Archive for August, 2010

PLACE: Minnekhada Regional Park (Click for Map) LOCATION: Coquitlam, B.C. I have been working dilligently on trying to get a crew together to do another high alpine hike in line with my most recent Elfin Lakes trip but things have not quite come together. Hikes like that are hard to top. They are like an addiction really; once you get a taste anything short of that splendor is not enough. The good news is in Vancouver there is such a wide variety of outdoor activities with a broad range of difficulty that not everything has to be that grand to be awesome. Case in point, Minnekhada Regional Park. It is less than an hour from downtown Vancouver. It’s dog friendly, it has some decent elevation gain but nothing too tough and you wind up at an incredible vista overlooking the Pitt River Valley.

My pup Kira exploring the High Knoll Viewpoint in Minnekhada Regional Park.

Looking out over the lower marsh from the High Knoll Viewpoint in Minnekhada Regional Park.

If you have any suggestions for an upcoming UNPLUGGED please feel free to drop me a comment below or email me at michael@vancouverisawesome.com. Also, feel free to share your thoughts on this feature or anything else (within reason and sticking to the VIA commenting policy of course).

Until next time…Happy Trails!

-mt

All images copyright Michael Tedesco.

Yesterday our good friends at the Museum of Vancouver launched their latest exhibit entitled Home Grown: Local Sustainable Food and, as you might have suspected, it’s quite awesome. Co-presented by FarmFolkfCityFolk, the exhibit hinges around a series of photographs by Brian Harris set across four seasons, and it tells some amazing stories of local food production and urban agriculture.

I’ve decided not to share any of the photos I shot of the photos and instead only some of the peripheral artifacts that make up the rest of the exhibit while encouraging you to get down to MOV and take a look for yourself. They’ve got a bunch of programming happening around Home Grown including a Food And Beers speaker series (hosted by David Beers of the Tyee!) some family workshops and some talks and tours. If you have any interest in locally sourced food and sustainability, or if you are simply somebody who eats food and lives in the city (you are and you do, right?), then you should not miss this show.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Wandering around the concourse at the Coliseum waiting for the Super Dogs, I saw this….  Cotton Candy for a buck?  I really wasn’t in the mood for something sweet after eating these, but how do you turn down that price?

In fundraising efforts to send 15 ambassadors to continue the construction of homes in Norzagaray Bulacan, Philippines, the Enspire Foundation‘s Enspring Race takes place in downtown Vancouver on SEP. 18 and if you’re interested in participating, you can still register for the race by tomorrow, FRI/AUG. 27. Full details of the race are HERE.

Co-founder Lorie Corcuera talks about how the Enspire Foundation, the race and the recruitment process this year to send the crew 2010 team:

Q – Tell me about Enspire Foundation?
A – Enspire Foundation’s mission is “to empower, educate and encourage individuals to help themselves and others”. We are about ‘enspiring’ young Canadians locally to give back to their communities here and internationally. Through our Shared Experience Program, we are giving volunteers an opportunity to gain a life changing experience by spending time with families from one of the poorest communities in the Philippines and then to build homes for the same families. Our hope is that they will continue this community work when they return to Vancouver (continued under the cut)

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Since the Games ended I’ve been hearing about the street lamp banners being auctioned off here and donated there but I was seemingly always just missing my opportunity at getting my hands on a pair of them. My heart started beating really fast earlier this week when my wife got an e-mailer from the Mount Pleasant Community Centre saying they were given some by the city for a fundraiser and were selling them for $50 each! I raced down to what I thought was the right place but which ended up being the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House near Fraser and Broadway… but as luck would have it they were also given a bunch of these banners to help them raise money to support what they do there. I’m going to provide THIS LINK to information about the ones that the Neighbourhood House has for sale (they have a few different designs starting at $40 each) and tell you to keep your eyes and ears open for these popping up at different centres around town.

Pictured here is one of the pair that I bought, not in it’s permanent home yet but hanging next to my desk here at the V.I.A. office. I’m not sure where I’m going to end up hanging the matching pair but I am SO psyched I got my hands on them.

On a recent camping trip we picked up this sweet book from a roadside market that had one of those rotating bookstands with short stories about the goldrush, BC history and guidebooks on roughing it in general…

Originally published in 1980 by Surrey’s own Hancock House, our copy is a reprint from the 90′s and in their owns words the publisher says that “this book is not for the serious botanist, but for the family or individual seeking simple and reliable information about the berries along our roads and trails”, and it served as exactly that on our camping trip as on a couple of walks we found and ate some seriously random berries that you’d normally look at and not know if they were poisonous or not, let alone tasty.

We also learned a little bit about those precious blackberries that we keep reminding you to go out and pick…

And “because this is not for the expert, we shall take some other liberties. We’ll use the word berry in the popular sense rather than in the more restricted sense applied by the botanist. Also, we shall lump together some closely related kinds of plants.”. Okeedokee.

After trying the Mars bar and the oreos last year, I had to step up and try the jelly beans this year.  The verdict?  I wouldn’t buy them again, but if you bought them and offered me a bite….I’d take some.  Same goes for if you bought it, didn’t like it and gave it to me….I’d eat it.  I highly recommend you buy them in a group, and not when all the people you are with are not looking, as you duck into an empty stable and stuff your face with them.  Bad idea….

They just aren’t a bunch of jelly beans thrown into a deep fryer, instead they use the batter from funnel cakes, which once deep fried, you can stick anything in and it tastes great.  What you receive is three or four fritter like balls that reminded me alot of a honey’s donut.  The heat of the deep fryer melts the jelly beans, and the result is sort of like the jelly in a donut.  The consistency is a bit different though, think the first time you tried bubble tea, weird right?  But now you live for it.  Flavour wise?  With the icing sugar, it’s so sweet your teeth will hurt but I know you’ll try it anyhow….