and more pics...

A boat on Slocan Lake (in the next valley to the west from the town of Nelson, which is on an arm of Kootenay Lake; both of these lakes are pretty huge):



Cruising along:



The moon rising over Slocan Lake, but taken from an official campground where I camped at a different part of the lake, a couple of nights later:



The house for Francoise and Chalisse (the French Canadian couple that I'm currently working for):



The small shack right nearby which I'm sleeping in, but despite its outward appearance the room inside is actually pretty nice:

photo link

Here's a link that was sent to me by the folks I'll be working for next, with some photos of their land and the area in general. You should be able to get to it by clicking directly on the subject line above.

in Nakusp, B.C.

I'm going to keep this short for the time being, but I'm now exploring the Slocan Valley for a few days, which is just to the west of Kootenay Lake (where the town of Nelson is). I worked for Joseph for just three days, as he had someone coming on Sunday evening that he was going to be tutoring all week, and so he'd said when I first talked to him that he didn't want to be splitting his time, and so I could just come by for the weekend, actually Friday-Sunday. That worked out fine, because I hadn't gotten the chance yet to do a little more exploring of the area on my own. So I took off Sunday evening, but not before setting up to work for some other folks, starting on Thursday morning. But I've been out of cell phone range through this whole area of the Slocan Valley (even though there's plenty of small towns), so wasn't able to text message anybody, or send to my email account some of the photos I've taken in the past few days, to be able to post them here. So I'll try and write a little more once I get the photos sent from my phone, so that I can then upload them.

In the meantime, one cool thing that happened was that I ran into a guy, Shaun, at the youth hostel in Nelson, who I'd met previously on the island of Kauai, Hawaii back in May, after I got back from hiking the Na Pali Coast. He's from England and has actually been WWOOFing himself around North America, and had worked on a couple of farms in Hawaii. I'm sure he mentioned to me that he was going to Canada at the time, but I'd forgotten and so of course it was a pretty big surprise to run into him here, especially considering how big Canada is. So, since I don't have any other photos to post right now, here's one he just emailed to me from Kauai, from sometime around early May. This was at a potluck get-together at Hanalei Bay with some friends of my friend Jasmine (which was how I'd met Shaun to begin with, who was a friend of a friend of hers, both of whom were visiting from the Big Island). I must admit, I look pretty damn tan here. To my immediate right is a girl from England who lived on Kauai, but I forget her name, and then Jasmine is next over, but unfortunately her back is turned. But anyway I'll wrap things up here for now, and just try to write again later this week or else maybe over the weekend.

a few random photos

I made it to Nelson, British Columbia, Canada yesterday evening. I'm staying for the next few nights at the Dancing Bear Hostel here in town. I have to keep this short as I only have a few minutes left on the library computer here, but here are a few photos...

A nice sunset in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho last Monday (I stayed at a campground near there for two nights before arriving in Canada):



In front of the hostel here in Nelson:



Baker Street, which is pretty much Main Street, in Nelson:



This is a photo my brother just sent me, hitchhiking in front of a "No Hitchhiking" sign in Washington State last summer, when my dad and brother visited just before I left Portland for my big trip:

in Missoula, Montana

I left the Rainbow Gathering in Wyoming yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, drove all the way to Missoula, Montana and stayed in a hotel here last night. I'm just taking care of assorted business here for a little while, then I'll probably head out of town sometime in the next couple of hours, after I finish up online (I'm in the local library), get some more food for the road, fill up the gas tank and that's about it. I've got limited time online here, so I'll make this pretty short. But from here I'm headed west into Idaho, then will be going north up through the finger of Idaho, and then into Canada, headed for Nelson, B.C. I emailed a bunch of the WWOOFing farms in the area before the Rainbow Gathering, and so got a number of replies back. Some of them are already full for the summer or otherwise don't need people, but a handful of them did say they could use some help, so it looks like I'll just have to make up my mind which one sounds the most interesting. Some of them included photos and the area definitely looks pretty gorgeous.

One other note, I think I mentioned it already but just to make sure, unfortunately I won't be able to make many phone calls while in Canada, since I'll get charged 50 cents a minute to use my phone on top of my usual monthly bill. But the good news is that sending text messages, including photos, from my phone is still cheap, so I'll try and send photos every once in a while to people who can actually view them, and also I can send photos to my own email account, and then either email them or post them here. Speaking of which I did that with some photos I took at the Rainbow Gathering and will include them below. So, I guess I'll probably be writing next from Canada (although I'll make some more phone calls while I'm still here in the U.S., possibly for the next day or two)....

Here's a nice sunset while driving through Wyoming to the Rainbow Gathering:



This is where I camped the night before I actually got to the gathering, although it was only a few miles away. I decided to camp here rather than dealing with the crowded parking area, and trying to hike into the gathering area (which occurrs away from where all the cars are) in the dark:



This is one of the few big structures built by one of the kitchens, Granola Funk. It's a stage for music, plays, etc. Other than this though, mostly it's just people playing music around campfires:



This is a kitchen in the woods set up by my friend Jeffrey, where I hung out a bit:

more photos

Here's a self-portrait taken at the main meadow:



People gathering for the 4th of July (silence during the morning, then around noon people start making music and just have a good time all afternoon):





The dinner circle in the main meadow the evening before I left:



A map of the gathering site with all of the kitchens (there's more than 100) and other things of interest going on:

heading for the Rainbow Gathering

I'm still in Logan, Utah, but I'm heading out of town shortly. Here are a couple of photos from a short hike that my brother and I did yesterday up Logan Canyon. Now that I have a phone that can take photos, which I can send to my own email account, I'll be able to put pictures up here more frequently. But as it turns out, unfortunately it will cost me 50 cents a minute to make or receive calls while in Canada; whereas text messaging is still cheap, so I'll probably mostly be making use of the text message function and taking pictures to send people and post here.

So, I'm in a bit of a hurry to wrap things up here and get on the road since I have a half day of driving to do, so this will be short once again. I'll head for the Rainbow Gathering today, but it's possible I may instead end up camping somewhere along the way depending on my progress, since I'd rather not be showing up there too late this evening, as it will take a little while to hike into the site and then find a camping spot. But it looks like it's beautiful country along the way, so I won't mind spending a night in a pleasant and quiet campground somewhere on the way there. I'll most likely spend a week or so at the gathering, possibly as long as a couple of weeks. Then, from there I'm pretty much headed straight for British Columbia, which I'm definitely looking forward to. It looks like there are some pretty cool farms in the area I'm headed to, where I can do the WWOOF program (work exchange on organic farms). Also at that point I'll get on right away figuring out what I need to do to be able to work in Canada and make some money. I'm not sure exactly how much access I'll have to the internet from here on out, but I'll try and post updates as often as possible, as well as some nice photos of what I'm sure will be plenty of beautiful scenery between here and there, and particularly that area I'm headed to of southeastern B.C.

in Logan, Utah

(Kayaking near Logan, Utah with my brother (obscured behind us), Lesley (paddling away in the background) and their friend Kishore, in the boat behind me)...

I'm now at my brother Christo and sister-in-law Lesley's house in Logan, in northern Utah. I guess I haven't written much on here in a long while...but to sum it all up extremely briefly, over the past 5-6 weeks since flying back to the mainland U.S., I've visited my aunt's in central California near Yosemite; visited my mom and step-dad in Ukiah, Calif.; my aunt and uncle Rod and Kathy in Chico; visited Ashland, Oregon and saw some Shakespeare plays; took the bus up to Salem, Oregon and visited my old friend Erik and his family, where I also bought a 1989 Toyota Camry sedan, then drove back up to Portland; stayed with my cousins Nick and Brenda for several days and visited other family there; then drove from there across Oregon, Idaho and into northern Utah.

So, that covers all that. I'll be here for several more days, and be visiting with my dad and step-mom when they arrive later in the week. Then from here, I'll be going to the Rainbow Gathering in western Wyoming for perhaps a week or so; and then after that I'm headed further north to go WWOOFing (work exchange on organic farms) in southern British Columbia, Canada, as well as do some hiking, camping, swimming, etc. for the summer...and who knows, since I'm technically Canadian (dual-citizen since I was born there) maybe I'll find a paying job up there for the summer as well, we'll see. I'll try and keep posted with things, but I'm not quite sure how often I'll have internet access, so when in doubt give me a ring on my new cell phone.

Yosemite photos

Here are some photos from when I went to Yosemite with my aunt Chris and Marie last weekend:

more Yosemite photos...