Devonian Botanic Garden - Rooted

Arriving back from vacation we took the opportunity of being close to the airport to visit the Devonian Botanic Garden to see Chrissy's friend Oksanas' exhibit at the "Rooted" art-show.

In Oksana Atwood’s interactive installation passersby will be given a crafted mushroom and invited to place it touching other matching mushrooms in the Garden, and will collaborate in the creation of an organic ever-changing sculpture, much like in the world of mycology.

Oksana greeted us as we entered the space her installation was occupying and offered us a mushroom to plant as part of the exhibition.

We really liked Oksana's idea to have visitors to the park be contributors to the installation. Perhaps we were a little overzealous though as we chose to expand her installation outside of the exhibit area.
See if you can spot the little red mushroom.

Today, a little red mushroom lives in our ficus flower pot at home. It's probably the best piece of original art we own ;)

Pregnant

Chrissy is pregnant. You may notice her growing larger in subsequent posts as I backtrack through the summer to the present.

Recently we got pictures done to celebrate the occasion by Monica Kehrig Photography. We are extremely happy with the results that can be found here.

Posing for pictures is not my favorite thing to do so occasionally I would force our photographer to take goofy pictures of us like the one below.  Someday our child will feel great shame!

You may notice the photographer doesn't have her watermark on it :)

Yellowknife Work Trip

Earlier this year (in late May) I was invited by the City of Yellowknife to come talk to some local businesses and City Administration on Business Improvement Areas.

With the weather unseasonably warm and the days extra long I took the opportunity to explore a bit between meetings.

Cross Country Skiing in Jasper

Suffering a Croatian vacation hangover Chrissy and I hunkered down inside the house early this winter season. It was good to get grounded again but eventually we started going a little crazy. Looking for a relatively inexpensive weekend getaway we decided on Jasper National Park for some cross country skiing.

Leaving straight from work on Friday we arrived at the Lobstick Inn and settled in for an early morning on the trails. 

After a big breakfast we grabbed our rented gear from Skis Please (fantastic service), jumped in my 'all terrain car' and headed out to the Athabasca Falls Loop.

The area received about a foot of snow earlier in the week providing a good base on the groomed trails. The Classic cuts pathways were not well defined yet but I think we ended up benefiting from some earlier hardcore skiiers who had recently come before us.

With the snow hanging off the pines we couldn't have asked for a better setting.

Our first time out in 2 years we didn't push ourselves to hard and only went about 7 total kilometers. This left us plenty of time to goof around in the lovely weather.

Calling it a day we hit up some giant nachos at De'd Dog and finished the night with a nightcap and game of crib back at the hotel...we are a wild party! 

The next day we got a quick ski in close to town at Whistler's Campground a simple 4.5km loop. While maybe not as picturesque as Athabasca Falls it did have some cool segments like the narrow trail between the campsites.

Feeling more refreshed then tired we decided to treat ourselves to a needed beverage at the Jasper Park Lodge on the way out of town. Chrissy had a hot chocolate and I got a very cool honey lager beer. The honey is actually harvested from the bee hives on the roof of the hotel, shipped to the Big Rock brewery and then specialy brewed only for the Hotel. Besides being an awesome novelty it was a great tasting beer.

Jasper Park Lodge was undergoing renovations but was still decked out in full Christmas decorations. We couldn't help but marvel at their giant gingerbread house with some very impressive stats.

Sad that our weekend was over we were comforted by the fact that Jasper wasn't too far away and we would be back again someday soon.

Holiday in Old Town Dubrovnik

Everyone that Chrissy and I have talked to that has traveled to Croatia has given it glowing reviews.work trip we knew that we would only be able to catch a small portion of the country so we independently prioritized our top locations in Croatia and both came out with Dubrovnik on top.
With only 5 days tacked on to the end of our

Dubrovnik, "The Pearl of the Adriatic" and it's Old Town is a UNESCO Protected walled medieval city area and has long been associated as a tourism destination. In recent years it has drawn extra attention due to it being a primary filming location for King's Landing in the HBO show Game of Thrones.

A couple of weeks before heading out I did some research online for accommodations and found no hotel options in the walled Old Town of Dubrovnik. Using TripAdvisor and Expedia I ended up finding a highly rated apartment right in the middle of Old Town: Apartment Peppino.

Arriving from London early in the morning we boarded a shuttle to the Old Town gates and began searching for our apartment. At this point we knew it was off of the main road (Placa-Stradun) and then somewhere to our left.

Placa Stradun from the walls

Quite quickly we actually found the road we were looking for and we begun the 100 stairs (Chrissy counted) climb to our room.  The climb wasn't too bad except that we were lugging our bags that were weighted down with Chrissy's work clothes and documents. After catching our breath half way up, we eventually arrived and were amicably greeted at the apartment door by our host Tonka, who gave us some tips for our stay before leaving us to get settled in.

It was time to explore Old Town.

Wandering the Internal Streets

Many of the tourist guides and reviews I have seen of the Old Town describe the streets as maze-like but I found it extremely easy to navigate. For such an old city it is surprisingly grid like with Placa Stradun running as an anchor in which you will invariably hit or have in view with any two repeated right- right or left-left turns at subsequent intersections. Simple!

Bouyed by this directional confidence we spent a lot of time wandering through the marble 'paved' streets. We marveled at the beautiful buildings and how the sun and light played off the marble roads and buildings to give us a new breathtaking sight in the same spot throughout different times of the day.

Dubrovnik Cathedral - Day

Dubrovnik Cathedral - Night

Columns of Rector's Palace

Jesuit Church

Grotto in Jesuit Church

The Harbor and Outer Walls

The views are equally impressive outside the walls of Old Town as within.  The dichotomy of the stone against the shimmering Adriatic and the beauty of the harbor really has to be seen to be truly appreciated.

Walking the Walls

No trip to Dubrovnik can be considered complete without viewing the city and the sea beyond from it's walls. The day we chose to walk the walls it was about 26 degrees and pretty warm up on the walls. I can't even imagine the heat from the direct sun when its mid summer time. Once again, Chrissy and I greatly enjoyed the benefits of traveling in shoulder season.

Other Highlights

Fresh sea food and feeding fish heads to the many stray cats in the area.

Splashes of lush green amid buildings

The views through the wall

Stumbling into a Diner en Blanc

Notes

• Old Town Dubrovnik reminded me very much of visiting Venice. Both are cities renowned for a certain characteristic (canals/walls) and are essentially tourism centered economies based on this defining feature. 
• We stopped many times to cool down and refill our water bottles at Onofrio's Fountain. Pro-tip for travelers the water is clean and refreshing. Either fill up your usual water bottle or buy a plastic bottle of water and refill it again and again.
• Apartment Peppino was fantastic and our host Tonka was great for accommodating us early based on the time of our flight in. Highly recommended.
• So much great food (Pizzeria & Spaghetteria Storia) and some that was highly disappointing. It was nearly impossible what was a good restaurant before trying it. We quickly learned to just go with TripAdvisor reviews rather than our instincts.

Next Post - Dubrovnik City and 3 Island Tour