Mike Munhall

French Beach, along the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

This photograph was taken in 2005 in Sooke Harbor in British Columbia. The night before, there was some heavy rains and afterward this thick fog anchored itself in the harbor. I suppose this boater was waiting out the fog, and when tide when out realized he that he was going nowhere. He did eventaully make it out of the harbor about six hours later.

[This Flickr photo set has all of the photos from this trip. Well, not all of them, but the ones that matter.]

Our good friends Pete and Stacey, as a wedding gift, gave us a stay at a lodge in Crested Butte. It took us two years to finally make it up there, and it’s too bad we hadn’t taken advantage of the trip sooner. Dorrie and I both loved every minute of trip. Even the drive was awesome.

We chose a weekend late in September so we could catch some of the fall color in the mountains. I think we chose the exact right time of the year because every birch and aspen tree between our home and Crested Butte was in peak color. (Unfortunately, every photo I took of the fall color was in mid-day light, so the photos aren’t so spectacular.) I had never driven up Highway 285 past Pine Junction. The drive through the plains of Park County and the mountain passes to Gunnison are now my favorite Colorado drive.

It had snowed lightly in the mountains the night before we left, so there was a light blanket of snow everywhere. If we had chosen to stop to photograph whenever we found a something scenic, it would have taken us three days to make the four-hour drive. One of our few stops was along Monarch Pass near the continental divide. The cloudy skies and the snow that had dusted the pine trees the night before made for some pictures that I think I’ll be able to print and frame. Seriously, take a look at some of the photos in this Flickr photo set to see what I mean.

Our actual stay in Crested Butte was filled with a whole lot of… um, well… not much. We used the weekend to relax, mostly. We stayed at a quaint, 17-room lodge called Cristiana Guesthaus. The lodge, while being nothing special, was really just what we needed: quiet and comfortable and filled with friendly people that all wanted to watch the Broncos beat the Patriots. Dorrie and I spent quite a bit of time in various restaurants in town. Our most notable meal was at Le Bosquet. I’ll leave the review of our meal to Dorrie, but I can say that we thoroughly enjoyed the food and especially the South African wine that we tried.

The oddest part of our mini-vacation was that we just happened to choose the weekend of the Vinotok Fall Festival. This is strange… we still don’t have a freaking clue what the festival was about. The first night of our stay, as we were walking back to the lodge after dinner, we walked past a large pile of pallets and brush arranged in a manner that, if lit on fire, would burn very bright and very large. Sure enough, around 9:00 that night, right outside the lodge, a large crowd of rowdy, young whippersnappers gathered around the pile of soon-to-be-burning material and started chanting, “We’re not drunk!” or, perhaps it was “Burn that witch!” or something else. Like I said, Dorrie and I still don’t know what the festival was about or what the crowd was chanting. We had a perfect view of the bonfire from the balcony of the lodge and I was able to manage a few photographs of the pagan children dancing in the flames.

On our last day we chose at random an out-and-back hike in the mountains outside the lodge. We chose the Oh-Be-Joyful trail, and our choice was a good one. I got to finally do some serious off-roading in my Jeep Wrangler to get to the trailhead. The hike was nice, although we found it strange that there was a large number of cows in the mountains at 10,000 feet above see level. Mountain Moomonsters is what the locals call them. (“Cows. Why did it have to be cows.” – Harrison Ford, Raiders of the Lost Ark)

Dorrie’s aunt and uncle own a home in British Columbia. They spend part of their year in B.C., and every year they have Dorrie’s dad, grandfather and usually a couple of other people up to the house for a few days of salmon fishing. I went last year, but missed this year’s trip for various reasons. Here’s a sampling of family-album photos and a few others that I’m considering working with to make enlargements and then frame.

A quick synopsis of the trip: Dorrie’s dad and I flew to Oregon to stay with his mom and dad for a couple of days. We attended the annual family reunion while we were there. Dad, grandad and I then drove up the Oregon and Washington coasts and boarded a ferry to Vancouver Island. The day after we got to B.C., we picked up my brother-in-law, Patrick, from the airport and then spent the next three days in the Strait of Juan de Fuca fishing for salmon and yucking it up. We spent some time with some friends of the family during the evenings. The return trip was the opposite of the trip out: We boarded the ferry back to Washington, drove down the coast to the grandparents house in Oregon, then flew out the next day back to Colorado.

The highlight of the trip for me was the last day of fishing. We had some heavy rain during the night and the next morning was socked in with thick fog. Photographically, the day was simply amazing. The mood was dark and gloomy and made photographing super fun. But, I was shooting from the back of a boat, and that’s not very easy. Nevertheless, there were a few shots that I’ll be printing this afternoon and, hopefully, adding to the galleries in Flickr soon.

Dorrie and I spent a week at uncle Ted and aunt Diane's house in British Columbia a bit earlier in the year than usual. Normally, we are in B.C. in November or December. The spring trip was just as nice, of course. We were expecting more rain, though. We love rain.

We brought our friend Jen with us. This was the first time Dorrie and I spent any time in the house with someone else. Jen is a great person to vacation with (introverts are really good at staying out of each other's way). We all had a good time together.

On our first trip to the house a couple years ago, we ran out of propane (which is the fuel source for nearly everything in the house). On the next trip the fridge stopped working and all of our groceries went bad. On that same trip we ran out of propane on the grill just when our steaks were about half way done. This trip was no different as far as minor annoyances go. We couldn't get the heater to run, the garbage disposal quit working and there was no sound when playing DVDs. A quick call to a couple of Ted and Diane's "people" got all of the problems resolved lickety split. As usual.

My intention on this trip was to shoot exclusively with the Hasselblad. Unfortunately, the only lens I have for that camera crapped out on my second roll of film. I had no choice but to revert to the digital Nikon for the rest of the trip (which was nearly all of it). Since I've photographed the area so much, I wasn't as motivated to photograph as I usually am. I still got a few good shots that will make nice prints. Would have been better if I had the big camera though.

We didn't discover or do anything new on this trip. We visited the same beaches (China, Mystic, French), hiked the same trails (China, Mystic, French, Ewok), went the same restaurants (Point No Point, Vista 18, 17 Mile House) and shopped the same stores (Roger's Chocolates, Munro's Books). Dorrie made some fantastic meals (pasta with pesto, garlic and dill salmon, roast chicken, beef roast). I read, but did not finish any books (Dark Tower VII, Q & A Way in Chess).

I have no complaints about this vacation. Looking forward to the annual fishing trip this summer.