Europe 2011 - Part 5 The Island of Aeros

We caught one of the early ferries from Sonderborg on the coast and crossed 12 miles of the Baltic Sea that separated the Island of Aeros from the eastern Danish islands. The weather had been good and today was no exception; there was bright sunshine and a light wind to blow away any marine clouds so we would be able to enjoy watching the land slip away behind us and then watch the low hills of Aeros appear in front of us. 

While we sat on the open deck enjoying the sunshine and the view of the coast, I couldn't help but think about what it must have felt like to board a sailing schooner and sail off to another place where you would be starting all over again....I have to admit, the strength of character it takes to uproot yourself and your family for an unknown place always amazes me. 

The view to the aft of the boat faded away as the slow pace of the ferry made it seem like the distance to travel was ten times further than it was; we kept waiting for the ferry to clear the mainland and pick up the speed like the BC ferries, but it didn't happen...we kept puttering along at what seemed like a walking pace.

Here's a little known fact that I picked out from our Eurocar rental agreement - your auto insurance is not valid if you are on a ferry! Any damages to the car from a ferry incident - like running aground, or sinking, is squarely on your shoulders and the cost comes out of your wallet! Well, I think I'll have bigger worries than a car if the ferry sinks.........but I digress....

About an hour into the ride the low hills of Aeros began to take shape, and as we came closer we noticed a large number of "sticks" rising out of the water. We at first thought these might be for crab traps, but it didn't take long to realize that they were navigation aids marking a clear path through dangerous shoals around the island. Hmmm....maybe that nonsense idea of the ferry sinking wasn't all that unrealistic.....

Before long we were docked and driving off the ferry onto the island, where I made a quick right turn and parked as I just had to get a video shot of the "Welcome to Aeroskobing" sign. With that done, we packed back into the car and took one of the small farm roads away from the dock that led over land towards Aeroskobing. We were in no hurry, so we puttered along taking video of the farms and the view of the sea over the ocean side fields. Taking the narrow farm road took us along a scenic windy path past neat small road side farm houses that almost touched your mirror as you scooted past.

We eventually joined back up with one of the 3 main island roads and came in through the back side of Aeroskobing. Like many European towns, the small, old part of town had cobblestone roads and we crawled along the narrow road between 200 - 300 year old houses with barely enough room for a small car and a bike to pass each other.

A couple of blocks along we came to the old village square which was the centre of town and parked in the shadow of city hall, built circa mid 1700s. Most of the buildings in this historically preserved village date back around that time, with a few of the old houses a bit older. You can tell the really old ones, they lean into their neighbour like drunken sailors. In fact Aeroskobing started off as a trading village from which the fresh sea catches were sold to the mainland folks. For 400 years this has been a seafaring village where tough sea going boats where built and tough sailors manned them.
Today tourism has taking over most of the business dollars and the neighbouring village of Marstal has become the main sea going centre.

I stood and looked around the old square, and was sure that not much had changed in a few hundred years; the old city hall stood large on one side of the square, with the local church taken up another side, and roads leading in three directions brought citizens in and out of the square. And I had to wonder, how many times my relatives had walked past this way or stopped at the side by side hand pumps for a drink and sat on the bench under a sheltering tree.

The old section of town was only 5 blocks by 6 blocks and was easy to cover in a few leisurely hours. We had a couple of "to-do" things while we were here - one was to stop off at the local museum and talk with the curator, with whom one of my brothers had been corresponding, to obtain more information on the family tree. The second, was to locate the address of 18 Vestergaarde, which was where my Great -Great(?) Uncle, Aunt, and a distant cousin had lived. That turned out to be easy to do, as it was only a block from where we parked the car. 18  Vestergaarde (West Street) was a two story building that looked like it had a section added on;.as it turned out, it had been two houses joined together at some point in the past. It was turned into a rooming house where, according to the village census, my relatives had lived in the late 1800s. I stood in the doorway and had Annette take my picture, some how hoping I could bridge the time gap between them and me.

Back in the car we explored the small island looking for a hamlet called Risemark and another called Dunkaer, both of which were listed in our family history. Turns out Risemark is where the island's church is located, a smattering of small houses around the the church was our only clue we had found it. Once again we were treated to a wonderful white washed historical church with a garden-type setting of a cemetery surrounding the church. We strolled the small paths that meandered through the small cemetery and again noticed the commonality of the Danish names like Jensen and Pedersen, and thought that must have been confusing when you were yelling "hey Pedersen"! to catch some ones attention, and 12 people turned around...  :)

Once more in the car and crossing the island, it didn't take too long to come across Dunkaer, which by island standards must have been a major hamlet; an old country inn looking to be from a couple of centuries ago leaned with age alongside the island road, a large milking barn and a meat abattoir sat behind the inn. Judging from the looks of the workers there we must have been among the very few of the tourists that poked our nose around here. Needless to say, we were a rare sight for them and we felt like we were on stage with bright lights pointed at us. LOL

We had one more  location on the island to find, and that was a farm area on the outskirts of Dunkaer where Dunkaer road sits a field's width away from the ocean. We found the Dunkaer Rd sign and turned onto the road, we even felt good as the sign pointed to "Dunkaer" with a small logo that we took to mean the farming area. We knew that a large farm operation was once here and that some of my relatives had lived and worked right around here. The road went for a couple of kilometres, turned past a quaint family farm and house right at roadside, then meandered over a rise and petered out a kilometre past the rise. Back down the road we went, slow past the farm house letting the farmer's ducks and geese get off the road and into the small pond by the house, then back down to where the road ran alongside the field with the wide ocean as a backdrop. Judging by what we knew, the large farm house operation that once stood here was now gone, and only wind waved crops remained to show what good fields had been found at the historic location.

Satisfied we had seen as much as we could, we meandered back along one of the country roads that crossed the island to Aeroskobing where we would catch the ferry to the eastern part of Denmark and drive on to Copenhagen. While we waited for the ferry, we popped into the local modern supermarket and purchased a few things to act as a very late lunch and dinner rolled into one.

Sitting at the ferry slip waiting for our ship to arrive, I had a feeling of satisfaction knowing that I had seen everything I could see on the island, and been to all the places where my people had worked and lived, yet I knew I would be back here some day in the not too distant future. I still wanted to spend days here, sitting in the old square watching the village life go by, I wanted to walk the country roads where the ocean breeze created ribbons of waves across the fields, and I wanted to hear the soft, muted voices carried on the still air that said " hello Edwin, glad you could make it home"
  
See the full video of our Aeros visit here; as Rick Steeves, the European travel guide has noted, Aeros is a place where time has stopped and the past is there for us to enjoy

Europe 2011 - Part 4

Europe Part 4

Today is the day, we finally reach Denmark, native land on my Father's side and the origin of the Pedersen clan. This is a day I've waited for a number of years, and truth be told, even before it was a solid thought and a planned trip, it was a buzz at the back of my brain. It was there before I really knew what it meant...like a whisper in the fog, I could hear the quiet voice but couldn't make out the words. I had to have enough "life" under my belt and the wisdom of age to understand the nuances of my own human psyche...to understand the words that were being spoken... "you have to go home"...........

Which was a hard message to understand when you're a young man living in the city where you were born, as you are already home and your life is good with little responsibilities and fun being number one on your list of things to do.....still the whisper was there even then.

I felt the full tug when we crossed over the border from Germany into Denmark and drove a few miles north till we came to a small village called Rise. This was one of the areas where some of my relatives had lived, and died; first stop was the old church and a walk around the pleasant cemetery that was more like a garden than a final resting place. First thing we noticed is that, either I stumbled onto an enclave of Pedersens or it's a common name in Denmark. Turned out the latter is true; Pedersen is a very common name, just like Williams or Brown or Johnson. As a matter of fact, the most common names we seen consisted of a variation of just three names. Jensen, Peters, Pedersen....you could have any name you liked as long as it had those three names in it.

It was surreal walking around the graveyard and seeing all the Pedersen headstones; many of these people were obviously "strangers" to my family tree, yet it was enough to make me overcome with emotion to realize that I was finally "home". I had to take a few minutes to level myself out before I could continue wandering around the cemetery, looking at the headstones and graves of strangers that shared my blood line going all the way back to the Vikings.

After getting our fill of the sights and sounds of the lovely church and the graveyard, we drove a block down the small street into the village and realized after going up and down a couple of small city-sized blocks, we had seen the whole village. We pulled into the parking lot of an old folks care home, the driveway adorned with life size statues of an old man and an old woman. It was evident that the community valued their senior citizens as the care centre was the nicest and newest building in the village.

Heading north on the freeway we had another 100 hundred miles or so to go before we cut east and headed to the shores of the Baltic Sea. Our destination was Sonderborg, a seaside town where we would spend the night before catching the ferry over to the island of Aeros.

Sonderborg is a lovely town with an old section right down at the waterfront; congrats to the town as they have revitalized the seaside area and made it a popular tourist destination for Danes. There are only 3-4 good hotels in Sonderborg, one of them was a Best Western; turns out it was the largest of the hotels and was also a conference hotel. I can understand the draw to have your company's convention in the tourist town and enjoy the scenery while you are there. Problem is, when you drop into town as a tourist winging it when it comes to hotels, it makes getting a room a bit of a challenge.

We snagged the last room they had - one of the suites and we got it at a discount rate equivalent to 240 Euros, which is about $480.00 CDN. Not much choice, as the next nearest town was either 120 miles to the north, or we drove back into Germany to Hamburg, now approx 150 miles to the south. OK, Sonderborg it is!

So here's the thing....this would happen to us several times more while we were in Denmark. The room was originally 350 Euros and we did get a bit of a discount when we told them we were tourists from Canada, but when I pulled out my credit card to pay and the young lady behind the desk spotted my last name Pedersen on the card, suddenly we were treated like long lost cousins coming home. The room was suddenly reduced more and the friendly desk clerk became even more helpful and suggested places to see and places to eat. When we got up to our room, the TV screen said in Danish "Welcome to the Pedersens"...at least I think it said that...I could understand the "welkommen" and "Pedersen" parts.

We dropped our bags in the sitting room and wandered into the bedroom to look out the window and what a great view we had of the outer harbour; that's the picture you see at the top of the page. We watched a large two masted schooner drift into the inner harbour as we simply enjoyed the serenity of the scene, complete with soundscape of birds chirping in the gardens around the hotel. As much as it cost to stay here, I have to say it was worth it!

We went out around 8.00 PM to grab a bite at one of the lovely dockside cafes but they had all closed up for the night; I guess we weren't quite into the full on tourist season yet. We ended up on the outskirts of town at the local Burger King, of all places. It was a busy place as the local Danes enjoyed this bit of Americana. Again prices weren't cheap....each of our meals for a burger, fries and a Coke was $18.00 CDN. On the plus side we did get to talk to a young cop for a few minutes; we wanted to get an idea of the area but the young guy had been recently transferred here from somewhere to the north, so he didn't know much about the area. The older cop waiting in the car was impatient with the tourists who were cutting into his meal time and said something in Danish to hurry the young guy along. We said thanks in Danish to the officer, "Tak", and we got a smile out of him as he jumped back in the car.

We meandered back into town and did a sight seeing tour of the town and the surrounding inlets and farm land. We also cruised a few miles out of town to find the ferry landing and check on the schedule to ensure what we read online was the same as the posted schedule at the dock. We headed back to our expensive but nice hotel suite and opened the windows for a while as we read more about Denmark, including the region we were in now, and the regions we were heading to in the coming days. We went to sleep with the curtains open, had a sound sleep, and awakened early the next morning to the sun streaming in and the promise of excitement on the small Island of Aeros and the village of Aeroskobing, main homestead of the Pedersen clan!

Take the time to view the video of the area, it's only a few minutes long and the scenery is wonderful.
You can view the video full screen by clicking here

tjguy98 And Cookie Cacher Slide Into Skagit Valley

Click on any picture to see the full size version

No I'm not talking about the Skagit Valley casino...I'm talking about the Skagit Valley in BC that is accessed just west of Hope.
Jeannine AKA Cookie Cacher and I had decided on hitting some out of the way caches that would take us to some where we don't usually go - in this case, down a mountain valley that runs for 40 miles before it dead ends just beyond the Canada - U.S. border. This is one of those rare places where you can cross the border into the U.S. without going through the full blown security protocols.

For those of you who don't know, or don't remember, the Skagit Valley was to be logged and flooded  in the 1960's on behalf of the Seattle City Light Company so they could be a higher dam further downstream on the Skagit River. The new lake would back up many miles into the Canadian side; "Curley" Chittenden worked for a while on the logging and then recognizing the natural beauty and the significance of the area, refused to to any more work. Eventually a deal was brokered where BC Hydro would supply power to Seattle City Light to offset the power that would not be realized through the now shelved project.

Parks were established on both sides of the border and many camping and day use facilities are available for campers, day trippers, and hose back riders to enjoy. Also preserved were the habitats for the rare Red Bats, and the wild California Rhododendron that are rare north of the Oregon border; only the Skagit Valley and a small area just west of the Manning Park westgate emtrance have colonies of these giant bushes.

The Skagit Valley itself was created by retreating glaciers over 10,000 years ago, and the First Nations people were known to be in the area approx 8,000 years ago. Their trade routes were the first paths through the valley, followed later by the gold miners using the now established Whatcom Trail.

The Cascade mountains start off smooth at the north end of the valley and as you go south the mountains become more rugged and jagged, which makes for excellent photographic opportunities. The road itself is a well graded forest service road that is almost flat all the way to the end - many cars make the trip with little effort other than the odd flat tire.

Silver Lake is just a few miles into the valley, and is itself a provincial park; the small lake is excellent for fly casting and a well laid out campground lends itself to enjoying a slow few days of camping, swimming, sun bathing, and fishing.

You have to travel quite a few miles along the FSR before you come to the Skagit Valley Provincial Park border, but when you do, you are rewarded with a number of day-use areas and another campground named Silvertip - no doubt named after the silvertip of the Grizzly Bears. The Centennial Trail and the Trans-Canada Trail also bisect the valley, leading hikers and horseback riders to either head west over the mountains to the Chilliwack Lake area, or east following the original Whatcom Trail as it heads over the next mountain chain and into Manning Park.

The last stop is Ross Lake, which lies 99% on the U.S. side of the border; as a matter of fact just a few hundred feet extend into Canada. In the summertime the lake is kept high for lake activity, other times of the year the Canada side shows mud flats. You know you cross into the U.S. side of the valley by the small  sign noting that you are now crossing the international border. A cut swath through the forest and up the mountains helps to define the border, as does the occasional obelisk with "United States" printed on the south side, and "Canada" printed on the north side. A half mile down the road you come to North Cascades Ross Lake National Park and find yourself at another beach and campground, this one attended by the U.S Forest Service.

Jeannine and I spent the entire day in the valley, picking up geocaches, snapping pictures, and dawdling at various creeks and day use areas where the caches were hidden. It was just too beautiful an area to waste by just running and picking up caches and heading back out - it made us forget that neither of us had had breakfast or lunch and it was nearing 5.00 PM when we were exiting out of the valley near Hope after just finding our last cache on the day.

We spent 7 hours in the Skagit Valley finding 24 caches, covering aprox 90 miles of  good forest service roads, side roads into campsite areas, and over grown old logging roads while we zig zagged our way to finding caches. The highlights was the wonderful mountain scenery, the overgrown decommissioned dirt road where Ed had to make a 6 point turn around in the Jeep in an area that was no wider than the Jeep, and a small hidden cabin by a river that someone had built and was presently using as their hideaway.

All in all we had a wonderful time in Skagit Valley and were very happy we had taken the time to seek out of the way caches in a beautiful area.    

I've put a few pictures in the story, to see the rest click here and then start the Slideshow as indicated in the top right above the pictures

Spending The Day in Steveston

First day of holidays for me and I spend it exactly the way I want - I slept in and acted like a slug for the rest of the day! Threw a nice salmon steak on the BBQ for dinner, added a few accoutrement's and a lovely dinner was had by Annette and I.

OK, OK, that's not was this story is about....let's talk about day 2....

Sunday of the long weekend in Maple Ridge and it's smoking hot.....34C in the shade..what to do, what to do.....?

I know, head to Richmond where it is cooler by the ocean. So, we decide to make it an "all Richmond day" by partaking in some plane watching at Vancouver Airport, then heading over to the Steveston area and riding around the dikes where we could enjoy the ocean breeze.

Steveston is one of the first settled areas of Richmond, and made it's name and wealth on the strength of the salmon cannery industry at the turn of the century. The small "village" has retained it's historical persona and as such makes it a tourist magnet; same for the Steveston dockside area where boats pull into the government docks with their fresh catch of the day. The booming tourist industry has led to a growth of restoration of the dock and surrounding area - a large boardwalk now houses many small and mid size restaurants taking advantage of the fresh catch of the day.

Steveston is also home to one of my brothers, which means we could add another element of our day by having a family get together - in that vane I called the "Steveston" Pedersens and said said we would be in the area and we should get together and go out for dinner, and I also called the other "Maple Ridge" Pedersens and left a message for them to meet us in Steveston around dinner time.

So, we park the Jeep at my brother's place in Steveston and set off on a bike ride along the south dike of Richmond. I'm good for about 5-6 miles before I get tuckered out, Annette is good for about 20 miles, so I had to know we would be going beyond my comfort zone. We rode along the dike, with one of my destinations as Finn Slough, which was a small slough where Finnish fishermen originally squatted 100 years ago. Over the years progressive family generations have lived in the same shacks,still squatting as their parents did. At high tide the fishermen could pilot their boats up the small slough right to the door of their shack - on today's visit it would appear that is no longer doable as the slough was empty and grass covered mud banks were too high for boat navigation.

Still the area is very photogenic and I always enjoy stopping here and snapping a few pictures to share.

We continued on down the dike for a total distance of 6 miles before I called it quits and we decided to turn around. Six miles out and six miles back seemed doable...until we quickly realized the return 6 miles was fighting a head wind...uhhh.....it sections it was tough going against the wind in the 30C heat. But we, or more correctly I, persevered (Annette had no problems) and we made it back to my brother's place just in time to see the Maple Ridge Pedersens arrive.    

A chance to relax on the front patio in the shade and glug some cool refreshments before we decided to walk the few blocks over to the Steveston dockside where Alan had made restaurant reservations out on the deck. We chowed down on a seafood based dinner as we enjoyed the cooling off of the day and had a great seat to watch the sun go down over the Strait Of Georgia.

After dinner we had a walk around the village, seen some of the locations where the TV series "Once Upon A Time" is filmed, and then we sat on a bench along the wooden boardwalk overlooking the darkened Fraser River, enjoying a late night coffee and a perfect West Coast summer night. We strolled along the boardwalk in a long loop back to Al's place for another relaxed conversation around the patio table before Annette and I decided it was time to jump back in the Jeep to head home.

A midnight ride home with the top off the Jeep and the warm summer night sky above us was a perfect ending to a fun filled day in Steveston.

 To see all the photos go to Ed's Flickr web site and then start up the slide show (upper right above the pictures)....it will be enough to make you wish you were there!   :)

Geocaching in Merritt & Douglas Lake Area of BC

Cookie Cacher and I managed to find a nice Sunday late in July when it wasn't raining and made a spur of the moment decision to do a long distance trip to Merritt and surrounding area for a mix of geocaching and backroading. I hadn't talked to Jeannine AKA Cookie Cacher in weeks, maybe months, but I sent her a quick text on Friday and said "you up for a long distance drive"? She answered back "giddyup"! Glad that gal can make up her mind quick...   :)

We met up 8.00 AM Sunday morning in Maple Ridge, both of us not quite shiny bright - I had 3 hours of sleep and Jeanine was operating on one hour of sleep.....sounds like we were gonna be great company for each other!

We made a bee line for Merritt passing up caches all along the way in favour of saving time at our destination area. We hadn't even gotten to Merritt yet and Jeannine started talking about this puzzle cache she solved two years ago and keeps driving by when ever she travels through Merritt. "We just have to stop and grab it" she says.....for the third time in 20 minutes. "OK" I say, I'm easy, and I surely know the feeling of driving past a cache you know you should stop and grab, but just never do.

So, we get to the cache area, south side of Merritt, and you guessed it, the cache is missing! Jeaninie can't believe it..and is slightly disappointed as she reads the past logs online and realizes it's been missing for a few weeks. So, I suggest we replace the cache for the cache owner, and claim a smiley as a reward for our good deed of the day. DONE! And the cache can finally be struck off Jeannine's "to-do" list.

Off we go, to do a few city caches and some in the ranch land on the out skirts of town. Then, it's a fuel up for bodies and Jeep, then off towards Quilchena and Douglas Lake Ranch we go. This is one of my all time favourite back roads drive... turn east off Hwy 5A just north of Quilchena along the Douglas Lake Rd and head over to Douglas Lake and the famous Douglas Lake Ranch, the largest operating ranch in Canada.

The ranch has a lot of history, it has always been a working ranch, but it has catered to celebrities like Tom Jones and Prince Phillip looking for that "dude ranch" experience.

South from Douglas Lake to Minnie Lake Rd, for a few miles, then pick up the Pennask Lake Rd and follow it north-west back to Hwy 5A close to Quilchena.
I have done this trip a few times over the years, and have written trip reports in my blog about it already, so I won't go into all the details again. If you would like to read them, peruse my blog for previous entries.

I will say that we ran into thunderstorms complete with heavy rain and a musical background of thunder, which can be heard in the video....that rain in places turned the Minnie Lake Rd to the texture of slush, and it felt just like driving through it, complete with the rear tires throwing out rooster tails of goo.

The Jeep started the dirt roads pretty clean, 10 miles later most of the Jeep was brown, not red. That's OK, "a dirty Jeep is a happy Jeep". And a few dollars spent at the car wash will let me power wash the mud off the fun-mobile.

Total mileage on the day was 700K, caches found was 25, time on the road was 14 hours, and the fun factor was up around "awesome"!

We were using Jeanine's GPS for caching, but I was running mine to record the trip and make a route out of it which I then posted to Every Trail.com Their web site is pretty cool, it takes your GPS waypoints and track route, then overlays it over top of Google Maps and even lets you "play" the trip back, complete with elevation gains shown along the way.

I have embedded the route here for you to view, you can also go to my Every Trails account and view the this and other trips I have done.

  PS - X the elevation box closed so you can see the trip play out on screen. Mouse over the bottom of the screen to pop up the PLAY button to re-start the trip playback.

Merritt - Douglas Lake Area

The real story is told in the video, where the ranch country is on full display. If the video is too narrow to display on your screen, click on the link to go to my YouTube page to watch it full screen mode..it's the only way to do the scenery justice.

http://www.youtube.com/user/tjguy98

Cop Toys

The missus and I did a couple of errands at the local mall on Sunday, and we came across the RCMP and the local Search and Rescue hosting a "show and shine" of their latest toys. The picture above is an old Cougar donated by the Canadian Armed Forces; these 6 wheel drive tactical armoured vehicles have found new life serving as combat vehicles for the RCMP. One was used just a couple of days ago here in Maple Ridge when it was used to push a murder suspects vehicle into the ditch to contain the suspect and eliminate his avenue of escape. Unfortunately the suspect had mental health issues and came out of his van shooting, which resulted in his death. The positive was that none of the RCMP members were injured in the standoff.

RCMP member having a robot play with the kids....the kids thought it was great! Note the larger robot on the right, that one was being worked by remote control by another member just out of camera view.

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT

High resolution cameras, water cannon, mechanical grip, laser, gun, and other neat gadgets are all worked from this remote control box. To all the police officers out there......thank you for taking care of us day after day......

Ed's Backyard This Sunday

With the weather finally getting nice on the weekends, I've been out in the yard weeding and pruning and power washing and enjoying the view of the garden. Here are a few pictures I snapped today... you can click on any picture to make it full size and see more of the details.

The burble from the rock waterfall is soft and soothing coming through the bed room window at night

The bushes have really grown in over the past few years

A view down the path to the end of the yard

When night comes, the show doesn't stop...multi coloured solar lights through out the yard, augmented with white mini-lights on the clematis covered arbour, light up the centre of the yard, while two flood lights under the trees in each back corner of the yard provide a night time view of this oasis. 

Whether sitting reading a book during the day, or sipping a glass of wine at night, this is the best place to view the garden show.