Royal British Columbia Museum...

Just up from the Empress Hotel is the Royal British Columbia Museum.  It was founded in 1886 and consists of the natural and human history of the Province.  It's a huge facility and much to large and interesting to be able to see the whole place in the 3 hours that I wandered around.  

It deals with the entire history of the province and overwhelmed me. I took a few photos but have to say that they don't really do justice to the displays.  

I am very happy that I had the opportunity to tour this museum... it was a nice way to spend part of my day.

Life is Good.

Victoria BC - One of my favorite cities

Spending the day and overnighting in Victoria before driving up to Courtenay to see my girls.  I'm staying at a nice older hotel.. have stayed here before and it's very comfy and cozy.  I took some pics of the lobby area which is decorated with antique furnishings which reaches out and welcomes guests.

Jewels and I always take note of the token purple house in each town we visit.. I'm sure there are several here but I thought I'd put up a photo of a blue one this time.  It's across the street from the hotel and is an extremely attractive home.

The rest of the pics here are taken in the area around the hotel.. A lovely park with a hiking trail around a huge pond.. lots of birdies hanging around and the colors are fantastic.

Had to throw in a photo of the good old Empress Hotel.  It's only 4 blocks from my place and looks nice with the ivy changing from green to red..

Great city..  Life is Good.

Another good day...

We visited the asphalt plant today with Sven Andersen who is our "carbon credit" guru.  He was quite happy with the look of our new "tar".... We won't be paving with it until late next week which is a long time to be away from home... but it's good in that it gives our big pile of stuff cooled down to ambient temperature..

It was sunny and warm today and the asphalt looked perfect... I'm very optimistic that this is going to go very well for us.

Life is good...

Today was a BIG day for our little company!

The past few days we have been preparing for the manufacture of UV Reflective EZ Street asphalt and today we got up at 2am to go out to the plant and get the final product made.

The photos below are from 2 days ago when we were making the pre-coat which is the first stage of producing EZ Street asphalt.

The photos below are from today.  The first one with Chris is the very first "sparkle" produced and ready to download into the truck below.  The other photos show the stock pile (485 tonnes) of EZ Street.

We will be hanging around Vancouver the next few days to check the product and make a few sales calls.  Next week we will be paving for the first time with the UVR.

It's a very VERY exciting time and d'accord...

La vie... C'est bonne!

all quiet on the western front...

It's been very quiet the past couple of weeks.. which is good of course.  The fall colors were in full bloom when I got back from my trip out west.

Jewels and I spent 4 nites in Minneapolis last week/weekend and I got to go to the Exxel Centre and watch the Wild humiliate my Winnipeg Jets but, it was on my "to do" list so that can be crossed off for now.

We noticed the trees were starting to get bare on the ride home so we decided to head out on Sunday and just check out the colors before the snow flies...  A trip out to Hawk Ridge was nice and I took a few pics....

We finished the day with a short jaunt out to Brighton Beach .. a favorite spot of ours that somehow got missed out on a few too many times this summer.. not sure why but it was a nice way to end our Sunday tour...

It started raining on Monday and poured all night.. they are calling for heavy frost this weekend and perhaps some snow...

sooooo... I'm getting out of Dodge again.. actually, some work with EZ Street in Vancouver this weekend.. a project I've been waiting for with bated breath since early in the year... I'm driving up to Winnipeg tomorrow and will fly out to Van City Thursday or Friday...

Life is Good....

A busy day today....

The weather has been cold and wet.  The only nice part is that if it was South Dakota, today would be a shovel day.

We started out the day with a trip to Canal Park.  We figured that the way the wind was howling that the waves would be crashing.. and we weren't disappointed.

That last wave hit the rocks - REALLY GOOD -  and although I was a good 45 feet from them, I got soaked.. fun/fun/fun...

After our visit to Canal Park, we headed to the Cranberry Festival in Stone Lake WI which is about 90 miles from Duluth... the drive was great and although it was overcast and raining, thefall colors were spectacular.

The Cranberry Festival is big.. very BIG with over 300 exhibitors.  We were planning on buying some freshly picked cranberries and bot 2 bags (5 lbs each) for $16 which apparently is a great deal.  Then, we stumbled onto an exhibitor selling cranberry wine.. 3 bottles later and with Julie $30 dollars lighter, we stumbled into a tent selling fresh Honeycrisp apples.. and ... yes, we brought a big bag home.. on the way back to the truck, we passed a tent where they were selling fresh goat cheezes.. yes, of course we picked up a couple of containers of our favorite cheese...

A nice day... looks like dinner tonite with Kim and Scott... and then some Contra dancing..

Life is Good.