William Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain" which was a journey through the shadows of fading Byzantine culture in the Middle East. Dalrymple's book whetted my appetite for travel literature, particularly in the Holy Lands which is why "Walking the Bible" seems so appealing to me. In this book, author Bruce Feiler grabs his Bible and heads off to the Middle East to travel around to each area mentioned in the Pentateuch. As he is at each spot, he reads the Biblical account that happened around that area. This is something I enjoyed doing last summer while I was traveling through Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. I only wish I could've packed more of it into my short travels. At any rate, if you notice a lack of blogs in the next week or two, it's probably because I'm journeying through the Holy Land with Bruce Feiler as my guide. Feel free to run to your local Chapters/Indigo/Coles store so you can join me on this journey. For my lazy Canadian readers, you can click here to purchase the book on Amazon.ca.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
While in Calgary this past weekend, I picked up a book entitled "Walking the Bible". It is "A journey by land through the five books of Moses," written by Bruce Feiler. Last year I read 
William Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain" which was a journey through the shadows of fading Byzantine culture in the Middle East. Dalrymple's book whetted my appetite for travel literature, particularly in the Holy Lands which is why "Walking the Bible" seems so appealing to me. In this book, author Bruce Feiler grabs his Bible and heads off to the Middle East to travel around to each area mentioned in the Pentateuch. As he is at each spot, he reads the Biblical account that happened around that area. This is something I enjoyed doing last summer while I was traveling through Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. I only wish I could've packed more of it into my short travels. At any rate, if you notice a lack of blogs in the next week or two, it's probably because I'm journeying through the Holy Land with Bruce Feiler as my guide. Feel free to run to your local Chapters/Indigo/Coles store so you can join me on this journey. For my lazy Canadian readers, you can click here to purchase the book on Amazon.ca.
William Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain" which was a journey through the shadows of fading Byzantine culture in the Middle East. Dalrymple's book whetted my appetite for travel literature, particularly in the Holy Lands which is why "Walking the Bible" seems so appealing to me. In this book, author Bruce Feiler grabs his Bible and heads off to the Middle East to travel around to each area mentioned in the Pentateuch. As he is at each spot, he reads the Biblical account that happened around that area. This is something I enjoyed doing last summer while I was traveling through Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. I only wish I could've packed more of it into my short travels. At any rate, if you notice a lack of blogs in the next week or two, it's probably because I'm journeying through the Holy Land with Bruce Feiler as my guide. Feel free to run to your local Chapters/Indigo/Coles store so you can join me on this journey. For my lazy Canadian readers, you can click here to purchase the book on Amazon.ca.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Sunday, July 08, 2007
A Manly Day
Yesterday (SATurday) I woke up at 7 am (on a SATurday), ready to hike a mountain (yes, on a Saturday). The weird thing about this is that 7 am was sleeping in for me. The van Leeuwens (my host family in Egypt) would be proud of me. Three friends and I set off to hike Mount ______ (I actually don't know the name of it... neither did anyone I was hiking with). The bottom portion of this mountain is a ski hill, so, many people just refer to it as 'the ski hill' (have you noticed how many brackets I've been using? It's like I'm giving a commentary on my writing as I write it... stay tuned for more). By the time we reached the top of the ski hill, one of the guys we were with was sweating quite profusely and unable to catch his breath. He decided he could no longer go on with us and turned back. Being the men we were, we let him leave so he wouldn't slow us down. By 11:40 we reached the peak of the mountain. Now, when I say peak, I don't mean a nice flat area where lots of people can sit and enjoy the view. I mean a place where three guys can barely sit comfortably to enjoy the view without falling off the cliff in front of them, or falling back down the shale slopes of the other side. Definitely the least accommodating mountain peak I've ever been to.
After enjoying the view for a few minutes and seeing if our (my) belches would echo through the valleys, we slid (unintentionally) down the shale until we reached more solid ground. From there we scouted out of a good spot for a fire where we could cook up some lunch. Naturally, I brought along my Heinz Ketchup (because there's no other Keinz) to garnish my burnt hot dogs. This is when I realized that I brought along as much Ketchup as I brought of water. This is also when I realized that 7 hot dogs will make a man quite thirsty. This is when I ran out of water.
Going down the mountain wasn't the speedy endeavor I was hoping it would be. The whole way down we were doing controlled falling (as much as we could control, at least). At one point, the guy in the rear fell and let loose a huge rock which came shooting down directly at us. Chad and I both had to jump in the air to dodge the rock as it bounced up just before reaching us. We narrowly cleared the rock as it continued rocketing down the mountainside. On the way down I realized how inconvenient is was to bring a digital SLR camera on the hike with me. The other two guys were struggling to keep from breaking bones. I was struggling to keep from breaking my camera. As we descended farther and farther down the mountain, I became more and more parched. At first I was getting the pasties (how did that glue get in my mouth?). Then there was nothing. Not even cotton. I quickly realized that my lips were chapping. I was surely going to die (not from chapped lips).
Eventually, we emerged from the thick brush and trees at the top of the ski hill. I saw the lodge at the bottom of the hill and began running towards it. Fifteen minutes later I reached it, with newly formed blisters on my feet from the run down the hill. Surely that was in record time. I chugged 1.5 Litres of water, forgetting that I needed to breathe. This is when I remembered the seven hot dogs I ate... and the seven buns they were in. Those buns suddenly expanded in my stomach. But it was worth it. Water was my new best friend. After getting home I drank as much water as I could stomach. Soon I was able to pee for the first time since waking up that morning. I don't want to over-elaborate here, but my pee was a distinct orange color, much like the time I was OD-ing on multi-vitamins.
That evening, with a searing headache from dehydration, I decided to go fishing with my friend Joe. He taught me to fly fish! I caught three fish that evening. Two with the fly rod, and one with a spool rod. Not too shabby! Anyways, I got home and reflected on all the outdoorsy stuff I did that day, and came to the conclusion that it was a manly day. That 'Wild at Heart' fellow would be proud of me. Click here to see some pictures from the hike.
After enjoying the view for a few minutes and seeing if our (my) belches would echo through the valleys, we slid (unintentionally) down the shale until we reached more solid ground. From there we scouted out of a good spot for a fire where we could cook up some lunch. Naturally, I brought along my Heinz Ketchup (because there's no other Keinz) to garnish my burnt hot dogs. This is when I realized that I brought along as much Ketchup as I brought of water. This is also when I realized that 7 hot dogs will make a man quite thirsty. This is when I ran out of water.
Going down the mountain wasn't the speedy endeavor I was hoping it would be. The whole way down we were doing controlled falling (as much as we could control, at least). At one point, the guy in the rear fell and let loose a huge rock which came shooting down directly at us. Chad and I both had to jump in the air to dodge the rock as it bounced up just before reaching us. We narrowly cleared the rock as it continued rocketing down the mountainside. On the way down I realized how inconvenient is was to bring a digital SLR camera on the hike with me. The other two guys were struggling to keep from breaking bones. I was struggling to keep from breaking my camera. As we descended farther and farther down the mountain, I became more and more parched. At first I was getting the pasties (how did that glue get in my mouth?). Then there was nothing. Not even cotton. I quickly realized that my lips were chapping. I was surely going to die (not from chapped lips).
Eventually, we emerged from the thick brush and trees at the top of the ski hill. I saw the lodge at the bottom of the hill and began running towards it. Fifteen minutes later I reached it, with newly formed blisters on my feet from the run down the hill. Surely that was in record time. I chugged 1.5 Litres of water, forgetting that I needed to breathe. This is when I remembered the seven hot dogs I ate... and the seven buns they were in. Those buns suddenly expanded in my stomach. But it was worth it. Water was my new best friend. After getting home I drank as much water as I could stomach. Soon I was able to pee for the first time since waking up that morning. I don't want to over-elaborate here, but my pee was a distinct orange color, much like the time I was OD-ing on multi-vitamins.
That evening, with a searing headache from dehydration, I decided to go fishing with my friend Joe. He taught me to fly fish! I caught three fish that evening. Two with the fly rod, and one with a spool rod. Not too shabby! Anyways, I got home and reflected on all the outdoorsy stuff I did that day, and came to the conclusion that it was a manly day. That 'Wild at Heart' fellow would be proud of me. Click here to see some pictures from the hike.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Fireworks!!
These are a few of the pictures I took this past weekend of the fireworks from Wildcat Days and from Canada Day. Click here to see more of them!
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Wildcat Days
These are a few photos that I took during Elkford's "Wildcat Days" this past weekend. Wildcat Days is the town festival, complete with parades, bands, beer gardens, games, and fireworks. I'll be posting some pics of the fireworks at a later date. I was amused while taking these pictures because so many people would see my big camera and ask if I was from the newspaper or a magazine or something. Ha! Small town folk.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Soccer Tournament
I'm sure you're all dying to know the results of this weekend's U16 soccer tournament. The day began at 9 am with a game against Sparwood 1, which was the only team that ever beat us during the regular season (and only because their ref was clearly sleeping with someone on the Sparwood team... what an outrage). The Combat Wombats (that's our good ol Elkford team, in case I haven't told you that before) took out Sparwood 1 no problem. Next game was at 12:20 against Pincher Creek (yes, they're the ones with the new Wal-mart and they're pretty cocky because of it). Pincher Creek couldn't handle the Wombat Power and quickly (two 40 minute halves later) handed Elkford yet another victory. This brought us to the Gold Metal Match against Sparwood 2, the climax of our year. Going into this game we were all pretty confident that we would walk away with the gold. Perhaps too confident. The first goal of the game was by us... only it was on our own net (a slight defensive redirection gone wrong). Eventually we tied it up with another goal. Late in the second half we scored once again. 2-1, Elkford. Sparwood has yet to score their own goal. A few minutes before the end of the game, Sparwood gets their first REAL goal, tying the game at 2-2. This brought us to five minutes of overtime, which quickly disappeared. The goal metal match was to be decided by a shootout. Apparently it only makes sense for a team game to be concluded by putting all the hopes of winning on a single individual. Poor goal keepers. I won't bore you with the dramatic details of the shoot-out because in the end... we lost. Not to worry, though, we still got silver metals. I took a bunch of pictures throughout the tourney, the are uploaded into two galleries. Click here for soccer galley #1. Click here for soccer gallery #2. Here are a couple to whet your appetite:
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