An orca whale 'spy hopping' in Desolation Sound, April 1, 2013. Photo by Jill Barber.

2013 is the thirtieth anniversary of our family cabin in Desolation Sound, BC. It was in 1983 that the cabin finally came to completion after many snags, and it was that spring that we first starting going up regularly. Before that, we camped.

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of our little place in the wilderness, my wife Jill and I just spent one of the most spectacular holiday weekends we’ve ever had at the cabin. Each morning we woke up to a thick, pea soup fog that mystically burned off at 10am every day.

Big Buck$ sits waiting for the fog to lift for another gorgeous day. Photo by JB.

The lifting fog revealed glorious, blazing sunshine without a cloud in the sky, summer temperatures, and glassy calm blue seas. And it wouldn’t have been a trip to Desolation Sound without my lanky pal Rory and his wife Julie and their kids coming by in his boat the Salubrious Chief to take us out for a day of exploring and adventure.

A perfect mirrored reflection on the canals of Prideaux Haven. This is very close to the shot that is on the back cover of 'Adventures in Solitude'. Photo by JB.

After a stop at the Curme Islands, then a picnic in beautiful Prideaux Haven, we roared across the expanse of the Sound to Squirrel Cove, on Cortes Island, the only open general store north of Lund at this time of year. On the way we spotted a pod of porpoises, their stunted black dorsal fins just clearing the surface of the ocean.

In Squirrel Cove, after a booze / ice cream / gas up, Rory’s boat conked out, meaning we had to hitchhike home. Some new pals from Refuge Cove and a giant black dog named Henry gave us a ride on an open oyster skiff  as the sun set over Desolation Sound.

Jill bundling up riding home on the open bow of an oyster skiff.

The next day, we fired up my boat, the mighty Big Buck$, Terror of the Inlet, for the recovery mission, slowly towing the Salubrious Chief back to the Okeover dock, where we said goodbye to Rory and his family as they headed back to the city.

Jill and I had one more day in paradise. An Easter weekend in Desolation Sound wouldn’t be complete without an Easter feast at our neighbours Anita and Darrell’s, at the house that hangs off the cliff like a diver ready to jump.

The next morning, after the fog lifted, we packed up Big Buck$ and headed home. As we passed by our neighbour’s cabins, Anita waved us down and told us there was a pod of orcas half way down the inlet towards the dock. I freaked out.

Thar she blows! Mamma orca with two little ones nearby in Desolation Sound BC.

Could it be? In the thirty years of our family’s cabin being in Desolation Sound, I have never, ever seen orcas in our inlets. I’ve seen dolphins, porpoises, sea lions, seals, otters, eagles, oyster catchers, mergansers, and marbled murreletes, but never a killer whale. It’s the one animal I have always dreamt of seeing in the Sound for thirty long years.

And sure enough, there they were… a family of four. A big bull male, a large female with a very distinct, curled dorsal fin like a shepherd’s staff, and two very young, rambunctious small calves, the smallest one tailing the mother constantly. We watched them chase fish for as long as we could, taking as many photos as we could, until we knew we were getting close to missing the ferry home.

Seeing those orcas on that beautiful Easter Monday morning was a spectacular, fitting, and moving way to end a perfect weekend and celebrate thirty years amazing years of travelling two and from our cabin in the BC coastal wilderness.

Related:

Dolphins of Desolation Sound (video)

Upcoming events in Powell River / Desolation Sound area

The colour of the sky ALL THE TIME in Palm Springs.

“Palm Springs? Are you rubbing BENGAY on your great grandpa?”

That’s just one of the many, many inquisitive tweets I received when I mentioned that I was spending a week in Palm Springs with my family. Sure, I get it, there’s a lot of old people there. But you know what? They’re so old they’ve figured life out.

Yes, you might find yourself in a jacuzzi wondering which is higher, the temperature of the water or the age of the confused senior sitting beside you. Think cast-of-Cocoon-soup.

Yes, you might find yourself at something called a “Sunset Supper” and realize Palm Springs just hoodwinked you into eating dinner at 4:45pm. Because that’s when the sun actually sets behind the mountains. And that Palm Springs has cleverly rebranded the much-maligned “Early Bird Special”. You’ll be back behind the gates of your golf compound you’re staying at by 7pm. Doesn’t matter, because everybody is up and driving around in golf carts at 5:30am.

In other words, Palm Springs is AWESOME.

Me and my mother-in-law, the lovely Joyce Barber.

The weather is perfect. The climate is dry. The sky is a deep, rich cobalt blue. The sun is hot. The entire Coachella Valley is surrounded by beautiful, jagged, moonscape mountains.

And despite what anyone tells you, there is actually plenty of things to do if you are, like me, under 75 years of age and want to taste something a little more exciting than scotch broth soup.

Matt Barber, Alexis Taylor, Grant Lawrence, Jill Barber enjoying brunch at the Ace Hotel restaurant.

1. The Ace Hotel. This is pretty much ground-zero of swingin’ hipster culture in the desert. The converted Howard Johnson’s is a very hep, mid-century modern one-stop shop: hotel, restaurant, hole-in-the-wall bar, pool, and live music. Some rooms come complete with an outdoor patio and fireplace. And the brunch cannot be beat. I suggest the Breakfast Biscuit Briskett.

2. The Workshop Kitchen and Bar. This is a fairly great new restaurant in the uptown area of Palm Springs, built into a heritage building with a swank inner courtyard. They serve both high-brow and low-brow chow and booze (cans of Pabst for $3). The starters were by far the best part of the meal, including wood-charred brussel sprouts and duck fat fries.

3. Joshua Tree National Park. The spiritual heart of Palm Springs, located high above the town, this park is a must-see explosion of high-desert flora and fauna, animals, birds, rock formations, and the famed Joshua Tree itself. Just don’t leave the trail, like my brother-in-law Matthew Barber did. That’s when he painfully experienced the desert’s famed “jumping” Cholla cactus. As in he wound up with a leg full of barbed needles that he had to extract one by one while being watched by a wily coyote.

4. Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace. If you’re really hungry after your adventure in the park, even further up in the hills beyond Joshua Tree is Pioneertown, a faux-1870’s village that was built by Hollywood in the 1940’s  and used as a western movie set. In the ’70’s, a couple named Pappy and Harriet took over the town saloon and turned it into an outlaw biker bar. Forty years later, this dusty cantina is still rockin’, complete with gigantic BBQ meals, live concerts from the likes of the Hives, and a clientele that mixes the original bikers with tourists, cowboys, Marines, and local desert rats.  Have the ribs.

5. Old Town Coffee Company. My favourite food is the chocolate chip cookie. I am always on the hunt for the best. I taste-test every cookie I can. I found an outrageous entry into these sweet sweepstakes in the quaint Old Town village of La Quinta, a Republican stronghold in the far eastern end of the Coachella Valley. Your cookie is handed to you fresh and hot from the oven, is the size of a snack plate, and falls apart into a gooey mess like a Republican presidential campaign. Incredibly delicious.

Livin' la vida loca in Palm Springs! ("la vida loca" means something good, right?)

Have you been to Palm Springs? Any other tips? Did you like or loathe the desert? Feel free to comment.

Special thanks to Darryl, Ann, Kyle, and Heather Barber, Brian and Joyce Barber, Matthew Barber, and Bob Deck.

More photos:

This is the "jumping" Cholla cactus that launched itself into Matt's leg. Photo by Matthew Barber.

Look carefully to see the coyote that watched. Photo by Matthew Barber.

My meal at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneer Palace.

A classic Joshua tree. Photo by Matthew Barber.

Grant Lawrence in front of the Beach Park: "resort living all year round!"

It was my home for twelve years.

Last week, I signed the papers over to the new owner of my much-loved apartment on Beach Avenue, in the English Bay neighbourhood of Vancouver. The last building before Stanley Park. So ends the era of my great rock ‘n’ roll apartment.

When I first moved in, I was the complete anomaly at the Beach Park, a 1958 mid-rise building that had mostly maintained its original art deco designs. Many of the residents were original owners and senior citizens, several of them in their 80s and 90s, one even over 100 years old. For the first few years I lived at the Beach Park, when any of them met me in the hall, they thought I was either the pizza guy or a home invader.

When I first moved in, I was the youngest host on the entire CBC Radio 2 network. By bizarre coincidence, my next door neighbour was the oldest host on the entire CBC Radio 2 network: broadcasting legend Otto Lowy. We lived side by side until his death.

Back then, my band the Smugglers was still a touring machine. Wherever we’d tour, we’d often crash at fellow musicians’ homes, so I tried to return the favour when bands rolled through Vancouver.

Hence, American touring musicians like Ted Leo, the Groovie Ghoulies, and the White Stripes all stayed on the couch or on the floor of my apartment at the beach.

New Jersey mod pop great Ted Leo.

It took me under 30 seconds to walk from my front door to the best ocean swimming spot in Vancouver: Bikini Beach, historically named because when bikinis first came into vogue in the 1950s and early 60s, they were outlawed on Vancouver beaches as being too risque for teenage girls. The cool girls who wanted to wear bikinis anyway found this secret, sandy haven, hidden from the lifeguards, nestled in between English Bay Beach and Second Beach, at the very entrance of Stanley Park.

I swam at this beach thousands of times over the past decade, almost always between May 1 and October 1 (though in 2012, the latest I was in the ocean was Thanksgiving, during a particular warm spell).

Every year for eleven years I hosted a Winter Solstice / Christmas party, packing the tiny 700 square foot space with as many friends and members of the local music community and members of my hockey team as I could.

David Vertesi and Hannah Georgas perform at a Xmas party. Photo by Christine McAvoy.

I am a great lover of live music, so over those years, I am extremely thankful to have had many musicians perform acoustically beside the Christmas tree in the living room, including: Said the Whale, the Matinee, Treelines, David Vertesi and Hannah Georgas, Cuff the Duke, the Choir Practice, Backpack Yoda, the Gay Straights, Reid Jamieson, and Dan Mangan.

A rare gig for Ween-like hipster duo Backpack Yoda. Photo by Christine McAvoy.

Dan Mangan’s early living room performance of “Robots” has become so legendary it even got written up in SPIN Magazine.

Nardwuar crowd surfed the living room.

In 2008, things changed radically in the little Beach Avenue apartment when my then-girlfriend, now-wife, Jill Barber moved across the country from Halifax to finally put a firm feminine touch on what I had always considered to be the perfect bachelor pad. (Speaking of pads, I used to dry my goalie pads in the oven before Jill moved in).

Jill eventually renovated, overhauling the original 1950s faded pink bathroom and linoleum-centric kitchen. She also got rid of a lot of my decrepit furniture, much of which was passed down from my grandparents, and much of which dated back to the 1930s when they immigrated from Scotland. Their old bed we shared for months was so tiny we nicknamed it “The Scottish Squeeze”.

Jill is a singer-songwriter, and so began a whole new era of Canadian singer-songwriters either sleeping over on tour stops or just coming by for dinner, including Joel Plaskett, Sarah Harmer, Rose Cousins, David Myles, Old Man Luedecke, Jeremy Fisher, In-Flight Safety, Jill’s brother Matthew Barber, and the entire staff and touring crew of the Vinyl Cafe.

If my elderly neighbours ever knew that the legendary Canadian raconteur Stuart McLean was in our building, it would have started a riot, like a cross between Cocoon and A Hard Day’s Night.

Our last great dinner at the little Beach Avenue apartment was hosting kayaking Olympic superhero Adam VanKoeverden and Canadian freestyle skiing Olympic hopeful Roz Groenewoud.

Adam VanKoeverden and Jill Barber.

And so that’s it for the little Beach Avenue abode. No more walking across the street for a swim after work, no more cycling the seawall to the CBC, or shooting a round of beer-golf at the pitch and putt. And no more parties.

Jill and I have now begun a new, much more laid back chapter of life in East Vancouver, but I will never forget that fabulous decade at the Beach Park, the last building before Stanley Park, in the little rock ‘n’ roll apartment.

Jill and Grant at the final Xmas party at the Beach Park. Photo by C. McAvoy.

Thanks to Christine McAvoy for the great photos!