Day Two
Up with a headache is still up
Today we eat bagels. Well Leslie doesn’t actually want bagels and Carmen won’t toast or but butter on it so in my mind it’s not actually a bagel, but today I am definitely eating a bagel. Then we are off to Kamloops. We will have to stop and take in the sights along the way otherwise well get there too early.
We shall see…
Hitting the road brought nothing but trees and rocks until Mount Robson, at which point we found tourists. After a quick walk and snoop, Carmen (who after all is slightly smaller than a 1 year old moose) took up shotgun to Bruce’s pilot and we went west. Blue River provided lunch, tacky souvenirs and bad grammar and Bruce was relegated to the back seat.
Kamloops. Leslie drove us up and down the Number 1 while she got her bearings. Eventually we arrived at the tourist booth where a lovely lady pointed out the wildlife park, train rides and music in the park. Meanwhile Les acquired rooms at the local inn and we travelled off to meet some bears.
The park is a rehabilitation place for wildlife. There were a couple of 35 year old grizzlies sucking on watermelon and salmon steaks, a few peripatetic lynx and many many more cute, fuzzy and hungry animals.
After a very very hot stroll we headed back to Kamloops proper for dinner at Frick and Frack. Six mini beers later we were ready for a nap so we went for a walk.
Kamloops, as we had discovered years ago when we broke down here, has the best riverside park. Between gorgeous warm evenings, an incredible park and free music every night in July, the evening started some of the much needed relaxation process.
Bocephus King, a blues band was on the bill and provided our annual taste of indigenous entertainment. Sprawled on the grass, we grooved and snoozed. After a loverly evening we watched the sun set over the confluence of rivers and headed on to our hotel.
Day 1: We’re off
Prelude
Well we missed Bastille Day. Tired, grumpy, panicking and packing. No matter we will re-enact the day after when everyone had hangovers and guilt. We can do that.
Today we are off; the plan is on to Jasper and relax then on to Kamloops and relax and then on to Vancouver. Oddly enough, this the first time Leslie and I have gone to Vancouver via Jasper –other than that debacle with the broken radiator–better to say the first time we’ve done it in a leisurely manner.
Zak’s been toodling around London and I suspect playing a lot of cards. We hear something about his doings pretty much everyday on Facebook, but no pics yet. Rem is there now but I don’t know if they’ve met up.
T minus 2 hours…
We have lift-off
(to be continued)
Somewhere around Hinton, Carmen lost her bra. It’s a mystery. So we had to stop for her to redress herself. Apparently dressing isn’t something she can do in a car.
Our room in Jasper wasn’t ready so they bought us a free beer at the magic beer machine. Mmmmmmm.
Next up is some groceries, some dinner, some sauterne and some post Bastille shenanigans. Hopefully C can keep her clothes on.
Groceries ensued and Bruce hacked up a chicken while L @ C lolled. Later after Bruce queried where all the booze was, to which Leslie replied “what do you need booze for?”, Carmen piped in with the one-liner of the day: “look, AADAC, what holiday are you on?”
A walk around Pyramid Island, a cruise through town with a stop to get some cherry chocolates from the Candy Bears Liar took us home for a round of skipbo and beer.
A new look at old art
I got a new stylus today for my iPad and thought I’d try it out. Using Adobe’s Ideas app I tried sketching a few things. Finally I settled on the old Web of My Own Devise and here are the quick results, drawn, sized, converted and uploaded from the ipad… Not too bad.
Later at work I added the transparency back in and sized it appropriately for a final, clickable piece of ‘art’.
The png file has to be RGB and unfortunately the shadowbox theme won’t work as black on black is … well… black. Here’s a link to see the image without the shadowbox.
Let boy gones be boy gones…
And the 2010 holiday season begins:
Zak is first out of the gate; off and running to Calgary on Westjet. He should be leaving Calgary for Gatwick in an hour or so. No phone call so far…
After that he arrives in London tomorrow a.m. at 6:30 and is supposed to give us a call to let us know he’s there. We’ll see…
A last glimpse of Zak as he goes through security at YEG.
Update!
Update 2!
Bye bye boy, bye-bye
So the boy is off to Europe tomorrow. Last he was gone so long or so far, it was to Brooks with his grandparents or Japan with the school. This time it’s him and England and the continent; who knows what’ll come of it.
Overall I’m excited. Part of me worries his laissez fair attitude will find him stranded en route, but once he’s there I know he’ll do fine. I’m also sure it will take him about 12 hours to be bored, depressed and perhaps a little unsure of what the hell is going on. And that, is the point; at least for me. The last few generations have had to many other things to absorb to understand the benefits and pitfalls of independence. 6 weeks on your own with limited external resources should be exciting and epiphanaic in equal measure. One must move, decide, grow or failure is inevitable. Although failure is not deadly in this day and age, it is regrettable and really a waste. So get up, decide where to eat,where to go, who to hang with, what to spend for you are young…
Gaudeamus igitur, juveniles dum sumus made a lot of sense to me at that age, still does. I hope it will soon come to mean something to Zak.
But we’ll see.
Here’s to Zak’s big adventure! May he grow in ways that no one expects…
IPad Doggerel
Touch typing
Touch screen
Touch my wallet
I must be touched.
Hup one, hup two…Hike!
Finally did Hayburger at Elk Island yesterday. A perfect day with a bit of a breeze and the timing for wildflowers was pretty awesome. We finished off with some BBQ and beer. All in all it was a very pleasant evening until we pulled out.
Then it became perfect: eagle eye Leslie spotted a long legged blob in the roadside marsh so we went back for a look. Sure enough it was lovely moose, just moosing away like he hadn’t a care in the world.
I’ll add some more pics later.
Some hi-lights included using my phone as gps, a buffalo in the picnic area, the biggest steaks I’ve seen in a long time and my first hazelnut spotting.
Well, I’ve id’d as many as I can and am dubious about a couple. But click to see my best guesses…
[nggtags gallery=wildflowers]
Aurora Beerialis
Checking out the Works, Jazz City as the Art Gallery looks on!
iPad Random Pic of the Day
Well broke down and bought an iPad. Between that and my document scanner I hope to get my life organized. I guess we’ll see.
Meanwhile here is a pic of Zak and MeMere from a July 1 a couple of years ago.
Old times, new times…
Between cleaning up my various websites (see here) and reuploading the old RCAF images I scanned for Zak, and my visit to the Alberta Aviation Museum last week it’s been a pretty reminiscent couple of days. Reminiscent is an odd word to use because I actually don’t remember any of it. It’s all hearsay and pictures and my own imagination.
At the museum they had two things of real interest to me. A CF-86 Mark I. Not particularly interesting as it was the only one of its kind made and barely flown as it was just a prototype for Canadair’s program to build their own Sabres. It was, however, of interest because I was allowed to sit in it. Both my brothers have pictures of them on Sabres, but I, alas, was too small.
The other notable thing was the presence of a CF-100. It wasn’t there the last time I was by and I have not seen one close up before. This was the aircraft that my father died in and I have always had a morbid curiosity about them.
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There was a note at the museum that said this aircraft had been with the 414 Squadron which became the EWU in St Hubert, the squadron my father had been flying with when he was killed. So ever since then I have been meaning to dig up my father’s log books and check to see if he had ever flown this particular craft.
Turns out… he had. On F/L J.G. Keith flew this plane May 10 to 11, 1965 with F/L Bill Naylor, on May 12 with F/L Martin and from May 25 to June 4 with Captain Jim Fitzgibbon on a number of varied missions.
His final flight was July 21, 1965, so this is about as close to him I have ever stood. Talk about things that make you go Hmmmmm. While I was at the museum I was a bit … well pissy towards the plane because it was a symbol of what might have been, Now I’m just downright flummoxed by the thing and have no idea what I’ll say to when next we meet.
The log book also indicates F/L Keith flew #18152 which I saw a few years ago at Nanton.
This one he only flew from April 7-9, 1965, the second aircraft he was assigned after being posted to the EWU. Weird.
What’s weirder is when I was talking to the Director and he stated their long-range intention is to make it flight worthy again. Wouldn’t that be … well freaky.
Anyway, at one point I wonder if I should consider donating some of the memorabilia around the house. There was a bunch of stuff there that had been loaned with the reason that “it wasn’t doing any good lying around in boxes” and sometimes I think the same thing.
Hmmmmm, this post goes from past to future… whaddya know, time moves on.