i cannot recall in all my years a more relaxing and rewarding summer vacation, such was the week before last. taken on a whim then executed with leisurely perfection, i spent seven days doing pretty much whatever i wanted - summer things, fun things, staying out all night, staying out all day, and spending a bunch of the hottest days of the year spirited away by a fast convertible to the other side of our fair island where both the beaches and the sunsets are lush and broad and go on forever long, seemingly almost 'til tomorrow when they do it yet again.

oh, if you must know, this is the government wharf in tofino at a shade or two past four in the morning, the first morning there and still at least two hours before i'd slept at all. in the invisible foreground of this shot stands the most charming a-frame cottage rental where i eventually rested my drive-weary head, just about the coziest place in the world, a perfect balance between modern convenience and small town kitsch, a shame it was for but one night. but alas, i'm jumping ahead. let's get to how we got there.

so, you ever driven a brand-new convertible with a 460 watt jebusfuck audio system? me neither, that is until i first sat behind the wheel of a 2004 mustang 40th anniversary special edition on the budget lot downtown. charcoal grey with power everything, this happiest of ponies won my heart pretty quickly - before the fifty blocks out of town were up it became a vaguely sexual attraction, but then maybe that was just the vibrations from the subs coming up through the seats. let's get into it a moment.

last year's up island adventure featured a 2004 grand am, similarity loaded, and you'll recall (since you read and remember every word i type, even on the old secret blog) that i was really blown away by its monsoon sound system. and the monsoon was truly something of note. but what if, in some parallel universe or maybe last wednesday, there existed a car with two fewer doors and an infinitely more flexible roof that could give the same sound in the open air at 110 km/h? and what if that car's cool factor exceeded the 'am's by, say, a magnitude of ten? and what if you were squeezing the wheel of one in your hot little hands and dialed the volume control around twice whilst crossing the colwood overpass off north to adventure right around the time everyone you knew was staying late at work to get something or other seemingly serious done? why you'd roll it back a quarter turn because it really was just a little too loud. but you would take a movie, especially since you'd just got the very first copy of dj bedlam's spec-tacular set from that party you don't remember all that much of, you know, his third track where everyone just went off. please note the speedo's only at 80, we were only just getting to know each other.

convertibles are expensive by the day and thus this one came into my hands at the latest possible moment. i do regret the haste of the trip to the westest coast as i saw about 3000 photos on the way that i didn't dare stop to capture. i did get the last of the sunset though, on some lake somewhere between here and there, the sunset and a moonset over a lake i swore i was going to remember the name of but do not. i'd swear again, but no one likes to read the word fuck in a weblog.

if you've driven that last stretch to tofino in the twilight, you'll know why we didn't get there until about 11:30 that night. there was once a time when i relished the highway at night, but back then i'll confess i voted for mulroney, so we can all see how much i've changed since then. twilight driving is dangerous and i'm a cautious kid. well, mostly, we'll get to that later.

if you're driving on the highway and you've been drinking bottled frapps all day you're gonna have that moment, you know, that moment where nowhere at the side of the highway is there any official place to let go. finding an unofficial place - i'd have to consult an arborist to be sure exactly where - i wandered back to the car and had a chance to capture just exactly how big the stereo in the car really was. note the distance at the start, on my mortal soul it was actually quite louder. many thanks to mr. chable - what an awesome track, it's always better when you've got luke along for the ride.

much as i in my middle years hate driving the highway at night, there's something to be said about arriving somewhere far away in darkness and then seeing it for real hours later in the morning light. and much as i love my pro-sumer digital it's impossible to tell on an lcd display when it gets the focus entirely wrong. it was, regardless of your impressions viewing this shot, a sumptuous and verdant morning on the coast. let's skip ahead.

okay, it lacks the kitsch, but here's the second room. let's talk an urbanly simple space with a lack of a kitchen but a bed that didn't leave my toes hanging out over the end. for the record, i actually slept sideways across the bottom of it anyway, only 'cause i'm strange and besides, you'll probably like me anyway. i blame the largest bottle of wine we could find at the late-night vendors. the paddle on the wall seem's a little out of place here, though jacob did explain to me once why they are so pointed.

the beach, the beach, my kingdom for a beach. unless my kingdom contains a beach, in which case it's hands off. but driving 300km takes gasoline, the sort of gasoline one needs to get to the beach, especially in a hot convertible that sucks gas like...you know, it wasn't really all that bad on gas, but it's best to get things like fuel stops out of the way early on.

it was at the local esso we met the identicar (mine is the uber cool one on the outside pumps), identical in every respect and also a rental from budget. “helluva huge radio in these things,” i said. he said, “we can't get any stations up here.” yeah, i met the guy who doesn't know well enough to take cds on vacations. he was behind us much of the way to long beach, i pushed the volume the whole way, hopefully he got the hint for the next time he rents a car. it was a honk and a wave from him as we turned off on a whim some miles before the beach, an old radar installation with a highway sign begged attention. at the top of a hill some younger hippies asked about the car, “helluva huge radio in these things,” i said, and max graham proved my point and smiles were had all around and i couldn't resist patching some goodyear fifty series for good measure as we drove off.

are we at the beach yet? we're at every beach, i locked the valuables in the trunk in the parking lot of every single one between tofino and uclulet, though long beach, the most famous, is the most famous for a reason. it tends to look from first glance like it goes on forever, and when you put your feet to it it really does.

rare is the day long beach hits some thirty-seven degrees, many records were broken that very day. it felt positively south pacific, save it was a little hotter and there was a lot more driftwood along the line where the sand met the forest.

that furthest bunch of rocks looks a five minute walk away, but some twenty minutes of walking later it looked no closer. but it was twenty minutes from all these folks, and they all looked verifar away so it was time to nest for the afternoon.

i burned the back of my neck. my face now sports a deep tan. okay, my ass has a pretty good tan too, i did mention it was verifar away. such a bright day, such a warm day, so many miles of perfect beach lashed by a powerful yet gentle pacific, who could ask for more?

something like this:

or this:

okay, let's surf!

right!

so i said something about those beaches and sunsets that last forever, oh yeah? i can prove it:

 

 

 

 

ahhh, sign of goo:

 

miscellanous this and that:

 

so now everyone's asking what happens with jim and a fast rental car and a quick ride home - had to get back to town by 3pm by the rental agreement and , well, it cost a helluva lot more than if we kept the car for another day, and it's the one occasion i broke the posted rules:

yup. first one i've gotten in 14 years. one hundred ninety-six dollars. one hundred ninety-six fucking dollars! 102 in an 80 zone, just coming out of a 100 zone on the nanaimo bypass. were it a hundred i guess i'd pay gladly, i was speeding afterall, but 196 is stupid for what amounts to twelve miles per hour over. i blame the metric system, 22 sounds so much more evil than twelve, and the worst part is, i can honestly say that that moment, and perhaps the ten minutes before that moment, was the only time i ever exceeded the speed limit on the whole trip. for much of it, especially between the coasts, i went well under, i got passed all over the place. i thought perhaps the cop'd check my driving record and find out i don't speed much, but the only thing he radioed through on was my license number; when he came back to the car he said, “i think you'll need to replace your license before 2006, the numbers are wearing off.” yeah, like i'm gonna spend sixty bucks 'cause the government can't put the numbers on the inside of the lamentation. if nothing else, at least i almost ran over the cop when he stepped in front of the car - who the hell steps in front of a speeding mustang when he already knows laser-certain it's going 102? damn near ran the fellow over, but at least there was time to squelch dave seaman's global underground 022 at 460 flat-out watts before he approached the car. let's just call it punctuation.

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needless to say it's now a week later, and though i wrote the bulk of this post while there was still sand between my toes it's only today i've had the time to finish up the smaller details. i'm happy to say that the vacation glow lasted through to the following wednesday, whereafter work and life and all that regular stuff brought me back the whole way for real, a pleasant enough landing, i suppose, assuming one has to land at all. the week has been big and bright and i'm still getting settled in to the new computer, which is still thrilling me to no end. and now july's up, what magic will august hold? i'm looking forward to more warm summer nights, more sunbeams in the livingroom, and while august's arrival makes one fear the autumn to come, it's the august memories that make you smile while you're crashing leaves and carving pumpkins.....

no, i'm so not going there. not yet, maybe sometime in the next five weeks you and i can meet for a slushy drink on a patio somewhere close to everything, and if it's really warm perhaps a cuervo after with one of the summer's most succulent limes. yeah, let's do that. i'm listed.

i wish this post were better written, but i just have to pump it out tonight as its details are getting stale and i've felt bad about blogging anything new with this sitting half finished on the drive. and i never did get to all the other things i got up to over that wonderful week, but then i guess i've avoided all sorts of incriminations and innuendo. at least there's at least another forty years of bloggabilites yet to come, thanks for tuning in so far.