Taeleman.com

New feature: Galleries

Kris — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:10:42 +0000

I’ve added a new section to the website called Galleries. These are galleries of pictures taken in the last 5 years. If you hover over the Gallery menu item on the left you’ll see the menu items popup and take you through the various sections.

Not all my pictures are in there yet, but it’s definitely a start

I’ve added some links below that’ll take you directly to some of the galleries, but there are many more to choose from:

Hawaii	Canadian Rockies	European Alps

San Francisco	Yellowstone N.P.	Vancouver Island

Hope you’ll like them!

Snowshoeing Dog Mountain

Kris — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:15:37 +0000

This weekend we met up with Sabine, a very good friend of ours, to go snowshoeing on Dog Mountain. The Dog Mountain trail starts at the end of the parking lot of the Mount Seymour Ski Area and takes you to an amazing vista of Metro Vancouver and beyond. On clear days you have a 150-200 kilometers far view and you can clearly see Downtown Vancouver, Vancouver Island and all the way into the United States to Mount Baker, The San Juan Islands, Olympic National Park, …

It’s a good 2.5-3 kilometer hike to get to the vista, so in total it’s a 6 kilometer snowshoe hike which will take you probably 2 to 3 hours to complete in good conditions. Since this trail is part of Mount Seymour Provincial Park it is free of charge unlike the maintained snowshoe trails of the ski area.

If you want to check the view in google maps, just click HERE.

Here are some pictures of our snowshoe hike:

Last US Trip pictures + new website.

Kris — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:43:38 +0000

I was kind of bored of our old blog layout so I thought I would start from scratch and create a new website. Since we didn’t have a whole lot going on this weekend, I decided it would be the ideal time to get this done, so “Lo and Behold” our new website look, new About Us page, … . I hope everyone likes it and if you’re missing some functionality you want to see back from the old site or if you see bugs, please let me know!

I also managed to go through the last batch of pictures from our US trip, driving from Northern California into Oregon, right before we started the long way home through Oregon and Washington which was mainly driving (and spending a whole lot of money in Powell’s books…).

I hope you enjoy the new pictures and the new website!

Young Couple at Trinidad Beach State Park

Trinidad Beach State Park

House on the rocks

Lone rock on the beach

Empty Sea Lion's Cave, Oregon

Snowy Owl

Ine — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 04:29:14 +0000

This week we learned about the snowy owl’s visit to Vancouver. We’ve heard it’s pretty rare to see these birds down here. They migrate south once every 4 or 5 years. They normally call the Arctic Circle home, but when their main food source (lemmings) declines they seek other places.

This weekend we drove to Boundary Bay. We weren’t the only ones out there, several cars were parked along the road. We walked up to the dyke trail and it didn’t take us very long to figure out where the owls were. We scanned the marsh and were able to count 4 or 5 owls in a blink of an eye.

Really impressive! Gorgeous bird! Turns out the snowy owl is one of the largest owl species.

Snowy Owl at Boundary Bay

How many snowy owls can you spot?

Snowy Owl at Boundary Bay

Another snowy owl (picture taken by Ine)

Monterey, California

Kris — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:36:33 +0000

Monterey is probably one of the nicest places (and one of the most expensive places) in California, but I’ll always remember it as the place where I got slapped on the head by a Pelican… It seems that it is possible to take wildlife pictures with a wide angle lens, but you might get into some close encounter scenarios.

Anyway, pictures! Enjoy

Steller Sea Lion Naptime

Who says you can’t do bird photography with a wide angle lens? I present you: Wide Angle Pelican

Conquering the waves

Lone Cypress on the 17 Mile Drive

Monterey Sunset

Ine and Grizzly enjoying the Monterey Sunset (aka. waiting for me to finish taking a single picture…)

Big White

Ine — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:49:27 +0000

It’s been several years since we’ve been on a “ski holiday”. We’ve been skiing and snowboarding a lot in the last few years, but it was always just for the day (two at most). Don’t get me wrong, we love the fact that we can go out just for the day, but it’s different than going skiing for an entire week.

We decided to change that this year, and so we ended up booking a longer ski trip. Together with a few friends we went to Big White Ski Resort, BC. It was our first time ever out there and it was truly amazing! It’s so different than any other ski resort we’ve been to. The resort is located in the interior of BC and therefore the snow is quite different than the snow on the coastal mountains. The snow is very light and powdery and the resort offers some amazing opportunities for glade skiing.

Something really spectaculair: the snow ghosts. A snow ghost is a tree that has so much snow on it that you can’t really see the tree anymore. The trees often have odd shapes because of the wind. Makes for a very unique sight!

Ben

Kris

Snow Ghosts

On the Paradise Run

At the top: Kris, Dulcie, Ben and Claire

Video from glade skiing.

We stayed in a really nice chalet that offered a Ski In / Ski Out option and had a hot tub!

Christmas Tree

Hot tub

Our Ski Chalet (picture by Kris)

Ski In/Ski Out, Big White Ski Resort (picture by Kris)

View of the front of our Ski Chalet, Big White Ski Resort (picture by Kris)

Townhouse, Big White Ski Resort (picture by Kris)

Big White also offers lots of activities for those who prefer not to ski or snowboard. There’s a very nice Nordic area, an ice tower you can climb, tubing, snowmobiling and lots more.

Ice tower

Last time we went snowmobiling, Kris was the driver and I was he passenger. This time I wanted to do the driving so a few of us decided to go snowmobiling for the day rather than skiing. It was just the three of us and the guide, so we were able to cover quite some ground. We drove a little over 60km in a couple of hours. First we went on some logging roads but we ended up finding some nice fresh tracks as well. Something completely new to us: riding on groomed tracks is so different than making your own tracks. We had a wonderful experience and I’m even more addicted to the snowmobiling concept.

Fresh Tracks

Big White in the distance

Getting going again

I will have some better snowmobile pictures in the next little while, but this will have to do for now.

I would like to finish this post by thanking everyone that joined us in Big White for an amazing holiday!

Happy New Year

Ine — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:13:55 +0000

We won’t be having internet access in the next few days so we just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year. We hope everyone their wishes and dreams may come true this year!

Below some pictures of one of our activities from the last few days.

Instructor explaining everything

Kris

Kris waiting to go

Mom and Dad getting ready!

Having fun on the lake: Mom, dad, Kris and Ine

Lot and Fred

We had an awesome time! First we went on some trails with the snowmobiles and after riding around we were guided to a frozen lake. Because it was an open space we were allowed to play around and get some speed:). Kris managed to go at 90km an hour which was pretty cool! Definitely something we’ll be doing again!

Morro Bay Pictures

Kris — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 04:05:25 +0000

Morro Bay is a small waterfront town between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The town’s most striking feature is Morro Rock, a 576 foot high volcanic plug and the harbor which is located right by the rock allows you to have a very nice dinner or stroll at sunset.

Anyway, pictures:

Morning mist at Morro Rock.

Grizzly enjoying some morning playtime.

The dunes factory…

More Grizzly playtime

A Marbled Godwit, aka bird

Morro Rock Sunset

Cypress Mountain and Buntzen Lake

Ine — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:59:12 +0000

This weekend we decided to go snowboarding and skiing on Cypress Mountain. We’ve been there before, but only for snowshoeing. We can now finally say we’ve been on all three local mountains for snowboarding and skiing.

I’m pretty certain Cypress has the biggest ski area of all three and therefore would be our new favourite local mountain.

Cat and Kris

Top of Mt. Strachan

Cat on Mt. Strachan

Facing East

Ready to go down

Kris, Cat and me

Pretty cloudy down there!

Sea-to-Sky

On Sunday we hiked the Buntzen Lake Trail. We figured Grizzly was in desperate need of some exercise and to make it even harder on him we let him carry our water in his little backpack. I’m sure it was a pretty decent workout considering that he fell asleep as soon as we came home and he even started barking in his sleep (something he’s never done before).

Kris and Grizzly

Buntzen Lake Trail

That’s it for now, hope you guys are enjoying your week!

Morro Bay – Big Sur – Monterey – SF – Oregon

Ine — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:44:56 +0000

From LA we took the Pacific Coast highway all the way back to Vancouver. The name kind of gives it away, it’s a route along the coast. The Californian coast is very pretty, but we do have to admit we like the Oregon Coast better.

One of our first stops was San Luis Obispo and even though our hotel was located there, we actually spend most of our time in Morro Bay. A beautiful little town in California. Lots of little gift stores, artist galleries, nice restaurants and very dog friendly.

Below some pictures of our route along the coast.

Morro Bay

Dinner at the Gallery (awesome restaurant, amazing chowder!)

Sea Lions

Wildlife spotter Grizzly

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Pelican: Kris’ best friend, he got slapped on the head by one!!!

Surfer in Monterey

Picture of Griz and me: entertaining myself while Kris was taking sunset pictures.

This time, we sadly enough didn’t really stop in San Francisco. Our plan was to grab some chowder from Fisherman’s Warf in San Fran, but it was Naval Fleet week. It’s was ridiculously busy and we couldn’t find a parking spot.

But we did see some neat things while lining up in traffic!

Not entirely certain but I think this carrier was The USS Bonhomme Richard

Skywriting

Below a picture of “Cupid’s Span” by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. The statue was inspired by San Francisco’s reputation as the home port of Eros.

Cupid’s Span

Golden Gate Bridge

We also managed to visit some fun touristy things.

One of them was the Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree Park.
Now I do have to admit: I’m superstitious and I won’t let anyone take pictures of the outside of our car, so I had to get out and take a picture of someone else’s driving through the tree.

Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree

Another tourist attraction along the way (in Redwood National Park) was Trees of Mystery
It’s an interpretive trail that leads through a forest of redwood trees. At the end of the trail you can go up in a gondola to a viewpoint. The best thing about it: Grizzly could even come along:)

Entrance of Trees of Mytery

Grizzly’s first gondola ride

Soaking wet!

Coincidentally, we also discovered a very tiny coastal town called Trinidad. We went on a short walk to Old Home Beach which was truly amazing!

Starfish at Old Home Beach

Next stop, the world largest sea cave: Sea Lion Caves in Oregon
It was pretty impressive, but sadly enough we didn’t see any sea lions. I don’t have decent pictures but Kris does. So you’ll see some soon!

The last stop on our trip was Portland. We didn’t really spend much time there, but I really want to go back. Not only do they have this huge bookstore, but it also seems like it’s a very pleasant city!
Fun fact of the day: Powell’s Bookstore is actually considered the largest bookstore in the world based on shelf-space (together with a bookstore in NY).

To finish this blog post and my report of our trip, a little video of a Sea Lion Orchestra in the harbour of Monterey.