We joined the circus for a night.
Spandex clad legs wrapped tightly around a bar, I soared twenty feet above the ground. For a few adrenaline charged seconds, I flew through the air without metal wings or spinning propellers. Upside down, with the wind whipping through my hair and sunlight streaming through the trees, I understood how people could get addicted to this feeling. I didn’t need my pilots license for this kind of flying.
I was on a trapeze.
Cozied up under a pile of blankets, munching on salted popcorn, and swatting away mosquitoes, this is one of my favourite places to be on a summer evening: Theatre Under the Stars.
In its 69th season, TUTS (Theatre Under the Stars) offers annual musical performances at the Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park, Vancouver. Every summer, the outdoor stage echoes with songs from shows like “Legally Blond,” “Titanic,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” and “Grease.”
With beautiful sets, live orchestras, belting performances, and even the occasional park raccoon to wander its way across the stage, stories come to life under a sparkling, starry sky.
I am not an athletic person. And while I like to think that somewhere deep within my bones is a hidden vein of natural athletic talent, the fact that I’ve spent the majority of my time in organized sports as a “benchwarmer” states otherwise.
So when some friends invited us to join them in a Color Run™, I was initially hesitant about paying money to have my slow-moving body trampled by a mass of super-fit, sprinting, racers. To my delight, I discovered that this race was focused on fun, rather than competition. Boasting in the fact that you can “run, walk, crawl, or cartwheel” yourself across the finish line, I hoped this event would be an easy introduction to 5k runs. And of course, outweighing the dread of having to do actual exercise was the prospect of being doused in a kaleidoscope of colored dust.
For a while now, I’ve been hearing about the “FlyOver Canada” ride at Canada Place (Vancouver, BC). They’ve run ads on the radio and plastered flyers around town but until recently, I’ve never actually considered checking it out. I’ll be the first to admit that I avoided this attraction for the sole reason that I’m a bit of a flight snob.
Four years ago, with the bare minimum of 200 flight hours to my name, I earned my commercial pilots license. I saw the Rockies up close and personal as I tipped my wings past dazzling lakes and snow capped mountains. Flying from Regina to Three Hills with my night rating, I watched the sun set in flaming beauty and saw the glow of summer forest fires shimmering against the distant night sky. I’ve flown around the Lower Mainland, with mountains on one side, ocean on the other and the city below. I’ve caught a glimpse of the Northern lights from inside my little cockpit and touched down as far north as Yellowknife.
Usually, I consider myself a pretty good skater. I grew up on the ice and spent a fair number of Saturday’s wheeling around the neighbourhood on a pair of inline rollerblades. So, finding myself wobbling around the rink, clutching at the sideboards, was a new experience for me.
A couple weeks ago, Andreas and I persuaded the grandparents to babysit our wee one (doesn’t take much to persuade them) and headed out on a date. We try to make date night a monthly occurrence and are always looking for fun, new ideas. That’s why I was so excited when we were given a Groupon for Christmas: two passes for an evening of rollerskating at Central City Arena in Surrey.
While walking through a Paris neighbourhood, we were suddenly accosted by an armed man. A friend was grabbed and unless we could get our hands on a specific piece of artwork, the thug would kill her. Locked in the museum, our little band of eight had a mere forty-five minutes to crack a safe, find the painting and get ourselves out of there. At least… that was the given scenario.
For my husband’s 25th birthday, we gathered a group of eight friends and headed to Richmond to participate in an increasingly popular activity: Escape Rooms.