gotcha buddy, you like Mary Jane.
I've also discovered that there are no two taps in this entire goddamn country that are the same.  The array of levers, knobs and handles suggests that somewhere there's a guy whose sole purpose in life is to dream up new, ingenious, and incredibly complicated methods of dispensing water.  He probably lives in Hastings.