John Young's Out There: A Christmas Blog for 2015

A great year for us - we both enjoyed good health.

We started off the year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where we had spent 11 days with John's Mom, sister Doreen, and Susann's Dad.

New Year's Eve in Playa del Carmen

We flew home on the 1st, and on the 3rd I hiked/climbed up Mt. Arrowsmith with the Island Mountain Ramblers:

It wasn't much of a year for snow on Vancouver Island, for the second year in a row. (But this year is starting out much better.) Susann and I only managed to get out for one snowshoe, but it was more of a slush walk than a snowshoe:

We celebrated my birthday early (on the Family Day long weekend on Feb. 7) in Uclulet. Susann's Godmother Christa joined us there:

About to enjoy my birthday cake.

We always enjoy walking the beaches on the West Coast.

On the top of Mt. Benson on Feb. 21st. Most winters there'd be a meter or two of snow on the top.

For our Spring Break in March we didn't go very far, just to Vancouver for a couple of days:

And then to visit Susann's Dad in Agassiz:

We enjoy walking at Cheam Wetlands near Agassiz in the Fraser Valley.

We also enjoyed spending time at our cabin at Horne Lake:

Here with Susann's Dad

And here with Lali, my fellow survivor from the plane crash.

In June, I was honoured to receive a Bronze Medal for Bravery in recognition of my efforts to save Lali in the August, 2013 plane crash.

In June, I finished off my teaching career by leading students on two 3-day backpacking trips to the West Coast of Vancouver Island:

The first one to Kesha Bay.

And the second one to Flores Island. It was about at this point in our return hike that I looked at my watch and noted that it was past dismissal time on the last Friday of June, so I said to the boy beside me, "I'm officially retired now, so you guys can all go piss off!"

A great way to finish my on-and-off teaching career of 37 years!

I guess you can tell we've grown old; we bought a tent trailer, and took it "camping" in July.

First we headed up to Prince George to visit Susann's sister and family on their farm:

Then we headed to Jasper for two days:

Before making the long drive to Saskatoon across the beautiful prairie with its wonderful sky!

We visited family and friends in Saskatoon, before heading to Kinistino for the Young Family reunion, and then on to Doreen's cabin at Emma Lake. We finally headed for home near the end of July.

We enjoyed another week at the cabin, and then I headed up to Whitehorse for a two-week rafting trip with 13 others down the Tatsenshini/Alsek Rivers. We had three rafts and negotiated some raging whitewater, mostly on the first day, and thought the rest would be easy. But we had a wake-up call the second day when in a relatively tame section one of the rafts tipped. Not fun, in that cold water! Beautiful scenery all along the way, but especially in Alaska with all the glaciers. We camped at Alsek Lake for two nights, with glaciers calving their icebergs into the lake with resounding booms. Spectacular!

Alsek Lake

Nearing Alsek Lake

But lest you think it was all fun and games for me, I did do some work. In the spring I rebuilt our back fence and gate:

And I also dug the trench for the light and electrical outlet at the back.

In the fall, before I headed off to Ecuador, I rebuilt our deck roof at the cabin and also erected this shelter for our tent trailer, complete with concrete footings for the anchors (we do get some wind out here!):

And then, I cashed in my brownie points and headed off to Ecuador, stopping in at Ron's in Texas on the way:

Some of Ron and Beth's 7 dogs (almost all rescues!).

And two rescue donkeys. (Ron didn't earn the nick-name "Nature Boy" for nothing!)

I was in Ecuador for 4 1/2 weeks, two weeks in the city of Cuenca where I studied Spanish and volunteered at an after-school "home-work club." I then travelled for two weeks, on the Inca Trail, into the Amazon basin, to Quito, and to the village of Mindo in the cloud forest.

I loved Ecuador, for its scenery: