June 8: Away to Moose Jaw

You have to go. It's such a great name.

I drove from Regina to Moose Jaw, and for the first time since I got to Saskatchewan, I realized I am really on the prairies. Miles and miles of miles and miles, flat as a pancake. It's not a long trip; it took me about 45 minutes, because the speed limit is about 70 mph for most of the way. And why not? You could see an obstacle miles away.

Moose Jaw is a Western town right off the studio lot: wide, perpendicular main drags, blocky storefronts crowding them, an impressive train station smack at the end of Main Street like Dad at the head of the table. And you have to give the city fathers and mothers credit: The town could have faded into nothingness when its heyday had passed, like so many others, but thanks to its name, a few lucky breaks and some tireless marketing, it remains a destination.

The Tunnels of Moose Jaw is a tour into a labyrinth of steam tunnels that were (re)discovered only in 1985, reportedly by a truck that fell into them. They're still not completely excavated, and one of the guides said they're actually owned by a guy in Vancouver. (How does a person come to purchase an abandoned network of tunnels under a town hundreds of miles away?)

There are two tours, the "Chicago Connection" and the "Passage to Fortune"; each is 50 minutes, takes you to different cleaned-up and elaborately decorated (with historical settings and artifacts, not wallpaper) sections of the tunnels and is highly theatrical, with costumed guides involving visitors in a storyline. I personally have been a bootlegger, a coolie, an artist and a doorstop. The Chicago tour is based on the theory that Al Capone was running a smuggling operation from Moose Jaw during Prohibition -- despite the fact that there is no historical evidence he ever set foot in the town. Kind of odd, but good fun, if you can remember that it's historical speculation rather than a re-enactment of any sort.

"Passage to Fortune," though, while based on fictional/composite characters, is packed with factual information about the mistreatment of Chinese immigrants in turn-of-the-20th-century Canada. Things were so dire in China after the Opium War that people were willing to pay exorbitant fees to coolie brokers to get to Canada to make their fortunes -- only to discover they were essentially indentured slaves with no hope of returning to China or bringing family members over for years, if ever. The Canadian government, which didn't really want them except that they were cheap labor for the railroads, extracted an increasingly outrageous "head tax" on Chinese immigrants, and white Canadians treated them with vicious racism. They worked ridiculously long hours for the railroad or in laundries, doing dangerous, injurious work with no medical attention, crap food and little sleep. It's a really ugly chapter in Canada's history.

So I felt kind of arrogant and disrespectful going over to the Temple Gardens Mineral Spa for a long soak in the hot pool and a body wrap. For a little while, anyway. The huge, shallow pool is a wonderful place to forget your problems and everyone else's, too, and relax. You can boil yourself in the whirlpool area, or bob through a passage into the open air (without getting out of the water), where the water is hotter and the cool air and occasional kisses of rain on your shoulders remind you how extraordinarily good it is to be alive.

The body wrap was supposed to do all kinds of nutritive things to my skin with vitamins and detoxifying botanical elixirs, but the whole point, ultimately, is that it feels fantastic to get scrubbed down, slathered with fragrant herbaceous goo, wrapped up like a leftover taco and left to bake in a darkened room. Then comes a refreshing shower, another slicking of moisturizer and it's time to remember what your name is and how to drive. Oh, and put your clothes on. Do that first.

In my wanderings around town I spotted several of the Murals of Moose Jaw, which are just what the name says. Forty-six murals by different artists depict aspects of local history and culture, and they really brighten up the blank sides of those utilitarian 19th-century buildings.

The show wasn't over when I left to drive back to Regina. I wanted to get back before it got dark, because that highway is unlit and I saw elk crossing signs. Enough said.

Saskatchewan calls itself the "Land of Living Skies," and driving east on the Trans-Canada at sundown, I found out why. As is the case where the land is flat, the sky is HUGE, and this sky was a surging lava lamp of activity. Behind me, the sun was going all molten in a crucible of ragged dark clouds. To the right was a slate wall of storm clouds and distant rain. To the left and overhead was a slow-motion churn of shapes in shades of gray. The bottom layer was so low, it couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet, but it was broken and showing higher clouds in lighter colors. It's a good thing the road is almost entirely flat, die-straight and free of sudden hazards, because my eyes kept turning upwards. I think that drive put something into me that the Chinese laundry had taken out.

Finished the day with a luscious meal at the Cathedral Free House in Regina, then repacked and enjoyed a brief nap before dropping the car at the airport and boarding a flight to Winnipeg.

June 7: Regina in the rain

I have been informed that it is hotter than the hinges of hell right now in Pittsburgh and even in Toronto. Huh. When I left Pittsburgh, it had been cold and raining for like a week, and guess what! I brought it out here with me! I have now not seen more than about five minutes of sun since I left British Columbia, which would bother me less if it weren't so cold. To be fair, these temperatures (highs that don't crack 60, or single and low double digits Celsius) are below normal for this time and place.

Still, the Regina Farmers Market was slightly forlorn in the morning. I got in from the airport, having flown in from Calgary, a little after 9 a.m. and discovered that the weekly farmers market was conveniently across the street from my hotel, the elegant Victorian Hotel Saskatchewan Radisson Plaza. (Queen Victoria is very much present here, as you'd expect in a city named for her title. Pronunciation tip: The i is long, unlike the girl's name. One of the main intersections in town is the corner of Victoria and Albert.)

ANyway, the forlornness of the market was mostly superficial and visual; the 10 or so vendors huddled under dripping awnings while a handful of shoppers wandered by under umbrellas. The wares were plants -- mostly flowers -- and baked goods, homemade preserves, honey, beeswax. And sushi. Yep.

But the more time I spent there, the less forlorn it became. People seemed to know each other and the vendors, and there were friendly greetings and chat and warm smiles despite the damp chill. One of the flowering-plant vendors seemed particularly popular, and people were strolling away from his stall carrying geraniums and other blooms in pots. I stopped at a stall with bread and rice crispy treats and purchased a cookie. Or tried to. When I handed the vendor a $20, she said, in a vaguely European accent, "You got no change?" I didn't. "It's OK," she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You take the cookie, you pay me later when you walk by again."

So I got some coffee, broke the $20, and that's exactly what I did. It was worth the extra walking in the drizzle to watch her face light up.

Regina reminds of Pittsburgh. It has a steelmaking past, an immigrant population (I see a lot of Eastern European churches in the phone book and names on signs and businesses) and a friendly, unpretentious vibe. People smile and say "hi" and joke about the rain as you pass on the sidewalk. An older couple stopped me from feeding a parking meter and explained that Saturdays are free.

Fortified with my coffee and cookie, I took a spin around the imposing Saskatchewan provincial parliament building and then drove out to the RCMP Heritage Center, excuse me, Centre to see what the story is with the Mounties. Now, it's easy to poke fun, and I've done it, with the whole Dudley Do-Right, Jeannette MacDonald-and-Nelson Eddy, bright red tunics and funny hats thing, but I came away from the Heritage Centre with a greater understanding and new respect for the RCMP and what they stand for. Even though the first thing I thought when I drove onto the campus (it's also a training center, excuse me, centre) and spotted an RCMP cruiser was, "Wait -- they have CARS? What a gyp!"

PM John A. MacDonald founded the North West Mounted Police in 1873 because as trading and settlement extended westward, there were clashes with the Indians and general lawlessness, and MacDonald specifically wanted to avoid the kind of war and carnage that had been happening in the American West. So yeah, they have the word "police" in the name, but they weren't meant to be ordinary cops going out there to enforce laws and arrest people. The Mounties were also meant to be diplomats, peacekeepers and social workers who strove to maintain fair and friendly relations with the Indians and order among the rough characters streaming westward to work on railroads, trade, mine or whatever. They were trained to be creative and resourceful and flexible, not just the toughest guys in town or ruthless enforcers. Though they were pretty implacable about chasing down bad guys, which is how they got that "always get their man" rep. They chased some miscreant all the way down to Nevada, where I bet those red wool tops were pretty damn uncomfortable.

The RCMP was all about community policing before that was hip. MacDonald (Sir John, not Jeannette) borrowed the idea from Sir Robert Peel, for whom English "bobbies" are named. There was a great quote in the multimedia show, which I recommend -- it has hokey moments, but it's fun to watch and really gives you a sense of the more modern work the RCMP is doing, in the CSI line -- and I'm sorry I missed who said it, but the idea was so insightful coming from someone in the 19th century dealing with a frontier that I scribbled it down in the dark: "It is not law we want in this country, but justice."

That right there, I think, is the essence of what makes the RCMP different from a standard police force. Not so much the horsies.

After lunch I went to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, which starts its look at Saskatchewan's history with the cooling of the Earth's crust. Actually, the geological and paleontological stuff is quite interesting and well-presented, as are the displays about native culture. It's a very worthwhile museum at a bargain rate (suggested donation for adults: $2).

I went for a walk in Wascana Centre, an enormous park with a small lake in it, but the weather got punitive and I couldn't do much besides walk. The rain didn't deter the many rowing crews who had been having some kind of competition and were thronging down at the marina (you can rent canoes and kayaks when it's not a pouring race day), or the ducks, geese and pelicans (no kidding! was NOT expecting pelicans), and, inspired by them, I walked around the lake. I saw the Willow Island ferry, which can be booked on weekends to take people out to a small island in the lake for picnics. I can see the lake from my 10th-floor hotel room, the amazingly spacious Grosvenor Suite. Yes, I have at last realized my dream of staying in a hotel room fine enough to have a name.

The waitress who brought my dinner asked me if I was going to Mosaic afterward. Mosaic is an annual cultural festival, in which Regina celebrates its many ethnic groups with pavilions all over town. I had heard bagpipes and glimpsed a tent through the trees in the park but was too chilled and soggy to do anything about it. For a moment I toyed with the idea of going back there and seeing what the Scots were up to. "What happens in the pavilions besides music?" I asked the waitress. "Oh, food -- that's mostly what I go for, great food -- and people drink and party and have a good time."

Alas, I had photos to import, so I had to go back to the hotel.

Program note: I'm going to Moose Jaw to see the tunnels and sample the delights of the spa, but I won't be able to write about it until Monday because I'll get back late and have to be at the airport at 5:30 a.m. (!) Until then, here's hoping for better weather.

June 6: Stampeding into Calgary

I couldn't leave Banff without taking the waters, but the hot mineral spring that provided the original draw for tourists has been closed for over 20 years because it contains a unique snail. Well, a lot of them, actually. We visited the Cave and Basin historic site yesterday morning on our tour to see the cave where the hot spring was discovered (by railroad workers) and the bathing pools. The smell was impressive. Why people actually wanted to immerse themselves and get their noses close to such a vile sulphur funk is a mystery to me. And if the snails, which are about the size of lemon seeds, were there then ... yuck. I'm sorry, I just don't get it.

No, the way to enjoy the Banff spa experience without gagging or getting icky protected snails in your bathing suit -- no longer a real threat, since you can't even put your hand in the water because it might upset the snails -- is to visit the modern public spring facility on Sulphur Mountain up near the gondola or, if you crave serious luxury, to spend a day dipping and soaking at the Fairmont's spa. They've got a whole complicated ritual mapped out, which I adapted to shorten the amount of time necessary and cut out most of the "cold plunge" parts. But they have whirlpools and waterfall pools of different temperatures, a sauna and steam room, a dreamy mineral pool with underwater music (!) and two special rooms just for sitting comfortably, drinking tea, staring out at the mountains and congratulating yourself on being able to be there.

When I was thoroughly waterlogged, I tore myself away to drive to Calgary, leaving the dramatic peaks of the Rockies behind me for more modest treed hills, then patches of flat that hint at the prairies ahead. Calgary is amazingly vibrant and growing despite having winter temperatures that reach something like -40 (F or C? -40 is the same on both scales!). It's the youngest city in Canada populationwise, with an average age of 35, and personal incomes run very high while unemployment runs very low. There is construction everywhere.

I got a literal overview of the city from the Calgary Tower, Calgary's version of the Space Needle or CN Tower. From the observation deck you can see all the way back to the last line of Rockies, or straight down into the street, thanks to sections of transparent flooring.

Very nearby is the elegant and fascinating Glenbow Museum. It's an eclectic mix of something for everybody: art, history, culture, including a wonderful exhibit about the memorable pioneer characters of Alberta's history, beautiful Asian/Indian art, and a splendid and intriguing cross-cultural, cross-temporal look at warriors and warrior culture. Suits of armor, kimonos, battle dress, guns, spears, war bonnets. Stuff from all over time and all over the world, cleverly organized for comparison and contrast.

Throughout the museum is a remarkable emphasis on First Nations (what Canada calls its native peoples) artifacts, art, culture and point of view. Exhibits dealing with the white settlement of Western Canada and the expansion of the railroads include the role native peoples played and their impressions, attitudes and reactions. Historical and art exhibits also have sections devoted to women. Like women warriors, representations of Indian/Asian goddesses, pioneer women, women in the armed forces. When you look around the images and portraits displayed at Glenbow, you see many kinds of faces and names. The cool part is that none of this comes across as contrived or preachy; it seems very natural, smoothly integrated and comprehensive.

Wow.

There were schoolkids there while I was -- the museum does a lot to engage and cater to kids -- and they actually seemed interested and attentive.

I started to stroll down the Stephen Avenue pedestrian mall, but the weather got ugly. Fortunately, it cleared up later when I met my friend George, who lives in Calgary, for dinner and a stroll around Prince's Island Park. I'm glad, because the park is truly a gem and it would have been a shame to miss it. Our evening amble also ratcheted up my critter count by two: We spotted, within seconds of each other, a snow hare and a rabbit. The hare startled me, because it was huge by bunny standards.

Tomorrow I take to the skies once again, bright and early. I can't wait to find out how domestic Canadian security compares with American!

Photo note: I dropped some pix from the train ride to Whistler into previous blogs. I'm catching up slowly but surely and hope you'll stay tuned!

June 5: Banff

This morning I woke up in what was once the staff quarters of the Banff Springs Hotel but is now a very fine newly renovated guest wing of the Fairmont Banff Springs with a FANTASTIC view of the Rockies outside my window. (They apparently built the hotel backward, giving the staff the best views.)

After a very fortifying trip to the breakfast buffet, I took a three-hour tour (a three-hour tour, "Gilligan's Island" fans) of Banff National Park, on which I saw an elk and several bighorn sheep and learned that, in the early days of the railroad resort that Banff was in its early days, they put up bleachers around the town dump and let folks come and watch the bears rummage through the trash. Also saw some beautiful lakes, one of which was dammed and flooded a little town you can now visit with scuba gear.

Had an outrageously good lunch at Bison Bistro and Deli (bacon and cheddar sandwich to die for -- real bacon, not that limp Canadian stuff) and then went on an hourlong horseback ride. For the first time since I can remember, I got a horse that was actually of an appropriate size for my short stature. I always felt like the outfitters would take one look at me and give me the most enormous horse in the stable, preferably one with deep-seated psychological problems. My horse was a little stubborn (I tried to steer now and then, then gave up), but he was of a manageable size and well-behaved. And the scenery -- it almost makes it more gorgeous and romantic to bob through it atop a horse. I even liked going back to the hotel smelling of horse and leather.


Couldn't resist a trip up the Banff Gondola, which takes 8 minutes to haul you up (closed car) to the top of a mountain from which you can see EVERYTHING and Banff looks like a tiny miniature Christmas village. Mountains, mountains everywhere, a double ribbon of highway, a blue milky lake, a snaking river (the Bow), and a thin atmosphere that made climbing the steps to the cosmic ray monitoring tower (I kid you not -- it's no longer in service) one of the colder exercises in heavy breathing anyone's ever likely to encounter. Did I mention it's cold? Did I mention the gondola took me far enough up to be on the same level with snow?



Anyway, if you look back a few posts now you'll see I'm beginning to be able to add in remedial pictures, thanks to some tech support back in Pittsburgh. Thank you, David. I'll be dropping in more of those as I can get them sized and get time to add them. All will soon be shipshape and Bristol fashion.

Did I mention there are a lot of Brits here?

June 4: Across the great divide

I have spent the past two days on a train. But not just any train. The Rocky Mountaineer is the most remarkable train I've ever been on, and I've done the TGV, the Bullet Train, the overnight train from Helsinki to Moscow (back when Moscow was in the USSR) and the R5 Paoli Local.

First let me assure you I've taken approximately 817 million pictures, because there is never a blah moment. If there ever threatens to be a blah moment, visually, on this train, you come out of the trees and suddenly there are mountains crowding around you begging to be photographed, a surging glacial torrent below, sun breaking through clouds to spotlight an alpine meadow, cows posing serenely and the threat of a random moose up ahead on the right. It's almost more than a person who has been told all her life that Pennsylvania has "mountains" can withstand.

So, yes, there will be pictures, and you will -- you WILL -- say wowwwww. That's what I said, and I wasn't even sure what I was looking at, thanks to a cocktail hour that begins at 10 a.m. I told you this was a great train.

But for now, as once again it's nearly midnight and I have to be up with the larks (though not the garbage trucks this time, which I appreciate), let me just paint you some pictures with words. AT LAST, THE PHOTOS ARE HERE! SOMEDAY, MY PRINTS WILL COME ...

Starting with a phrase not my own that was stuck in my head like a piece of spinach between teeth for the whole two days: "The mighty rivers of British Columbia." Hardcore Monty Python fans will recognize that from the preamble of the Lumberjack Song. The rivers of British Columbia are indeed mighty, especially when swollen to slick creaminess by snowmelt. We privileged travelers in the Gold Leaf service category and Gold Dome coach got excellent views of several rivers while sipping, dining and gazing out the overarching windows of our rail car. For fresh air and guaranteed glare-free photography, we could descend the spiral staircase to the dining level and step out onto the vestibule, where occasional rain and the scent of diesel didn't deter dogged photographers, videographers and wildlife spotters from crowding the railings and getting hands and hair in each other's shots.

It's funny how even in the most idyllic circumstances, little things can frustrate you. Like when the perfect pristine vista would open up, I'd aim my camera, start to squeeze the button and tall, lush hemlocks or lodgepole pines would come marching along the riverbank and right into my shot. "Damn you trees!" I barked more than once. "Down in front! Where are the loggers when you need them?"

I'm not proud of it.

The service and food on the Rocky Mountaineer are both outstanding, and I was blessed with a very pleasant and sympatico seatmate -- see previous post. Joff, a Kiwi from Christchurch who can rattle off the Monty Python "word association football" monologue and also goose a balky laptop, saved my butt more than once and let me have his window seat for most of Day 2. Of course, I pegged him as an Aussie at first, because the accent is so similar and our car was absolutely bursting with Aussies. (Aussies and Brits seem to have made up a majority of our fellow passengers.) But he forgave me for that and for beginning the conversation with "I'm from Pittsburgh, and yes, those were my boys winning in multiple overtime last night" (Canadians are very interested to hear where I live, thanks to the playoffs), to which Joff replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about," so I accused him of being Australian.

ANyway, yesterday we chugged through the chilly rainforest along the mighty rivers of British Columbia (MRBC), spotting bald eagles, some outlined against the sky as if posing for currency, until we got up onto the Thompson Plateau, where the terrain changes abruptly into kind of a high desert look. Badlands. Scrub. Few trees, lodgepoles, sagebrush. It looked like the American Southwest, and I can understand now why Westerns are filmed in Canada. You want miles and miles of John Wayne scenery with nary a cell phone tower or interstate in sight, you got it. But the changeover from the cold, damp evergreen forest to painted, sandy rock faces is so fast, it's like someone stitched together the edges of two completely different and unrelated climates. Even the air out on the vestibule was dramatically warmer and drier.


We saw a couple of bighorn sheep, who weren't interested.

When we rolled into Kamloops, we were met by two men and a woman in matching Western wear (red shirts, cowboy hats, horses) who stood in formation and waved at the train as it rolled in. Our onboard attendants Candice and Leah noted that these people turn out in full regalia and horsalia to greet every arriving train. I got a better look at them when we got off to go to our hotels for the night, and they were all wearing gold name badges, though I was too far away to read them.

The horses' gold name tags, however, were affixed to their foreheads (harnesses, anyway), so I can tell you that the Kamloops welcoming committee consists of Beau, Maxx and Bonanza and the people they were wearing.


After a productive night at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Kamloops (I actually did laundry, which was a mercy to everyone closer to me than you are right now), we went back to the train for another day of mind-blowingly vast, majestic and unique scenery as we headed toward Banff and Calgary. The terrain and vegetation went back to the original theme, though we officially entered the Rocky Mountains and became surrounded by impossibly high, craggy mountains with snow-streaked peaks and turgid little torrents pouring off them. Creeks became milky with glacial mineral dust, and ponds and lakes became mirrors.

We saw a lone moose, reportedly a female. Then we saw a couple of black bears, possibly foraging for spilled grain along the tracks.

Never mind -- I can't do it justice. The camera can't either, but I'll show you some photos that will have you shaking your head and wondering if I Photoshopped them. In the meantime, I need to sleep off the Kokanee light beer and other festive beverages the generous attendants kept offering us. I leave you with a poem I wrote (not so much a poem as a hijacked song) that was read with great seriousness by an onboard attendant too young to appreciate its homage. Feel free to sing along and add your own "Oh she's ... etc." repetitions of the chorus:


Oh I'm a passenger, so give a cheer,
I ride on the Rocky Mountaineer!

I look at trees,
I eat my lunch,
I queue for the lavat'ry.
On Wednesday I left Kamloops
Headed up to Banff, AB!

Oh I'll drink orange juice but like free beer,
I ride on the Rocky Mountaineer!


I look at trees,
I search for moose,
I want to see a bear.
The vestibule is crowded
When I take pictures there.

Oh wear a Gold Leaf on the upper tier,
To ride on the Rocky Mountaineer!

I shoot through trees
At peaks and falls,
Bald eagles and ospreys.
I love a cocktail hour
That lasts for two whole days!

June 2: Run outta town on a rail

I should mention, as a farewell to Vancouver, that I got in a brief walk on the seawall at Stanley Park, the second largest urban park in North America. Saw a couple of harbor seals!

I spent the whole day today riding the Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Kamloops through some more astounding scenery. That seems to be in unlimited supply out here. I'll finish my journey to Banff on the train tomorrow and write more about it then, as well as catching up on some other stuff from the past couple of days, but I spent my whole evening here at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Kamloops figuring out how to get these videos I shot on the Whistler Mountaineer and while ziplining up on the blog. It took four hours and a technical consult from my seatmate, Joff from New Zealand, who just happens to be a professional computer guru (how's that for a stroke of luck?), but I got three out of five of them into blog-ready form. They're pretty damn good quality for a camera about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Two are of the Cheakamus Canyon, shot from the train to Whistler, and the third is shot from a secure location attached to my harness, in the vicinity of my right pectoral muscle, while I demonstrate ziplining with the help of one of our Ziptrek guides. Please watch and enjoy!

TECH RAGE NOTE: Reaction to the third video has so far been, "It sure would have been cool if you'd left the camera running while you actually slid down the zipline" -- and of course, I DID. I can see that when I play the video, but apparently others can't. Which makes me furious, because I lost a LOT of sleep fooling with that video, and it apparently doesn't even work right. So I'm going to leave it up, but let me tell you this: If you play it, look for the length. If it's loading at less than 2 minutes, DON'T BOTHER WATCHING IT. I start sliding at about 1 minute 50 and go till about 2 minutes 20, but if the full video doesn't load for you, don't waste your time. And there won't be any more video if it's going to keep me up all night and then not even play. Boy, that makes me angry.

Zippity doo dah!

OK, encountering new and different photo technology difficulties, and this is a bad time for that because I want to talk about my ziplining adventure.

(A fellow blogger offered to size my pix in Photoshop if I'd send them. I got them loaded onto this machine, and now the e-mail doesn't work so I can't send them. Of course.)

Whistler, BC, is a picturesque ski-resort town nestled in the mountains. If you've ever been to any of the nicer ski resorts in the American Rockies, with their boutiques, restaurants and boot-friendly design, you'd feel a warm appreciation for Whistler, which is in overdrive as it prepares to host the 2010 winter Olympics jointly with Vancouver.

When I arrived there Sunday morning, I had an extraordinarily lavish suite at the Fairmont, with four rooms (one of which was a closet), two bathrooms, two fireplaces, a jacuzzi bath and a TV in the john. (The top two pictures here are the view from my window.) But I didn't get to stay in it long, because I needed to pop down into town and rent a bike for a quick taste of Whistler's favorite warm-weather pastime. Seriously, the biker boys take their bikes up on the ski lifts and ride down. Not that I would do that. But I did rent a bike and go for a few-mile ride out to Lost Lake and around that smallish (for a lake) body of water. It was chilly and gray, with occasional threatening stings of rain, so I didn't have a lot of company. But it was a good ride, and I got back, returned my trusty steed and prepared for the second, way more daunting activity for the afternoon: Ziplining with Ziptrek Eco Tours.

Ziplining, for those who don't know, is getting strapped into a harness, hooked to a cable and sliding down it like James Bond. Except you do it in a helmet, not a tuxedo. Ziptrek provided my intrepid group with three guides, and I have to salute them because they somehow managed to make me feel something less than abjectly terrified -- and that's a powerful testament to their air of confidence, competence, experience and calm, because I can think of a lot of things I like better than falling off a high thing over a roaring, snowmelt-turgid creek full of rocks. Like herpes.

I'm not good with heights. But here's the amazing thing I discovered when they strapped me in, hooked me up and told me to unclench my toes and take to the air: It's only really terrifying for the first 20 feet or so. Then that wussy part of your brain stem that can't quite believe dangling over a gorge is in any way safe or natural suddenly goes, "Oh hey -- I'm not dead yet." And relaxes just a teeny bit. Also, and more seriously, there are a lot of things about ziplining that blunt the screamy edge.

1. It's not free-fall. You're going down at an angle, not plummeting straight down, and you're always well aware that the cable is holding you aloft, so you don't get that sickening stomach-up-through-the-soft-palate uncontrolled plunge feel.

2. (Or 1a really) You're never crazy, out-of-control fast. The cable is not without resistance.

3. The harness really does cradle your butt and make you feel surprisingly secure.

So after five zips, I can say it's really, really cool, especially when I worked up the courage to look down for a few seconds. (That's not me in the picture. I just wanted to show you what the rig looks like.)

After the Ziptrek tour, I got some tasty dinner at a place called Earls where my waitress worked for Ziptrek. Small resort. And I found a Cows! Cows ice cream is a Prince Edward Island chain rumored to sell the best ice cream in North America. The raspberry chocolate chip is very nice indeed. I must sample more for a scientific analysis.

I have video. Of the ziplining, silly, not of me sitting around porking out at Cows. Someday I may figure out how to upload it. In the meantime, I'm still trying to get pictures for you. Hope there's time tomorrow!

Bed now. More later.