No Plan and No Map

Week One 

Lightning, thunder, rain,  and life in a small trailer turns into a car trip to Kelowna to shop, eat, shop, eat and stay in a hotel.

We had one day of boating, tubing and wake boarding and the other nice day we went to a pool party at the neighbors.

Several cocktails were consumed - it's okay I was on holiday!

Week Two
This is the Without a Plan and Without a Map part and done in a borrowed not too modern motor home.

We drove 

We shopped

We drove

We ate

We drove

We saw where The Husband grew up -yikes! (quite remote and a very small village)

We took the ferry

We saw a snake (I HATE snakes)

We saw bears, deer and a raccoon

We drove

We bungeed - well not me I'm afraid of heights

We zip lined - again not me  (heights)

 We hiked

We travelled in a motor home which is an experience not to be missed .  ugg

We stayed in a resort

We surfed -not me - (someone needs to hold the stuff)

We skim boarded - (not me - someone needs to keep Archie the Dog out of trouble)

We ate

We laughed.  And laughed and laughed - I think too much fresh air is not a good thing for your brain it makes everything funny.

We played in the tidal pools

We ran into our neighbors who were as stunned to see us as we were them.

I did laundry

We stopped in Lytton, Savona, Vancouver ,Nanaimo,  White Rock, Tofino, Uculet ,Cathedral Forest, Parksville ,Coombs, and Hope,
In Lytton I tried to buy cheese and the clerk said the only cheese they had was inside the smokies.   ?  !  

We are glad to be home.

I am putting all the photos at the end so that you can silently say, "Oh God here she is with slides of her vacation" and then quitely slip away to get a cold beverage...........

Too close to home to get out of the motor home.

Maybe we'll just drive and never get out.

Anyone want to hike to the waterfall?  no..  no.. no.. sigh.

Parksville sand castle contest.  We were not the builders, just the gawkers.

Driving to Tofino

  No. no echo here.

This is where Son #1 lost a $50 filter to his camera and we had to convince him The Vacation was not ruined.

It is 32 deg C here while you wouldn't know that by the attire.

The husband is an adventurer - he rode his bike from London to Greece and back! (he didn't cycle the entire way he did take a couple of ferrys). I would have flown home from Greece.  Well, to be perfectly honest, I would have flown back from the first ferry crossing which is the English Channel.  

I think there's something dead in here - or maybe someone's sandwich - but Archie the Dog is determined to get it.

Archie the Dog hopped onto this log by himself and the nearby tourist thought he was an agility dog.  HA!  He only has to be agile enough to hop up on our bed.  He had fun though.

This is Tofino.

This old boat has been turned into a "hotel".  They were calling a B & B except they didn't offer the second B.

MacKenzie Beach where we stayed in the motor home and also found the great Crystal Cove Resort.

Chestermans Beach.

See the tiny black dots in the upper left side of the photo - this is where the surf lessons were taken.

Arm indicates 'I'm going that way'

Leg indicates "darn it!"

Wet sand indicates its not as easy as once thought

Five hours was just about enough of this for them.

ahhhhh, the smell of dead ocean things!

A bit chilly.  Next year Florida? 

Crystal Cove Resort.
Much more comfortable than the motor home......

....which we had to leave at the front gates as motor homes not allowed.

They are always waiting for me they say but when we get to where we are going it's "mom did you bring the....?"

Things I hate to step on when I'm in the water.

This kite surf almost drove Archie the Dog insane!  He ran off down the beach to attack it and when he saw just how large it was he spent the rest of the day growling but with his tail between his legs.

Long Beach surfing was most unsuccessful but they had a wonderful time.

Long Beach - 22 km in length

More Long Beach

Downtown Ucuelet

Cathedral Forest

Zip lining over the Nanaimo River.

 Bungy over the Nanaimo River!

And finally, the video of the Bungy Jump.  The voices are myself and Son #2.  Speaking was very difficult but considering the dry mouth, while holding back the urge to puke, I think I did okay.

Okay, that's it.  Back to reality.
Next post - vegetables and crafts (or maybe not).

Listen Up, Dyson!

Archie the Dog is a shedder.

Happily, he and the vacuum are good friends.

He lays in the sun while I vacuum his loose hair.

He will not allow his belly to be vacuumed as the hose end often sucks up his extra skin and it scares him.

So this is a small request to you, the folks at Dyson.

"Is it possible to make a small and gentle beater bar for vacuum grooming a dog?"

I would buy one for sure.

Archie the Dog thanks you in advance.

And please, not one so powerful that it will remove the smiley face from his hip.

...and in her yard she had some Squirrels, e i e i o

Archie the dog is a terrier.

Part beagle and part Jacket Russell.

He did not inherit the better parts of either of these breeds.

He is a garbage hound and he loves to run away and kill rodents and small animals.

He is the Alpha dog, pushy and rude.

He doesn't look like he would be like this but don't you remember your mother telling you that looks could be deceiving?

Last summer a squirrel moved into our yard.  We think it is a red squirrel.

It stole all the hazelnuts from our tree - it even fought off the stellar jays to get them.

It picked hundreds of plums from our plum tree

and stored all of these goodies in our neighbor Troy's garden shed loft.

Troy, when he realized what was going on, nailed up boards so the squirrel couldn't get inside to get its winter stash.

We saw the squirrel all winter long,  foraging for food and quite happily annoying Archie the Dog and Troy the Neighbor.

He would scurry along the top of the fence chattering at Troy or run on the deck and peer through our patio door - pissing off Archie the Dog who would yelp and shake and frantically run around the house until he was let out to have a chance at the kill.

The squirrel was just too fast and too cunning for Archie to catch him.

The husband had enough of the neighbor Troy and the dog Archie and so brought home a live trap last weekend and set it up. 

We were sure he would bag Archie before he got the squirrel but two days later there was our cute little red squirrel, inside the trap,  looking more than a bit annoyed at his situation.
The Husband and Son #2 drove the squirrel up to the bottom of the mountain and the edge of the  forest (where there would be lots of pine cone seeds to eat) and opened the door to release him.

He wouldn't go out.

They tipped the trap and shook him out.

He turned around and jumped back in!

They shook him out again  and the squirrel just stood there.

We thought  that maybe he was a city squirrel, who loved to live where food was abundant.

We could tell he was not looking forward to living his life in the woods.

And, we thought that maybe he had family members still at our house. (insert sad face here)

Or maybe he just liked to annoy Archie who was still racing around the yard trying to find the evil squirrel who's scent was so overwhelming.


Yesterday The Husband trapped Squirrel #2 (we think it was #2).

The Husband thought that he should spray a little paint on the squirrels tail - just to be sure it wasn't a Homing Squirrel - who liked life at our house a lot!

Oh Dear!

My son just phoned me.

Archie the dog just ate a bowl of Pot Pourri.

I think I won't go leave work until later. 

 Best that The Husband gets there first.

daisygifts.co.uk

The 50/ 50 Rule

The 50/50/90 rule: Anytime you have a 50/50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.

 Today I told my husband I would recover the drivers seat in our boat.  It had a few splits in it and I thought before it got too bad I should fix it.  I'm not sure what hallucination I had that made me think I could do this, but it is a job far beyond my abilities.

Before I could go back and say "I changed my mind"  there he was with the upholstery removed from the seat and  handing it over to me.

oh oh

Boating season has already begun and it is very short.  A drivers seat is a necessity.

So I did what any sane person would do. I poured a lemonade and went and sat on the deck in the sun for about thirty minutes wondering how much a new boat seat would cost.

Then I tackled the job.

About an hour and a half and the seat is together - it should look like  this:

It doesn't - it is much smaller.
Getting the foam in and stapling it to the frame will be like me trying to wedge myself in a pair of pants that are two sizes too small.  They might go on but the end result will not be attractive.

I am hoping for a miracle.

Meantime here are some photos of Bluenose mountain and my yard

Wild Lupins on Bluenose Mountain

View from the top of Bluenose looking down on the community we live in.

Peonies in my back yard

Peonies in my house

 Poppies in my back yard

Poppies in my front yard

 

This is a picture of the spinach slaw salad that I posted a recipe for last week - yum.  I think it's the dressing that makes this salad so delicious.

We finished the retaining wall.

And finally this is the dog Archie doing his second most favorite thing.