This is the last of my catch up posts! It took a while, so it’s good to get back current. We had a great tour at Barnside Brewery, played pitch and putt in Stanley Park with Matt and Alex, I had a work trip to San Jose and we had a relaxing weekend on Galiano. Lot’s to share…
Barnside Brewing tour with John and Katie (August 8th)
A few years back we attended a very fun event called Feast of Fields out in the valley. We’re actually going to the latest incarnation of it later in August. From their web site, Feast of Fields is an annual local food celebration and fundraiser, held each year on a different farm. Feast of Fields is a wandering gourmet harvest festival that strengthens the connections between farm folks and city folks. With a wine glass and linen napkin in hand, guests stroll across farmers’ fields, through barns, past tractors, and around chicken coops, listening to live music, and tasting gourmet creations from top BC chefs, farmers, fishers, ranchers, food artisans, and beverage producers.
It’s a lot of fun. There’s a silent auction component to it, and last time our friend Katie “won” a tour and sampling day at Barnside Brewing. Barnside is one of our favorite breweries, and one we often go to before heading over to the island.
It was an amazing day for our tour of the brewery.
Finally, three years later, we managed to book the tour and the four of us (including John, Katie’s fiancé) met at the brewery for the tour. The tour was given by the owner of the brewery, and he did an amazing job showing us around. It started with the hop fields where we got an in depth explanation of their hop farming and all the cool research they are doing with some of the local universities into better understanding and creating new hop varieties. It was quite interesting and I got some good tips for my own hops.
From there he took us into one of the barns where the hop harvest is processes. They have a machine from Germany (the Hopfenpluckmaschine - how great (and how German) a word is that!) that is custom designed to harvest hops. It’s this massive, 2 story beast that only operates for a few week each year. It’s this amazing, steampunk looking thing that was a joy to behold.
After that short stop we headed into the brewery proper. They have a good set-up and it was interesting to hear how they have grown over the years. But we’ve seen the inside of lots of breweries. After the tour was done we headed out ot the patio and had some beer and some lunch – it was a fabulous day and we are appreciative of Kayie inviting us along.
Pitch and Putt with Matt and Alex (August 9th)
On Sunday we met up with Matt and Alex. It had been a while and was nice to see them. We decided to head down to Stanley Park and play some pitch and putt. It was a beautiful day and gave us a chance to catch up and hear about the wedding plans.
Heading out to play a round in Stanley Park!
It didn’t start all that well as we got stuck behind a big group that decided that holding a golf tournament at this spot was a good idea. It was super annoying but gave us a chance to chat a lot more. Eventually we got off, and once we were on the cource things smoothed out quite well.
The Stanley Park Pitch and Putt course is beautiful – tucked away in a corner of our amazing city park, it’s been part of Stanley Park since 1932, meaning it has been welcoming golfers for more than 90 years. It is widely regarded as one of the oldest continuously operating pitch-and-putt courses in the world, having remained a popular public course since it first opened in May 1932.
With holes ranging from 40 to 100 yards, it’s a god spot for golfers and non-golfers alike. The place is amazing - beautifully landscaped, winding through mature trees and lush greens, bordered by the renowned rhododendron garden and just steps from English Bay. This time of the year most of the rhoddies are not in bloom, but it is still amazing.
It had been years since I had played it, but it had not really changed. We had a fun day and then went to the restaurant next to it to have a late lunch.
Random Photos
San Jose (August 10th to 14th)
Monday morning I had to head to the airport and take a flight down to San Jose for the week. I had a series of meetings set-up and was working from the office the whole week. We’ve been trying to get a bit more active of late, and so I had done some research on some hikes that I could do in and around San Jose while I was there. The plan was to get up early each day and head over to a different spot each morning.
Tuesday, everything went off as planned. I was up at 6:00 (too early as it was still dark!), so I did some work and then drove over to the trailhead at Alviso Marina County Park. The park was actually closed until 8:00 a.m., but after consulting the website I discovered that I could enter, even if the gates were closed. I was able to get out as the sun was rising.
The park has a series of flat boardwalks and levee trail out into the South Bay salt marshes, part of the Don Edwards SF Bay Wildlife Refuge. It seemed great as it was flat, with zero elevation gain, wide open water and marsh views, and most importantly, good birdwatching. I decided on the the full Alviso Slough loop for something longer – about 15 km – but I had the time.
It was a really cool spot and I had it basically to myself. The bird watching was good – I added 7 new species to my life list and the cool breezes off the ocean were reallt nice (it had been super-hot down there). I was feeling really good, and was over 5 km into the walk. So I thought I’d try and see if my body was up to some light running. I have been really wanting to get back inot it, but I was nervous as to how my body would handle it. Not well as it turns out.
I was (or so I thought) being smart about it, starting slow. I was doing 1 minute runs with 3 minute walks, and things went well for about 10-12 sets of the that. Then my right knee really started to hurt. So I stopped and finished the walk. But something wasn’t right.
The map of my walk…
…and the satellite view. It was a very cool spot.
By the time I got back to the hotel, had a shower and headed into the office I could barely walk and was limping heavily. Not ideal really. So the rest fo the week was a bust – my well planned hikes were all out and I could barely get around. I spent every morning and evening with a bag of ice from the hotel’s ice machine trying to get the swelling down. It was a mess.
The only other fun thing I ended up doing was to go to the San Francisco 49ers first preseason game of the season!
The 49ers stadium was only 1.1 miles from my hotel and about half way between the hotel and the office. I managed ot find a very reasonably priced ticket online and was excited to go. I needed to do a bit more research, as I should have gotten a ticket on the other side of the stadium. The sun was setting right in my face and it was hot! But I was sitting around the 15 yard line and had great views of the field. And the sun eventually went down.
The stadium is amazing and I was smart in taking an Uber over to the game and getting there early so I didn’t have to rush. I did learn one really cool fact about the stadium - it has a Rooftop Farm. Atop the luxury suite tower sits the Faithful (and yes, they refer to their fans as ”The Faithful”…) Farm, a 27,000-square-foot vegetable garden and green roof. It harvests fresh produce used in dishes across the stadium's luxury suites and club menus. That’s pretty cool.
I had some food and a US$26 beer and enjoyed the game a lot! The place was only 50-75% full, which I guess should not have been a surprise for the first game of the preseason.
I wandered around the stadium, watched most of the game and snuck out a bit early to beat the crowds. That was a whole other disaster that I won’t go into here, but it did kind of spoil my night.
Friday it was an early flight back to Vancouver and a series of appointments set-up next week to try and sort out my knee.
Back to Galiano
I got back from San Jose around lunch time on Friday and we had a ferry booked for Friday night. We had a very low key, relaxing weekend - mainly just sata round and enjoyed the summer weekend. The fact that I could barely walk had a lot to do with it. So here are some garden photos as we didn’t do much else…
