I Heart Squamish
The longer I live here, the more I love this place, and the more I realize how special Squamish is. With mountains on three sides, and the ocean on the fourth, it doesn't get much better for outdoor recreational potential. I'm a two-minute bike ride away from the best singletrack in the world, a 5 minute drive from any number of lakes and swimming holes, and Squamish is world reknown as a climbing and windsurfing heaven.
Many people in Vancouver express amazement that I live in Squamish and do so much work in the city. "Oh, its so far to drive!" Well, it takes about 50 minutes to get downtown from Squamish right now, and that's with construction work and the potential for slow traffic. Once the highway is finished and two lanes each direction, I can see that knocking down to about 40 minutes of steady 80-90kph driving. I know a lot of people who live in Langley or even PoCo who drive at least as long as that to get to work...and usually in stop-go traffic. Heck, Dave used to drive over an hour each way in crawling Toronto traffic. I would much rather drive a beautiful highway without heavy traffic anyday. Besides, it's a good time to relax and organize your thoughts.
Anyways, back to why I love Squamish. Today I finally got to the local farmer's market, and hey, it only took me all summer! I first stopped in for breakie at Chef Big D's - home of my favourite omelette ever! Sitting and eating, I whipped out my notebook and did some number crunching and to-do listing. I'm trying to buy a house in Squamish and I need to figure out how I'm going to afford the mortgage! While sitting there I saw three friends from town...one of the cool things about being in a pretty small town is that you always bump into people you know, and you start to know the shopkeepers too. After breakfast, I wandered down to the farmers market and bought some of the most delicious berries and some local organic coffee (cute girl selling the coffee, I couldn't say no). I saw a sign that said "Art Walk" so I followed the trail and came upon the new Squamish Arts Council building where they had a display of local artists. I think it's great that the local municipality donated the building for the Arts Council.
Now back at home, I'm taking advantage of this long weekend, actually taking a day off from working, and sitting on the porch eating these berries, playing guitar, and planning my world domination!
So, yeah, not sure where I'm going with this, but if you're interested in living in Squamish I'll probably need a third roommate to join me and Dave in whatever place I buy this fall! We'll see...
