Urban Wilds

I don't remember when, exactly I became a city guy. I grew up in a town with a population of 2,000. Now, I cannot even imagine living in a place without access to mass transit and an international airport. Here near Vancouver, nature's at the backdoor. Yet, we are surrounded by the comforts and amenities for the two and a half million people who live here. It's more expensive to live in an urban area but the benefits are numerous.


This morning we wanted to get out. We stumbled down the stairs to the SkyTrain which runs right from our building. We took a short walk from the Nanaimo SkyTrain Station to Trout Lake in Vancouver. The photo above shows that park. Amazingly, its probably less than a mile and a half from Vancouver's downtown core. Lots of folks were out with either babies or dogs. My pictures, however, show its solitude. After, we continued on Bus #20 down Commercial Drive just so we could walk back up along that street. It used to be the Italian neighbourhood but now is an eclectic mix of cultures and restaurants. It's trendy but in a grassroots rather than yuppie way.