Bye, Shirley

Shirley is currently winging her way back to Toronto; she should be arriving in about 45 minutes.

This morning we did some reconnaissance, looking for a place to do a vehicle inspection, which is required for vehicle licensing and registration. We were not very successful, but I have since found a place to do it.

I drove Shirley to the airport around 11:30, and she texted me a photo of the excellent lunch she was having in the Maple Leaf Lounge.

Anyway, now that Shirl is gone, I have to get my act together, become a real BC resident, and get myself and my car registered with the various ministries. All good things come to an end.

This was an amazing adventure, and I thank Shirley from the bottom of my heart for helping to make this the trip of a lifetime.

Day three - Stanley Park

Yesterday we drove to Stanley Park and walked on the sea wall, which is 22 km long, for a while. I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time down there. We got totally lost on the way back, and we eventually connected the GPS to get us home.

Day two -Maggie's 'hood

On Sunday Shirl and I checked out my new neighbourhood and had an amazing lunch in the Co Zi Café, which is on the ground floor of my new digs. It is actually one of the ten units in my condo building.

After lunch we headed over to Granville street to check out the stores, in particular a furniture store called Industrial Revolution. Shirl tested this amazing couch/bed that I saw when I was here in July. She approved of the whole outfit, and I ordered it. So I will have at least one piece of furniture in my new place.

Day one in Vancouver

All we did on Saturday was go to Granville Island, eat lunch outside while watching the boats go by and the birds trying  to convince the people to share. We checked out the shops and got everything we needed for dinner. A great, relaxing day.

Kamloops to Vancouver - last stretch

The trip from Lake Louise to Kamloops was uneventful, just beautiful scenery, sunny skies, and relatively empty roads. We arrived in Kamloops around 4:00, and we were considering staying overnight because it is a four-hour drive to Vancouver and there was a good possibility that it would be dark when we arrived. I did not really want to be driving around a strange city in the dark, after 5.5 days of driving, and neither did Shirl. So we called Mac and he was confident that we would make it before dark, so we decided to go for it.

Most of the traffic seemed to be going in the other direction, which was great. The only freaky thing for me was the speed limit of 120. Even in the prairies it was only 110, and here we were on a three-lane, twisty-turny road, the Coquihalla Highway, flying up and down these mountains. There were  runaway lanes for trucks, and several places where truck drivers were instructed to pull over and check their brakes before proceeding.

I did not like going that fast on that road, and I don't like riding the brake down steep roads, so when I was driving I stayed in fourth gear all the way down. I can understand 120 on the prairies, but not on a mountain road, but that is just me.

We survived that adventure, and arrived just as the sun was going down. What a trip!

Finally arrived - yesterday

Trip meter reading, door-to-door: 4436.0.

We arrived at 8:00 Friday evening, exactly 5.5 days after leaving Toronto.

We left Banff at around 9:30 Friday morning, after a leisurely breakfast. We stopped at Lake Louise for an hour or so. What a beautiful place, and since the high summer tourist season is over, it was not too crowded. $10.00 per adult to see the Lake, but well worth it. If you are ever in the neighbourhood, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you did not stop here.

The lake is Caribbean blue even at the deepest part, which I have never seen in a lake before. My brother the geologist explained it to me, but he would have to explain it again a few times for me to retain it. Something to do with calcite.

Morning view from the balcony

7:45 a.m.

No words required.

Day 4 of 5, prairies all the way

Trip meter at the end of the day = 3,576.8 km.

Whoever said that driving on the prairies is boring does not know what they are talking about, in my humble opinion. This is big sky territory, and it takes your breath away. Not only that, it is so long, flat, and empty that it does not require the level of concentration that Ontario from Thunder Bay to Kenora did. My only regret is that we were too late to see all the crops before they were harvested.

Here are a couple of photos from today's drive:

I think a road trip diary should include a photo of our ride

I call this one "rush hour on the prairies"

 

We thought the first glimpse of the mountains, about an hour before Calgary, was amazing, even though it was difficult to tell where the clouds ended and the mountains began. But, there is no confusion once you get into them.

 

 



 Here is the view from my balcony:

The pub in the hotel was closed, so we walked down the main drag in Banff until we reached Chili's, where we had dinner and an Alberta-sized beer:

 

The only glitch we encountered today was when Gert (the name we have given the GPS) gave us ambiguous directions in Calgary, where we just happened to hit at rush hour. By the way, we gave a shout out to Sarah and Nick as we passed through. We went in circles a couple of times, on Gert's instructions, and we finally decided to take matters into our own hands. We eventually made it out of Calgary and reached our destination.

 

Tomorrow is our final day on the road and it should be memorable, because it is mountains all the way.

 



Logic prevailed

So, this morning, before we hit the road, we had a complimentary breakfast at the hotel. Because I like a really good cup of coffee in the morning, I brought my Keurig coffee maker and a supply of Starbucks Sumatra along on the trip. There is a small Keurig machine in our suite, which is great for making one cup at a time. But in the lobby, where the breakfast is provided, there is a large Keurig machine, which would process the coffee much faster.

I asked the lady who seemed to be guarding the breakfast area (Shirley called her the "breakfast Nazi" because she was quite stern, and she made us feel like unruly children) if I could use the big Keurig machine to make a coffee for the road. She informed me that it was only used for "customer appreciation" events. To be fair to her, I did not tell her that I did not want to use their coffee. But I got to thinking about it, as I am wont to do, and I figured that whether I made coffee in the suite or in the breakfast area, it would be cost-neutral for the hotel, because either way I would be using their water and power and my coffee. And Shirl and I are, after all, a customers who should be appreciated.

Rather than tax the breakfast guardian with this argument, I took it to the lady at the front desk, and she had no problem with it. So, I made my good coffee and all was well.

Flat as a pancake, part deux

We will be hitting the road soon for our second prairie day. I just poked my nose outside to check the weather. Dark clouds, wind, and two-layer temperature.  Should be fun. At least I figured out how to take a movie so that it will not be sideways. Still have not figured out how to turn it around.

Bye for now.

Kenora to Regina - Day 3

Well, today was easy driving compared to yesterday. It took us about 40 minutes to get from Kenora to the border of Manitoba. We sailed through Manitoba with only a couple of pit stops for gas and biology breaks. Took the ring road around Winnipeg and bypassed it completely. No offence.

The TransCanada was under construction for a significant portion of the drive through Manitoba, and that slowed us down considerably. We would have made it to Regina in much better time than our nine hours if we could have taken advantage of the 110 km/h speed limit.

The light was really weird as we crossed from the Saskatchewan border and went towards Regina. It felt like dusk, six o'clock-ish, but it was only 2:00 in the afternoon (4:00 for us because we are still pretty much on Toronto time). If I were an artist, I would have stopped the car, got out my easel, and painted the sky, because it was covered with so many different types of clouds. I am hoping to upload some videos showing the prairie clouds, but for some reason, the uploading software turns them 90 degrees. Go figure.

I am too tired to start mucking around with technical stuff, so I will get back to it tomorrow.

Tomorrow we head for Banff, and I hope that today's Calgary snow show was only temporary. If we decide that we love Banff and want to get to know it better, we will stay a second day. This philosophy ties in beautifully with the name of this blog. The only time constraint we really have is that Shirley has to be at the Vancouver airport in time to fly home next week.

Wawa to Kenora - Day 2

Eleven hours of driving today. Needless to say, we needed a glass of red when we finally landed in Kenora, at the Lakeside Inn and Conference Centre. We decided to book a suite instead of two rooms. Pricewise, it did not make much difference. So, here we are in the Corporate Suite and here is our view:

 

First thing this morning we found the Wawa Goose, mainly for Randall, who never met a goose he did not want to hug. So Randall, here is Mother Goose and we caught her whispering "Randall, come to Mama".

 

Then, the Goose photo-bombed our selfie:

 

We stopped for gas in Marathon, and paid an exorbitant $1.49/ltr for gas. There were two young guys at this gas station, one who said he had never seen nor heard of a Volvo C30, and one who said that if we had had a bigger car he would have hitched a ride to Vancouver.

 

 Anyway, we carried on, and despite a foggy couple of early morning hours, it was an amazing day for driving. Sunny, clear and warm. The middle part of the drive, around Lake Superior, was breathtaking. We stopped in Thunder Bay to spend some time at the Terry Fox Memorial:

 

Ontario is beautiful, but after the drama of skirting Lake Superior, having turned north towards Dryden and Kenora, nothing much changed. We were happy to finally stop for the day. We are looking forward to crossing the prairies tomorrow.

 

 



Welcome to Wawa

We arrived in Wawa exactly ten and a half hours after leaving Shirl's house.

It was a great day for driving; all the traffic seemed to be going the other way. Shirley remembered right off the bat how to drive a standard, and did not grind the gears even once. I am so proud.

Shirl got the worst of the driving today, because while she was driving we went through heavy-duty rainstorm. I prayed to the rain gods to stop the downpour before we got to Lake Superior, because I wanted Shirl to be able to see how beautiful it is. And they complied. Wow, the drive from Sault Ste. Marie to Wawa, all along the edge of Superior, is amazing. I recommend it. Just to even things out a bit, the rain gods decided to treat us to another downpour about half an hour outside of Wawa, so that as the driver I could share the experience first hand.

We had dinner in this restaurant which is attached to our motel. It is called the Kinniwabi Pines, and the food was excellent. I would recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in this neighbourhood.

Tomorrow we will try to find the Wawa goose, and take a photo.

Night, night.

Two sleeps to go

I returned my 407/ETR transponder yesterday, so I am well and truly on my way out of Ontario. One day to go.

Today I spent a couple of hours with one of the most important people in my life, Bette. She has treated me like family ever since she has known me, some thirty-three years now. She is someone I look up to and admire, and I don't think any of us could have a better role model. I will miss her terribly. She said she was disappointed that she had no gift to send with me, and I told her that she has given me the greatest gift of all, her friendship. I carry her in my heart, always. What more could I possibly want?

Tomorrow I will see my Ontario family for the last time, until my next visit. I had better get my act together before that event, because I have to be ready to pick Shirley up at 7:00 Monday morning.

The Annual - 2014

 

I just got back from my annual visit to my home province of Quebec. As usual, it was amazing. We changed it up a little this time, though. Instead of going to the pottery exhibition in Val David, we took in an exhibition of Quebec music at the McCord Museum on Sherbrooke street.

I loved it. It was so well done. It tracked the music and musicians from the early sixties to the present, through the quiet revolution years, the civil rights movement in the U.S., the Vietnam war, and the FLQ crisis, just to name a few. You could listen to entire tracks or excerpts, as well as some of the famous political speeches. There were some iconic Quebec poets and songwriters, like Robert Charlebois and Gilles Vigneault, as well as Leonard Cohen and Jesse Winchester, who fled to Canada to avoid the Viet Nam draft in the U.S. McCord Museum

There was also a small exhibit devoted to Ben's, an iconic Montreal Deli that closed down a few years ago. Ben's was the place you went to after the clubs closed down. It was open 24 hours a day. Sad to see it go, but that is progress, I guess.

We drove by my old high school, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, which has been converted to lofts. I think it would be fun to live there, and there are three units for sale at the moment. But I am moving to Vancouver. See McGee.

I had forgotten how beautiful and interesting Montreal is, despite all the wackiness that goes on there. You will fall in love with it if you ever go.

 

Every year when I drive to Montreal I stop at the tourist information centre just inside the Quebec border. There are two signs there which clearly remind me of the quirky sense of humour Quebeckers have. Here they are, both "biology break" related, and they need no explanation.

 



Why the revival?

My friend Shirley is very wise. She decided, wisely, in 2010 that I should not go on that very emotional journey to France all by myself. She came with me and we nailed it.

Well, Shirley and I are at it again. Shirley decided, wisely, that I should not do a cross-Canada road trip by myself. So, we are going together. I anticipate a memorable journey.

You see, I am moving to Vancouver from Toronto, permanently. Well, as permanently as anything ever is in life. My plan is to experience the third third of my life there. Of course, if I live to be one hundred and twenty, it will turn out to be only the third fourth. We'll see.

Anyway, I have downsized to the point where I am anticipating writing a memoir entitled "My Life in Thirty-nine Boxes", and my meager possessions are now in Vancouver even though I am not. I still have a few things to do and a few people to see before I go. But, come hell or high water, Shirl and I are hitting the road on September 1st, 2014.

Gotta go. I am having lunch with my childhood friend, Heather.  No matter where either of us is, or how long it has been between sightings, we are forever linked.

Not dead, dormant

It has been four years since I posted anything, which does not mean that I haven't gone anywhere or done anything. It just means that I am a lazy procrastinator.

I went back and forth between Vancouver and Toronto a few times, and of course I did my annual pilgrimages to Quebec. These are part of my life and will cease when I cease.

I got away from our hideous Toronto winter, or Snowmageddon 2014 as I affectionately refer to it, courtesy of my friend and frequent flyer, Lorraine. She comes across these almost-impossible-to-refuse airfare deals, and this time she asked if I wanted to come along. It took me about four seconds to respond in the affirmative.

This trip was Toronto-Phoenix return, taxes in, for $190.00 CAD. It was a short, three day trip, but it felt like a week because of the contrast between this

       and this

We met a falcon, who is employed by one of the resorts to scare away the birds that are pestering the alfresco diners.

We attempted to climb a couple of small mountains (well, I attempted the climbs ... Lorraine completed them). On the way down on the second day I rammed my foot into a rock, and the bruised nail is still growing out seven months later. At least it didn't fall off.

The last day, we visited the (cactus) botanical gardens. This is worth the visit if you ever make it to Phoenix.

Everyone we met knew the name of the mayor of Toronto.

Because Lorraine is a super elite, gold, platinum, and every other precious metal member of several affinity programs, we stayed gratis at two of Phoenix's poshest resorts. Not only were the rooms (and one suite) gratis, but so were breakfasts and happy hour drinks and snacks. The only problem with this lifestyle is that a girl can get used to it.

I am eternally grateful to Lorraine for including me in this brief respite from one of the worst winters I have experienced in my long life.