Back From Vacation - 957 E-Mail Messages Waiting

Got back from my British Columbia adventure Monday morning at 6 A.M. (took the late flight out of Vancouver).

Highlights of the trip:

• Vancouver: walking along the beaches, Lilliget Feast aboriginal restaurant on Davie, hanging out in the latte bars and used bookshops of Kitsilano, Rodin sculpture exhibit, the wild and bumpy 5-hour ride in a Zodiac through the waters of the Georgia and Juan de Fuca Straits in search of whale pods coming in at high tide in search of salmon (we saw dozens of orcas)
• Similkameen Valley: visiting the abandoned gold mine in Hedley, camping high up in Cathedral Lakes Park (arrived right after a blizzard, froze various body parts at night), then arriving in Osoyoos the next day to be greeted by the desert landscape and 37 degree temperatures (Celsius - that's like 100 for any Americans reading this)
• Okanagan Region: Desert Ecology Centre (the northernmost desert in North America is just outside Osoyoos on the road to the vinyards in Oliver), getting served in French at a winery, horseback riding on a ranch run by expatriate Rhinelanders in Summerland (at night we were serenaded by the yip-yip-yipping of dozens of coyotes, answered in turn by the howling and barking of dozens of farm dogs all over the valley), hanging out in alternative cafes and honky tonk bars in Vernon, wife jumping off a cliff (it was a paragliding lesson but I was very glad when she landed)
• Thomson and Fraser River Valleys: vegging out on Victoria St. in Kamloops, visiting their new downtown library branch which the mayor has denounced as looking like a Soviet-era shoe factory (but I'm a modernist when it comes to architecture so I liked it), careening around the winding gravel and dirt roads of Deadman Valley, the tram over the rushing waters of the Fraser at Hell's Gate, the Diez Vista hiking trail in Coquitlam just outside Vancouver from whose vantage points we could see Vancouver, the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island beyond

Came back to work Tuesday morning to be greeted by more than 900 e-mails...

Now I have to start packing boxes to prepare my move to Ottawa later this month where I start as a reference librarian at the Supreme Court. Off to Ottawa this weekend to search for an apartment. Life is a blur but fun.