more soon…

You’d be forgiven for thinking “Oh yeah, she’s home so she’s not bothering to blog any more!” – that would be logical, but untrue.

In truth: We got home to find the router plug was broken, thus had no broadband for 2 weeks while the replacement was organised (HOORAY for Belkin and its lifetime guarantees! Buy Belkin today!). I did have the dongle, but blogging with a slow, dialup-like connection made me want to stick pins in my eyes. How did we ever manage with dialup? Wow, we were patient in those days!

And then there is a WHOLE month of everydaybaby to do. Fun? No, not really, when there is a stack like that.

I will be back with holiday photos and updates, though. Honest.

Hello again, Vancouver…

… you are just as I remembered you.

Back from the mountains with filthy feet (Crocs and constantly dusty ground are an interesting combination), weary eyes and a happy heart. Cliched? Yeah, but true.

We’ve eaten a great Japanese takeaway and are now wondering what to do before we fly home tomorrow evening – a bit of Pride? Kitsilano? MOA? Who knows. One thing is certain – we will be making use of the pool at the Holiday Inn where we’re staying, and fighting to shut our suitcases (oops).

See you in the UK!

Pit Stop: Lake Louise

For long and complicated reasons mainly involving noisy trains that take 45 minutes to pass (C timed one) and do not allow hearing people in tents to sleep, tonight we are in an overpriced hotel in Lake Louise, with wifi THAT YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR – daylight robbery – and a huge dead deer’s head over the lobby door. Don’t ask. All is well, however. And here is a list of stuff that’s been done since the Kamloops Motel Adventure(!):

• Camped at Illecillewaet, very beautiful and peaceful. Discovered that our tent hire people had given us THREE pump up beds; only one of which we needed; and only one of which had a plug. Hm!
• Visited Field; rather odd – an empty village full of interesting looking houses; all of which appeared to be guest houses; and all of which had “No Vacancies” signs up.  It’s surrounded by mountains on one side and a railway on the other, so if you want to leave and one of those 45-minute long trains is going past, well, you’re going to have to wait 45 minutes.
• Camped at Kicking Horse Campsite – absolutely lovely except for too much train. End of.
• Visited Lake Louise – again, absolutely lovely except for the billions of tourists (including us, whoops).
• Reunited with a fellow terp who we met in Vancouver and exchanged Rockies stories.
• Drove along the totally mindblowing Icefields Parkway as far as the Columbia Icefields and back. It was so beautiful in places that I cried. Seriously, I did. It was there that we saw:
  Lots and lots of amazing mountains and glaciers;
  Three mountain goat-type animals;
  Two deer, one of which narrowly missed our Jeep:
  And A BEAR!
• Yep, a real black bear at the side of the road, doing nothing much but shake berries from a tree and eat them nonchalantly, as if all of the gawping drivers who’d stopped to watch did not exist at all. Video evidence to follow as soon as I get my act together and sort through the camera. It was thrilling.

And again, to bed.

How we ended up in a motel in Kamloops.

Um, yeah. Today has been one of those days when almost everything goes wrong, but of course it hasn’t been nearly as bad as it could have been. I’m writing this in my first ever motel room, with The Boy asleep and C reading beside me. The weather is meant to be 33 degrees tomorrow. I have wifi! Um, yep.

Cutting a very long story short, the tent hire people fucked up and went on holiday, leaving our tent and equipment with a poor unsuspecting woman who told us she could only give us the stuff after she finished work tonight. However, as we hired the car a day early SO THAT WE COULD LEAVE VANCOUVER EARLY, we were not happy. Somehow, C managed to arrange with the woman to leave her house unlocked with the tent stuff equipment in it, so we could drop in and pick it up. Well, no one had any better ideas.

Of course, despite C’s hero driving and my hero navigation, we got lost in Vancouver’s suburbia, ending up with The Boy screaming (understandably) in a supermarket where we bought a better map and lunch. Then, we “befriended” a crazy local stalker-type woman who invited us to a school sporting event, then her house, then explained that we were driving in the wrong direction because the tent hire girl had said to turn right instead of left.

Upon finding out where we lived, stalker woman said her husband was English – probably in the same way many Americans say they’re a quarter French, German, Dutch and Spanish (never American) – so C asked her where he was from. “Oh, I don’t know!” she said… and then remembered: “Carshalton.”

If you have certain friends from Carshalton, like we have, you too would be likely to end up laughing hysterically at this news (in the baby changing room of Starbucks, not in front of the woman), and then starting to cry because you were tired and everything was wrong.

But anyway we found the house, exchanged the SHEDLOADS of tent stuff for some beer, then The Boy slept like an angel for hours and hours while we drove and drove amongst gazillions of trees and amazingly high mountains and acres of farmland until we got to Kamloops. By then, it was so late that by the time we got to the campsite, it was full.

Because that was the kind of day today was, so that had to happen.

Looking on the bright side:

Well, I didn’t want to stay there ANYWAY, because it had gravel on the ground, and ANYWAY, we can leave our motel room much quicker than we can take down a tent and pack everything up, so tomorrow we’ll be there* FIRST and get a pitch.

So. That is how we ended up in a motel in Kamloops.

* unknown destination as yet – pending map consultation.

Vancouver-BFN

No photos this time, sorry (I have taken several thousand and cannot be doing with fishing through them right now)… just a load of waffle – hurried waffle at that – but a post is a post and here it is!

It’s 11pm as I write; tomorrow morning we leave for the Rocky Mountains, in the rather large SUV with the rather small boot – OK not SMALL, but it’s all relative.  The rather large SUV that my Hero Wife managed to drive 3 blocks and then into an underground car park without pranging anything or losing a wing mirror, or, indeed, her sanity. Proud moments all round.

It’s been great here, jam packed with actionnnnnnnn allllll theeee timeeee which is why I haven’t posted.  On the one day that I didn’t work, I walked for hours to and from Granville Island, pushing The Boy across two different ginormous and high bridges; it was like walking next to a motorway over water. I scared myself silly, and The Boy slept the whole way there and the whole way back. I think he has C’s inner bravery. But I did it!

Celia asked what the cost of living is like here. High. In fact, local political groups have postered the place with slogans saying things like Vancouver is the most unaffordable city in the world, which I believe, judging simply by the cost of everyday food etc and the number of homeless people around. Many. I’ve never seen such hardworking homeless people anywhere else, though – lots of them seem to earn a bit of cash by collecting trolley loads of plastic bottles and cans to exchange. The mind boggles … in my sheltered semi-rural life I no longer see such things. A reminder, perhaps.

E asked if we’ve seen whales yet. Yes, Douglas Coupland’s orca, and the ones at the aquarium. Does that count?

There has also been:

• Lots of sun;
• Water park fun, in which The Boy stole a green plastic apple from another child whose mother didn’t mind, and hasn’t put it down for two days [I am ashamed, yes, but she left before I could prise it off him and give it back!];
• Playground fun in proper Canadian playgrounds with grit on the ground, which The Boy likes to eat, and those metal wire fences and soccer moms;
• Fireworks;
• Sightseeing;
• And lots and lots of walking. My blisters have blisters and I am looking forward to wearing my running shoes instead of crocs next week. I don’t ask for much these days.

So, to the Rockies, via the Vancouver suburbs and then Kamloops. I too will be driving the SUV, albeit not in underground car parks or even cities. Nah, I’ll just do the long, long roads that stretch straight ahead. I know my limits.

Feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I’ll be back but don’t hold your breath because I don’t think they’ll have wifi in remote mountain campsites.

Goodnight from Vancouver, BC.

Vancouverish

So here is the “Vancouverish” update requested by E:

I am pleased to say we arrived in Vancouver last Friday without ado – that is to say The Boy behaved like a model child on the 9 hour flight, for reasons known only to himself (and not cared about by C and I – we are simply grateful). Since then, life has been rather jetlagged and blurred around the edges, but it’s all coming out in the wash now.

Vancouver is a fantastic place, consisting of many, many tall buildings made from glass. Conversely, there are also lots of trees – always a good thing – and water and other lovely nature-type things, including the wonderful Stanley Park (calling it a park is something of an insult, methinks) which is home to the world’s tallest tree, which we haven’t found yet. 

The emphasis here seems to be on having a good time, so you can’t really walk down the harbour without seeing dozens of HEALTHY people doing activities and being all HEALTHY and FIT, whizzing past on their bikes, blades and carefully toned legs; some even multitasking by pushing their babies in three-wheeled prams while rollerblading at speed, smiling smugly of course. I’m going to try that next, but without the rollerblades (which would be disastrous on many levels) or smug smile (more like mild panic; our ‘stroller’ does not have brakes).

Photos speak a thousand words, so here’s our first 2 days in Vancouver:

Very metallic. Our apartment block is similar, but smaller.

An early morning walk along Coal Harbour.

The Boy, jetlagged.

A view from our apartment.

A seaplane doing its thang.

Health and safety drill on a cruise ship which was about to leave Canada Place

Surreal but real.

Us, posing.

Another cruise ship, leaving (possibly for Alaska).

The people of Gastown have a GSOH.

C made me photograph this alarmingly bath mat-like dress. Yikes!

Into Chinatown.

Discovering chopsticks.

One of the amazing views from Vancouver Lookout.

Touristy photo: excitement over racoons in Stanley Park...

Fun at the water park!

You found me?

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I’ll be right back. No, really.

Honest!

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