Victoria: June 2007

My photographer finally got her act together and got up early to take some photos of me.

We were staying at the Empress Hotel in downtown Victoria. Nice place, lots of history. We decided to do most of our shoot in front of the British Columbia Legislative Building.

I got tossed back in the bag because she had to go to her great aunt's ninetieth birthday party and it takes her absolutely forever to get ready. If she has to put on makeup, forget it!

Sadly, that meant that we didn't have enough time for high tea at the Empress. Sad because I know she was looking forward to it. I was jealous later because it turned out that the people throwing the party have a connection with the chef at the Empress so even if we couldn't do high tea, she at least got some cake worthy of it! Jealous.

Sicamous, B.C., June 2007

I enjoyed my stint as an intrepid rock climber but the big photo ops were planned for a trip through the Rocky Mountains! Hello, road trip!

This time we were going to go in a car and I wouldn't have to walk like my photographer made me do on Tokaido. The bad news was that I was supposed to share the photos with a little gnome that my photographer's brother had. I wasn't really interested in sharing my time with a gnome, but eventually I agreed to do some collaboration. In fact, I became quite excited about it. Then the brother forgot the gnome in the rush to get out of Calgary and on to the road and the first part of the trip happened at night. Hmph!

The second day was MUCH better. We made it to Sicamous, B.C. the previous night and stayed at my photographer's aunt's place. I couldn't see much at night, but in the morning I discovered we were staying beside a lake! I spent the morning before our departure lounging by the pool and boating!

I wanted to go water skiing but my photographer refused to take her digital camera out on the water and her brother said that we had to leave in order to catch the 4 p.m. ferry in Tsawassen, B.C.

When we got to the coast, we stopped at my photographer's cousin's house in North Delta. I met some family, but no one wanted to take a picture with me. One of her cousins was quite shocked at my appearance. I was also a little piqued at my photographer because she got all obsessed with doing macro photography of a bee collecting pollen from a rose. I thought she was scared of bugs! The things that girl will do for a photo.

No photos of me on the ferry. I think it was because my photographer wasn't being creative enough in choosing locations to shoot from. She claims it's because she didn't want me to fall off the ferry and into the Georgia Straight. Looking back on it, I can think of lots of safe places she could have shot from.

Estello and Cows (June, 2007)

So the day my photographer and her brother took me to the Okotoks Erratic we also drove around the country side southwest of Calgary. Big Sky country. I hear they say that about Montana but it is true here, too.

One place I absolutely insisted we stop was along the road so I could look at some cows.

I ran over and climbed up a fence pole so that I could have my picture taken with the cows. At first the cows looked very interested in me and suddenly, they ran away. Was it me? Did I stink? Did my yellow brightness scare them away? I was really perplexed and quite honestly, a bit insulted. My photographer had no idea what happened. She was concerned that maybe the camera scared the cows away.

Her brother started laughing when we got back to the car and we confessed to somehow scaring the cows. He said, "couldn't you hear them?" My photographer and I looked at each other. Hear the cows? Seeing our confusion, Mike told us that the dogs were growling at the cows through the windows and that is what scared them.

Those cows must have good ears. We didn't hear a thing.