Starts with a single step...

Wow. They say that every journey starts with a single step, and as I flew towards Calgary with the brilliant morning sun behind us shining on the Rockies it seemed as though my first step was one of several hundred miles. Helped by a jet of course. But looking at those mountains, glistening with snow and ice and rising out of the landscape like a giant wall, I had to think that the pioneers of this big country must have looked at that and, as they got close enough to see how huge they were, thought "Oh crap".

We now have the advantage of being able to fly over them, but those mountains are huge, and even from the air, seem impassable. How fortunate that there were people of such great fortitude and strength to explore and conquer them. As the gentleman in the seat behind me said "I bet there are still a few skeletons down there".

We left the sun behind and flew into clouds about halfway across BC, and landing in Vancouver was quite surreal. Typical Vancouver weather greeted us and it was gray and rainy all day. Still is. Not to be deterred, I quickly procured a day pass for the public transit system and hopped aboard the new Canada Line from the 4th level of CYVR airport. It only took about 35 minutes to get downtown Vancouver and see things like BC Place:

And the cherry blossoms blooming.

Now, back at the airport, drying off from being soaked (thank goodness I remembered that umbrella), and actually looking forward to being off my feet for a few hours, I'm looking at the Boeing 747 that will carry me across the Pacific for my second step of this journey. It will take me from this early spring of western Canada to the early autumn that is arriving in the sourthern hemisphere. I'm hoping that I'll maybe see a few colored leaves in the deep south. It's finally starting to seem real.