Summer Continues

Hold on! Maybe grab a beverage and a bathroom trip. Lots of summer pictures and adventures. Here we go...

Boys were enrolled in a skim board camp (good to live near the ocean). They really enjoyed it and learned some new skills. 

Meanwhile, Holden was collecting rocks.

Never pass up an opportunity to buy from a lemonade stand being run by a budding young business tycoon.

Aug 11 to 18: Headed back up to the Kootenays for a visit. Love our time up here with Teagan & Rudy. Such a great drive. We always have to stop at Parsons Fruit stand in the Keremeos/Cawston area.

This beautiful boy is 8 years old already.

He is such a delight to be around.

Grandpa and Rudy planned their outfits....

Refreshment time after a hot afternoon.

Lemonade float...

Our beautiful daughter, Teagan.

Lots of hummingbirds paying a visit.

A new Mexican food truck has opened up at one of the marinas. Unkel's Street Eats. Great food, very authentic.

Always something quirky to look at on our walks.

A sushi inspired, crocheted basket on someone's bike.

Time passes WAY to quickly when you are visiting people you love.

Back home...

Walking to an appointment with Nadyne. 

Keeps me on my toes at 91 years young.

You know this crazy group.

Someone asked for pictures of the inside of Rusty. He is pretty small but just perfect for Doug & I.

Always have to have a magnetic/white board.

Doug thinks i have too many pillows.

Is that even possible?

My favourite, the bee pillow!

He knows it's a losing battle for him.

Since we changed the front dinette into a permanent bed, Doug made up this little removeable dining table. Perfect when we can't eat outside.

Small but functional bathroom behind that magic door.

Closet right at the end. Only thing missing is an oven, which, YES, I used often in our other RV's. Can't have everything in a small space.

We almost never camp with electric so we took out the microwave

to accomodate more useful storage.

Aug 28 to Sept 4: And then it was time for another camping trip up to Chilliwack Lake Provicial Park. Our favourite place!

Relaxation time for Doug.

All my boys...

And snap, it was time to go.

School is calling...

August - Grade 7 and Jasper - Grade 4

This little guy is going to miss his brothers

while they are at school!

Sept 11 to Sept 21: Some of you have read my Facebook posts regarding this portion of our summer roadtrip. Feel free to skip to the end here (although I will know....)

We headed out to Medicine Hat AB to visit with Doug's family and especially his Mom, Helen, who is 102 years old. she is doing as well as any of us can expect. She knew (with a little prompting) who we were. She has always been a wonderful and supportive Momma and we love her dearly. What an inspiration she is.

First stop, Skihist Provincial Park in the Fraser Canyon, 

about 3 hrs from home.

Goodnight from Skihist.

Good morning from Skihist. Time to hit the road. 

Next stop was Whispering Spruce in Golden BC. Nothing spectacular but friendly and clean spot to stop for overnight.

Didn't even take time to unhook for overnight.

Goodnight from Golden BC

The next day was a long'ish drive (for Doug). We pushed on to Medicine Hat. We stayed at a small RV park, Ross Creek RV. Clean and friendly people and only a few minutes from everything we needed in "The Hat".

Still hard to get used to the long, straight stretches of

road in southern Alberta!

Medicine Hat is home to the World's Tallest Teepee 

Ross Creek RV park.

They provided a RV mat as the site was a bit muddy.

Doug's Momma, Helen.

Nearly 102 years old!

A number of (undisclosed) glasses of wine over a few

days and we were off again (Johnston is Doug's sister's last name)

You know the old saying "Some guests we enjoy when they arrive and some guests we enjoy when they leave" 

Hmmm....I wonder which one we are? 

On the road westbound to Banff. Wow, does the

weather ever look threatening today (Sept 17th) 

Soon, after navigating our way backthrough Calgary, it

began to look like this agian.

Tunnel Mountain RV Park. Not spectacular sites, mostly

just like pull-throughs, but shared. Someone is at our back-end which meant we couldn't reach the full services we paid for as we couldn't come in from the correct side. Oh well.

Beautiful...

We are in Banff for two nights, which only gives us one day to be in town. Doug discovered that there is a bus that runs from the campground right into town, one way is free. Return is just a few dollars. Works for us as we had planned a nice late, pub lunch.

The famous "foot shots" 

Crossing the Bow River

Banff Brewing Company provided the perfect

viewing spot for a few cocktails this afternoon.

Then we got back on the bus and headed up to the Banff Springs Hotel to see how the other half holiday. Beautiful iconic and famous hotel, built in 1888 by Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) to accomodate the rich folks coming to the mountains. What a place! And there are haunted stories as well! Give it a look-up yourself. Some interesting ghost stories as well....Spooky times.

Cool replica tour bus, open top. I believe the

vehicle was actually built in about 2019.

About $55 per person for the tour.

We left on Thurs, Sept 19th and headed to Martha Creek provincial Park, just north of the famous Revelstoke dam. One of our new, favourite parks. But first some pictures leaving the Rockies.

I'm pretty proud of these next two pictures. Both were taken with my Google Pixel 6 phone camera through the windshield of the Jeep while underway. Just a bit of cropping but nothing else

done to enhance them. 

Going up past the Revelstoke Dam to our next stop. Martha Creek Provincial Park. Got a ton of recommendations on this park. Just 20 minutes north of Revelstoke. Well worth the drive.

 

Sometimes you just have to finish up the day with

a small tub of ice cream. Bowls not necesary!

The next day, Sept 20th we went back to Skihist Provincial Park (Site #52), where our roadtrip  first began. We had a great drive home and now here we are, back into our "routines". 

That was fun! Now you can all go to the bathroom!

Peace out everyone!

Thought for the Day: Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened....Dr Seuss.

It is true

He left us...

We made the VERY hard decision at the end of June to send Eurii on his way with a new family. As Doug said, we had him for two years and just the trip to Mexico was worth every moment with Eurii. We slept in him for 151 nights, which is quite a lot for 24 months, right? We enjoyed all our travels but it was time to realize that, once again, having a bathroom and on-demand hot water really was something worthwhile. 

So, introducing: Rusty, as Doug has named him. Not for any reason other than the stripe on it is a rust coloured. Rusty is all of 14' long. The only thing missing (which I REALLY miss) is the oven. With 14' you have to know you will compromise on something. As Doug says, this will be his last RV. Still, we are VERY excited once again for future travels.

Not quite level on pick-up day but all fixed now.

We also welcome to the stable, Ruby our 2014 Jeep Cherokee 

so we can tow Rusty around on our adventures.

Now, you are all up to date. 

Onward we go...

We spent June 30 to July 6 in Nelson visiting with Teagan and Rudy. Always so much fun and we really miss them when we are away from them. They live 8+ hours from us. 

We also celebrated our 47th anniversary on July 2nd while we were there. Crazy, 47years!! 

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Love these two!!

We spent a full week camping (in our new to us trailer) at Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park from July 21 to 28. We absolutely love this park. We can never, it seems, get enough of it.

Ain't he pretty?

August and Grandpa on pancake day.

Doug says August really does most of the work now!

Even though the trailer is small, I still managed to find

a space for a magnetic board.

Holden was "saving "August".

Jasper (behind) is getting pretty adept on the paddleboard.

Jasper, August, Holden & Josh (Dad).

Grandpa and Holden sharing his cereal.

Sometimes, a little guy just has to 

clean up in the grocery bin.

Kathy and August did a separate hike up to Lindeman Lake

for an overnight stay. Now an annual event.

Nice sleeping platforms to set up your tents up at the lake.

It's a 45 minute, fairly challenging uphill hike but well worth it.

My cooking buddy.

Best buddies.

Three amigos.

Josh & Kathy's dinner prep.

All too soon it was time to go home. 

We have a really lovely cidery, Fraser Valley Cidery, close by so Doug and I snuck out for an afternoon in the sun a few weeks ago, enjoying some local made drinks. So fun.

Then it was time to celebrate my Mom, Nadyne's, 91st brithday. She is the coolest. Happy Birthday Mom - we love you!

Since then we have been hanging around, enjoying our community, tending to family issues and just generally enjoying the summer. Brother does the summer ever go by fast and more so it seems as we get "older", right?

I will do another post in the next day or so but I didn't want to overwhelm you all with all the "events" we have been up to. 

Thanks for checking in everyone! 

Peace out friends!

Thought for the Day:  The best part of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with people who matter to you.

April Showers bring...

Well, it's supposed to be May flowers. We have a very large covered, protected patio and yet some of my potted flowers did not make it! There goes $20+ into the yard waste. It has been unseansonably wet and cold through a lot of April and well into May. Yes, we DO need the moisture (which is weird to say here on the "wet" coast of Canada) as our mountain snowpack was down by 66% over the winter. Yikes. We had a terrible wildfire "season" last year and the experts are talking about the same again. Yes, I guess we can tolerate wet and rainy for a little bit longer.

Life does have a way of rolling along, doesn't it? Here we are into the sixth month of 2024. Family are all doing great.

Rudy & Teagan

August, Holden & Jasper

May long-weekend camping at Chilliwack Lake Prov Park

Yes, it was pretty wet and cold witha few mments of briliance.

Our patio 

Doug's cousin Dale & wife Sue from 

Ottawa came for a visit

My Momma, Nadyne.

Seems we are always sharing a nice cocktail!

Just some catch up pictures. Wish we were heading out somewhere but for now we will be staying close to home but there are some camping and visiting trips so stay tuned for those.

Hope everyone is well.

Peace out friends!

Thought for the Day: The anwer might not be at the beach but shoudn't we at least check?