99 b-line...

Here we are four reading breaks later and one thing has stayed the same: Avra Laarakker. Here's a person who's been through it all, the thick and the thin of it, the strikes and the gutters, the ferries, the buses, the mustaches, the pulling-of-purses, the b-lines, the a-lines, I would say that together we've pretty much seen it all.

And so here we are sharing our new spaces again. I've moved again. She's moved, again. We've done Vernon, Vancouver, Nelson, Calgary, Kelowna. We've pretty much covered the Interior and the West and along the way we've partaken in beer out of nalgenes, CNIBs out of nalgenes, medicinal pharmaceuticals, a guy who in the middle of the UBC campus could find the joint that he "left for himself" a few hours later and that still lit after a torrential downpour.

How do we know where life is going to take us? How do we continue on when we know nothing for certain? How can certain mundane, completely casual, everyday moments take my breath away? As I creep around the world of blogs and facebook and virtual unreality, I can't help but wonder, isn't the view from the 99 b-line one of the most beautiful sites ever created? Why be inside when you could be out smelling the moss, feeling the inevitable rain, putting dirt in your hands and laughing at absolutely nothing with your favourite person in the world? Maybe we do know where life is going to take us, afterall we've driven this route a thousand times before.

Yet every year feels just a little bit different.