Oh Canada!

Mike and I had a great trip to Canada last weekend.  We had 5 nights, with one night in a hotel in Ottawa, two nights camping in Gatineau Park, across the river in Quebec Province.  Then we had 2 rainy days, Saturday and Sunday, so we drove toward Montreal.  Since this was a fairly spur of the moment, play it by ear trip, we didn't have reservations in Montreal.  We found out quickly that all rooms anywhere near where we wanted to be were taken up by parents of McGill students, and perhaps other local colleges.  That was the weekend before the start of school.  SO, we headed back out of Montreal and up toward Mt. Tremblant.  We stopped in a scenic little village called Ste-Agathe-Des-Monts, about 2/3 the way up to Tremblant.  There we found a room at a Super 8!  with a fairly large indoor water slide/park.  Another day I would have been thrilled to try it out, or if Hayden had been there.  We went out to eat and visit a local music bar instead.  The last night we spent in a wonderful old inn at Quebec City, in the Old Town (Upper).  We had the afternoon and the next morning to explore Old Quebec, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is now on our list of places to go back to, along with Canada in general.

To backtrack just a bit, before I go off to work, we also thoroughly enjoyed Ottawa.  It was very green, and being right on the river had lots of scenic waterfront to see, and the architecture was entrancing.  We did a lot of walking, rented bikes, and saw a lot of historic sites.  Camping was also wonderful.  We rented a canoe, walked some, and enjoyed the wildlife (4 legged kind).  If it had not rained the weekend, we would have continued in the camping mode as we headed east.

I have put all the photos up on flickr, along with a few videos and photos of Hayden in Haverstraw with me earlier in the month.  As I have time I will post a few of the best photos here, but for now, please feel free it look at my flickr site.

Gloves

I just had to post this photo after reading Margaret's most recent entry.  I too have a photo of gloves that I just love.  Mine was taken in Nova Scotia a couple years back while visiting a friend.  And, while I am looking at that trip's photos, here is another one I really liked; with two versions:

The one photo has a rain drop on the lens.  I was trying to "erase the smudge look" and ended up experimenting with color saturation.

THE SELFLESS GENE

The Selfless Gene  LIVING WITH GOD AND DARWIN,  by Charles Foster, is a very thought provoking book.  The blurb on the back of the cover says "Intelligent, provocative, and highly readable..... a reconciliation of what are popularly seen as two opposing worldviews."  I must agree with this, although the "highly readable" part I might beg to differ.  I have always, since childhood, had a tug of war in my head and heart concerning how to reconcile what I was learning in Sunday School with what I was learning in science classes the other 5 days of the week.  For those of us, like me, who have a deep interest in the natural world around us, and an innate curiosity with a leaning toward scientific process and inquisitiveness, The Selfless Gene provides a wealth of information that may help us integrate two different views, and perhaps somewhat resolve the inner conflict. 

 
The technical writing aspect of the book is very readable; "plain English", so to speak.  The wealth of information offered though, and the intense amount of research (with almost 40 pages of notes and bibliography) put into the author's discussions throughout the book made it a gargantuan project for me.  I frequently put it down  after reading only 4 or 5 pages to ponder and mentally chew on what Mr. Foster was offering up.  This made for rather slow going in getting through the book. It is a book that I feel I will refer back to and re-read to see what parts I have "missed".  I appreciated the fairly neutral position of the author. I have shied away over the years from some treatments of the subject of Darwin versus Creation due to the sometimes hysterical nature of each side.  It was refreshing to read a calm, academic discussion.  It provides the possibility of accepting aspects of both beliefs into a personal ideology that I can live with. The book will not be satisfying to those who are extremely diametrically opposed, but for those of us who see a world that includes both natural evolution/selection (a "wholly self-centered process") and God, it provides some promise of peace.

In his closing paragraphs Mr. Foster asks the reader to consider that "consistently, another force has been at work molding the shape of the biological world--the force of community, of altruism, of selflessness.  Sometimes this force might have been the tool of natural selection--there is no problem at all with that.  Sometimes it might have been a self-energizing force."  It is a book that I will read again, and recommend to anyone needing answers to the ongoing debate.