Haven’t been updating my blog for the longest time…going to blab about my excuses again…well I was really busy prepping for the trip as always, plus the hot weather was slowing me down a lot. Also I’ve been getting headaches quite frenqently, not sure what’s going on ><

I went camping at the Golden Ears Provincial Park with Wendy last Sat/Sun. I did do well on my to-bring checklist, everything went fine, except for the fact that it was pouring rain the afternoon we got there. Oh actually one good thing for the day, was that we originally had to be put onto a waiting list since all the camp sites were full, but then we ended up getting a site after 2 hours of wait =D. Even though it was pouring, the inside of our tent didn’t get wet at all, thanks for my $$$ MSR tent. We were able to get to the Alouette Lake at around 5PM when the rain stopped, and we soaked ourselves in the lake even though the water was pretty cold. Not long after we got out of the water, another thunderstorm striked and it was pouring again. We had to stay in the car for about an hour before we could get out and get back into the tent.

At another rain break we cooked dinner, had udon and some canned food. It rained all night, and I had a pretty bad sleep since I wasn’t used to the rock hard “bed” which was just the gound. The next morninThg the sky cleared up, we cooked egg and luncheon meat for breakfast, and went for a hike. The hike was pretty streneous and we both got super exhausted, but the creek that we discovered and the viewpoint at the end of the hike was well worth the effort. I’m going to post photos later, so tired and stressed from today’s work

So Richmond Mercedes Benz called me up asking me I’d like a free oil change plus a 24-hour test drive of the new Smart car. Without fully understanding why were they doing it for free (they said it’s complimentary), I booked an appointment which was yesterday. I brought in my car, gave them the key, the guy got my driver’s license copied, and I got the car! The car is black out, and grey in. The instrument panel looks kind of nice, but I still like mine better. The car does feel swifter though, probably due to the new gasoline engine delivering more horsepower. Noise-wise it’s quite similar to that of mine but I think it’s a bit quiter as well. What I really liked about it was the power window switch for the passenger side window, on the driver side. I don’t have that on mine And Wendy seems to like the heated seat a lot (I had that as an option when I got my car but then the seats that were in red-color upholsery didn’t come with the heated components so I chose not to get the heated seats but the red color) Anyway I think the car is pretty cool, I may get it when my lease ends next year.

I’ll have to return the car to them in about 6.5 hours though, lol.

Finally made up my mind to get a Costco membership. $50 for the business account. Kind of pricey I wanted to stroll around there from time to time. Well I bought a Garmin Oregon 200 GPS, for my GPS need at the canyons. Anyway, the membership card had my pic on it but it’s super ugly…:( wonder why would a company that huge be using such a low-tech printer. The GPS is kind of cool though, 3 inch touch screen, full color, and pretty high res. I’m going to bring it with me camping with Wendy to try it out, probably next weekend or so.

I’ve really been spending most of my time planning for my upcoming trip to Utah. Why Utah? Because it’s the heaven for serious photographers! I’ve pretty much finished planning out the main route, and did reservations for all the camp sites (will be camping for the entire trip…not even a single night of hotel stay…to keep the cost down). All of the camp sites provide hot showers, and most of them provide electricity (so I can recharge batteries for my cameras) and water, except for maybe two nights or so I’ll have to survive without electricity.. guess it’ll be fine. Anyway I’ll be travelling to five awesome national parks:

and it’s going to be a 2300km drive, for 15.5 days.

Today I went to Walmart to check to see if they carry any cheapo camping gears before I pick up some pricier ones at Mountain Equipment CO-OP. I bought quite a few items like rain jacket, LED lamp, flip flops….etc. (see receipt) Will be heading to MEC in a few days to get a decent tent, a hiking rod, and some other things that I will need.