Back from Arizona… finally

/ Greg / Leave a comment

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, there was no way I wasn’t going to be head over heels for finally making it to Spring Training in Arizona. Thanks to the pandemic, my baseball nerd dreams of lounging in the Arizona sun watching baseball got shelved in 2020 and it took until last week to finally make that trip. It was a trip that, truthfully, I’ve wanted to take for a much longer time.

The hook for the trip was spring training baseball – small stadiums, lazy afternoons and getting a close up view of the game I love so much. This year, as scheduling luck would have it, the World Baseball Classic was happening with a round of games in downtown Phoenix at the Diamondbacks stadium. I got the schedules for all of those games, a map, and got to work planning out the kind of visit my baseball loving heart has always dreamed of.

At Rockies-Padres in Scottsdale, AZ
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Some needed time beside the water

/ Greg / 1 Comment

A bit of a warning… You’re going to see a lot of beach photos coming up below.

By the summer 2022 portion of the pandemic, my Atlantic Canadian soul needed to spend some significant time sitting beside a fairly substantial body of water. With that in mind, we planned out our Vancouver Island explorations with a few days at a cottage overlooking the Strait of Georgia. Immediately on driving up to the place I could feel my pulse slowing down. My wife and I glanced at each other and with no words passing between us we both knew we had made a perfect decision on location.

As the sun set on our first night in Qualicum Bay we walked the beach with the tide starting to go out. This was a walk we would do a number of times.

Qualicum Bay, BC
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Gone to the birds

/ Greg / 1 Comment

My wife and I over our years of traveling together maintain a friendly, slightly tongue in cheek banter about one aspect of our travel plans for every trip. When we’ve settled on a location, her internet sleuthing very quickly goes to searching out zoos, aquariums and other animal-related adventures we could get up to. Somewhere on our life journey together I issued an edict…. only one zoo per year. Don’t get me wrong… I love animals. An occasional zoo, especially a renowned one like in San Diego, say…. I’m all in. But given the choice of spending part of a day looking at animals or wandering a new locale, I’m going to opt for the latter 99 times out of 100.

When we were making plans for our time on Vancouver Island my wife found a wildlife sanctuary focused on birds of prey that was serendipitously located just off the highway on our way to a cottage as we travelled to Qualicum Bay. As she dug further into it she discovered that not only could we walk around and look at hawks and owls and such, but we could also get up close experiences with a variety of raptors. I’ll admit, that sounded pretty cool. So my 2022 “zoo” was going to be something called “The Raptors” just outside Duncan, BC.

The Raptors, Duncan BC
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Back to a coast

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Our summer west coast adventure around Vancouver Island kicked off with a few days in Victoria. On account of the pandemic and a less frequent travel schedule, we both were looking forward to some time on the coast. This was my second and my wife’s first visit to this beautiful city. We had incredible luck with weather in what can be a very damp, grey and dreary climate. Our stay came during an extended heat wave and perfectly blue skies, perfect for exploring Victoria on foot. What’s a trip to Victoria without a walk around the inner harbour and a stop to gaze upon the Fairmont Empress?

Fairmont Empress hotel in Victoria, BC
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A perfect unplanned day

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Anyone who tried to travel by air in the summer of 2022 in Canada will have some sort of horror story to tell. The day before our planned trip to Vancouver Island I received the dreaded text message from Air Canada with a flight cancelation for our flight the next day. In the end, we lost the first day we were scheduled to spend in Victoria, but on the positive side, we at least arrived just in advance of the airport’s rental car location closing so we could snag our car for an extra late night drive to our downtown hotel.

We woke up fresh the next morning, but quite hungry as the previous day’s delays and flight changes left us woefully little time to actually eat en route to Victoria. My wife had picked out John’s Place, a diner a block from our hotel that had an extensive list of gluten-free goodies (waffles!) and while she had done significant research on this place, I knew nothing about it…. until we walked in and I was greeted by this sign. Instantly, I knew this was a good omen for a great day ahead.

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Looking back on 2022

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This past year was a much more active travel year than 2021. While I didn’t add a stamp to my passport, I was on and off enough planes that even though I didn’t leave Canada, it felt a bit more normal than it has recently. Like everyone who tried to re-establish a travel heartbeat this year, I had my share of delayed and cancelled flights, lost baggage and airport hotels, but it didn’t dampen the fun I had on the road in 2022. Here, in no particular order, are my favourite travel related moments and memories from the past year.

1. Beers with dad – I got out east twice this year to visit my folks, and a good portion of that time was spent in a couple of craft brewery taprooms in Bathurst with dad catching up. These are always some of my favourite times and I’m already looking forward to sitting in this exact same spot at Four Rivers in a couple of months.

Me and dad enjoying a beer in Bathurst
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When a plan comes together

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Through the pandemic a group of our friends started a zoom-hosted wine club where one of us would pick two wines, a few recipes that would pair well, and then we’d get together to eat and drink and stare at the little electronic rectangles of our respective likenesses on our screens as we caught up and laughed. Laughed a lot. During a few of those get togethers, we chatted (as one is apt to do) about doing a real-life wine tasting trip when it was safe to do so again. Fast forward to this May when those wine-soaked plans turned real and landed us in Vancouver to attend the Vancouver International Wine Festival.

My wife and I built a fun and relaxed Vancouver itinerary around the large wine tasting we we all going to. For me, any trip to Vancouver needs to start with a hike around Stanley Park.

Stanley Park in Vancouver
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The best Calgary has to offer

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Calgary has a vibrant craft beer scene, and while I can get some selected beers at home in Saskatoon, it’s always better to visit the source for a taste of their craft at its freshest. I did my research and lined up my visits to a number of craft breweries so I could taste the “best of the best” that Calgary has to offer. This is obviously a subjective list of breweries and taprooms but I highly recommend each of these.

Stop number one, just as an unexpected snow storm whipped through the city for a few hours, was Annex Ale Project. When I arrived, I noticed they had a number of beers on tap from 2 Crows from my old hometown of Halifax on account of a tap takeover event the previous day. I had previously tried all of the 2 Crows so I stuck to sampling a couple from Annex. My favourite was their “Heavy Meadow” (a saison) and I also quite enjoyed the delicious burger from the attached burger joint. Burgers and beer are always a great pairing!

Annex Ale Project in Calgary
Annex Ale Project in Calgary
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