Oleo!

Autumn, Winter and Spring tidbits.

Fred and Judy snapped this picture of Anya under

motor off Salt Spring.

In early autumn I made a run to Calgary and on the way stopped to see the Adams River Sockeye run. That was spectacular - here are some of the sockeye that eluded me in Georgia Strait one mere month earlier!

Cowichan Bay - the big social event is Wing Night down at the pub.

Fred and I were snacking on wings and looking out over the bay on such a night when I spied this tawny monster, a Northern Sea Lion (Stellars) hauled out on the Government Dock. Three times the size of a California Sea Lion! I have seen quite a number of Stellars Sea Lions but never from a barstool.

Then winter settled in so I left Anya for my Dalton Hotel winter refuge in Victoria and what itself became a special adventure, one better discussed elsewhere.

February I popped over to the eastern seaboard to have dinner at a local NY Italian spaghetti joint with Felicity and Jules - Lancer stayed home. As usual I did the NY galleries and museum circuit while happily wandering - the Metropolitan, Googenheim, MoMa, etc. I did a bit of jogging in

Central Park.

Then I was off to Boston with Felicity to catch up with Verity. They attended to all the business that young, active, busy co-eds (where the hell did that term come from? - sounds sexist to me?) as students must attend to while I went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts where I pondered Paul Gauguin's wonder, a piece that figures prominently in some writing I presently slave away at.

My first ever trip to Boston was great, made more so by Verity and Felicity's wonderful sense of adventure and keenness!

After a long Boston weekend Felicity and I returned to NY where I continued my usual activities, saw Felicity off to classes on the rainy mornings, jogged the banks of the Hudson and walked Lancer. Later, by middle of the night cab then plane, I departed NY for home.

Winter still held dominion on my return. To cope, I took to the mountain on several occasions, snowboarding. The snow was magnificent. The thrill was therapeutic.

One tenuous spring day I spied a little blue sailboat, much like the one the girls played on in their infancy on the lakes in Alberta. It looked just like Miss Piggy P and so I snapped this picture.

That pretty much takes me to that fateful morning in late May when I had a my root canal.