Just a little West Coast rumination...

   This post has very little to do with running, so you might have to bear with me.
   I ache for the west coast.
   I have lived in Ontario for almost fifty years and love living here but, at the same time, British Columbia fiercely pulls on my heartstrings.
   I was born in Calgary and lived there only a couple of years before we moved to Youngstown, Ohio. Lived there a couple of years before then moving back to Edmonton.
   It was from Edmonton that we started travelling through the mountains every summer to visit my grandparents in Gibsons, B.C. They had built a cottage right on the ocean back in the thirties as a summer place and then eventually just moved there from Calgary. My dad spent his summers there, as well.
   The first part of the trip, travelling through the mountains, was always magical for us young kids. I'm sure we must have been pretty wide-eyed the whole way through. The drive was always a pretty twisty-turny kind of a thing which meant that you were constantly presented with amazing new vistas and experiences---glaciers and mountains and waterfalls and wild animals and rivers and the list just went on and on.
   Eventually, we always ended up in Vancouver, in Stanley Park and environs, simply continuing on with the amazing experience---totem poles, giant trees you could stand inside of, huge bridges guarded by lions.
   From there on to Horseshoe Bay and the ferry landing. We got to travel on a ship! Back in the late fifties/early sixties, the ferry system was much more quaint than it is now. Horseshoe Bay was not the multi-lane monstrosity it now is and the ferries themselves were not nearly as luxurious as they are today.

The beach in front of my Grandparents' place in Gibsons.

   Soon enough we were in Gibsons and this is where the magic really started. This was "pre-Beachcombers" Gibsons, long before it became the tourist magnet it is now. As I mentioned before, my grandparents lived right on a beach and this is where my brother Bob and I spent the vast majority of our time, when on vacation. I've been back a handful of times as a adult and it's been pretty cool watching first my boys and then my stepsons react to it the same way I did.
  

Capilano suspension bridge--Grouse Mountain

Eventually we moved to North Vancouver, originally a block off Lonsdale (attended Lonsdale Elementary) and then a little farther up Grouse Mountain, on a street just off Mont Royal. At the time we lived there in the early sixties, there were many undeveloped lots so, essentially, there was forest all around us. Mosquito Creek was just across the street from us and we spent hours in the forest bordering it.
   The reason why I even mention all this in a running blog is because lately I've become familiar with all these west coast bloggers who are now running almost right through my old neighbourhoods. I see runners cavorting down forest trails and runners standing on mountains beside oceans and runners making their way to the Sunshine Coast and the ache only intensifies.

The house I lived in on Glencanyon Drive, North Van.

   A few short years ago, Doralyn and I took our boys through the Rockies from Calgary and on to the coast. She remarked at one point that she could really see why people might go out west for a visit and just...stay there! I had to agree.
   Likely, if we could uproot all the people we love and drag them happily off to B.C., we would. Whether or not we end up there after the kids are grown and leading their own lives is hard to say. It's too bad that Canada is a country of such great distances...

The Agassiz Homestead, Agassiz, B.C.

   As a bit of a postscript, my great-great grandfather was Lewis Nunn Agassiz. His was the first family to settle in the Fraser Valley in the spot which is now Agassiz, B.C. I've often wondered if my love of the mountains was somehow or other a DNA-related thing. Could be. The weird part is that Lewis Agassiz actually started his journey from here in London!
   So, sorry about the lack of running-related material here. I actually debated about whether just to post it in my other blog, "Neanderings". I have, though, already talked there about my affinity for Western Canada (Calgary also elicits wonderful memories for me) but it is, in fact, all you western running bloggers who've stirred up many of these emotions. I can't tell you how much I envy all of you!