Day Four in BC

This day was the first day of learning to fly a seaplane, we had to get up quite early and take the dinghy across the harbour, which was fun because there wasn't anyone else around yet and the water was dead calm. Then it was about an hour's drive to Shawnigan Lake, stopping at the first Tim Hortons of course! I flew about 2.5 hours that day, so we were done by noon. Afterwards we drove back up through Nanaimo and went to Rathtrevor Beach. There are huge trees everywhere, I guess I've got used to the little puny ones we have around here. We sat at a picnic table and ate our lunch, then went and picked a spot on the beach. The beach is very flat and when we got there the tide was out so you had to walk a long way to actually get to the water. But when the tide started to come in, the water got to us very quickly, you could literally see it coming in and then the people way way out in the water were only up to their knees. There was a big group of kids that built a giant sprawling sandcastle, and it was very entertaining to watch them defend it against the water, all the parents came to watch too. They were trying so hard to stop it getting washed away that they even all lay down in a human wall! We also flew our kites a bit and then headed back home to have dinner with Sandy. I really enjoyed being on the beach again, just relaxing and having fun. I kind of miss the ocean. It was also quite weird to be getting a suntan and looking across the water to see snow on the mountains in the distance, you can see it on some of the peaks in the picture of Mike.

Picture gremlins are back..

I couldn't get these to go on the last post again, figures. For those that don't know, just click on a picture to see it bigger if you want to.
These are of Sandy's house and the Dinghy Dock ferry. They have two that they run, a long time ago they used to be lifeboats on the Queen of the North, which is the ferry that sank on the Inside Passage earlier this year. There's also part of the Dinghy Dock pub, and then the "community" dock where everyone keeps their boats or whatever else they use to get to and from the mainland (which isn't really the mainland because it's still Vancouver Island and not the mainland proper) The naked man standing in the bushes is the aforementioned Charlie. The last two are of where we had supper after we landed in Victoria, the place we went to had all sorts of aviation memorabilia all over the walls, I liked this one of the Beaver all packed up, so I took a picture of a picture.

BC trip...Days One, Two and Three

This is a little after the fact now, but I just wanted to post some pictures etc for the people that want to know what we did!

The first day we caught the first flight out of Yellowknife and arrived nice and early in Edmonton, where we rented a car and drove in to Edmonton proper. I was on a mission to get some certain undergarments from Mountain Equipment Co-op (there's nowhere to get good ones in town!) so poor Mike had to browse for a while, so I could try on all the different styles. Got what we were looking for, and more of course. Then it was Mike's turn to take me to some hobby stores, had some lunch, also found an interesting toy shop where we bought a kite and an Aerobie (it's a ring, flies like a frisbee) and then it was back to the airport to catch Westjet over to Victoria. We were met by Mike's mom and Grandma (Sandy and Gladys), had some supper and drove the hour or so to Nanaimo.

Sandy's house is on Protection Island which sits just offshore from Nanaimo, there is a pub called the Dinghy Dock Pub on the island, it runs a little foot ferry from the city. There's also lots of room to tie up, so people can just sail right up for lunch or dinner. So after arriving in Nanaimo we hopped on the ferry with our bags, and then had to carry/drag them from the dock to Sandy's house. (Note to self: next time try to get suitcase lighter than 74 pounds)

The next two days we spent visiting with Sandy, Gladys and Bev, who is Mike's aunt, as well as an assortment of pets that are quite happy going to and fro in the boat! The house is going to be very nice when it's properly finished, it still didn't have any flooring, interior doors etc yet, but has a beautiful wrap-around deck. It was built to replace the original tiny cabin, which was apparently getting a bit sketchy! Sandy also has a little dingy that we used quite a bit, usually so we didn't have to stick to the schedule of the Dinghy Dock ferry. Some people have cars on the island, others have golfcarts, otherwise bicycles, wheelbarrows or wagons to carry groceries or whatever you happen to bring home.

There was quite a big deal made about Sandy's neighbour across the street called Charlie, after five I was persuaded to go and meet him, amid much snickering with everyone being very cagey about who this was. Turned out to be an eight foot tall carved native guy....

A study in cupcake...

I don't know what we were thinking but we made some cupcakes, just a few. Who the heck is going to eat them all!

Picture to go with last post...

Pedal power, solar power, a surprise and the Northern Lights

I checked my schedule earlier to see who else was supposed to be grooming with me later and it turns out that I have the day off, a nice little surprise. So no cleaning planes for me today, and I don't even know where to begin what I want/need to do. Started out by going for a coffee with Sonya and Kim. I think I'm also going to do a bit of gardening next while it's sunny and nice out, and then hopefully some sorting out and posting of pictures from BC for those that are interested, then there's laundry and housecleaning to be done, so we'll see how far I actually get. At least there is a bit of motivation from Kim, today so far she baked a dozen loaves of bread and I don't even remember how many dozen cookies. She is baking a dozen cookies and a loaf of bread each for the maintenance people that collected money for her for the baby, there's 22 of them! It doesn't help much that I didn't get up until just before noon, but that was justified, more on that later!

When I went to get dressed the morning that we left for vacation I found a package on the bed with a Happy Vacation card (a present for going on holiday? I could get used to this!) It was a little thing called a Solio, so now I don't have to leave my computer on for hours just to charge my iPod. I am really impressed by this little gadget, and I can't help wondering why there haven't been more advances in this kind of renewable, environmentally friendly sort of thing. I also saw a segment on tv about a sort of speed bump that generates electricity, without going into too much detail, it was just a thing in the road that kind of rocked when a car drove over it, which turned a thing inside another thing that turned into power, I think there may have been some magnets somewhere too. Anyway, it was enough to power everything in a normal house, so I don't know why there isn't one in front of every house. It brings to mind all sorts of conspiracy theories involving big energy companies...

On that note, I also really don't know why I don't ride my bike more often. I rode downtown the other day to the post office, it doesn't take any longer than driving, therefore saves on gas, it's much easier to find somewhere to park, the route is much more scenic as it follows the shore of Frame Lake, I got to interact with lots of people who were all friendly, there was even a group calling for help for someone, personally I think he probably just picked that spot in the bushes as a good place to recover, his bike was standing on it's stand so it didn't look like he'd crashed! So my faith in humanity was restored, and I even got some excerise.

I'll spare the gory details of my super long day at work yesterday, but after the usual Diavik and other routine places we went to, I got to tag along up to Kugluktuk, first time I've been there not in winter, wished I could have gone for a walk along the beach, no time for that though, after we got fuel and unloaded our freight there, flew the ten minutes to my favourite Hope Lake, picked up some more stuff and came home. After unloading again and getting the plane ready for today it was about midnight, and I saw the Northern Lights for the first time this season, they were good ones too, so I took the time to get a few pictures, these ones don't really do them justice though. So that's why I slept till noon today! Okay, I just looked at the pics again and you can barely see them, oh well!

Time to get some sun for me and bring about the end to some weeds...

Back home

Well, we are back home after a wonderful vacation, and I'm a bit behind on blogging. I missed out on the page 123 thing, and also didn't get to blog about the stupid liquid and gel on planes ban. In any case, I'm just getting some other more pressing stuff done, like ANOTHER tax audit, and then I'll be posting some pictures of our holiday. Stay tuned...

What's to do in Yellowknife on a Thursday night?

How about watch a school burn down...

We heard some sirens going around about seven this evening, joked that it sounded like a car chase. Carried on getting packed, much later on Mike said to come and see the big fire. And it was big, we could see the flames over the top of the buildings between us and there, and a huge plume of black smoke over the city, reminded me a bit of when Hub Oil burned down in Calgary. So anyway, yep, I admit, we went for a drive, turns out that we weren't the only ones with that idea, at least half the city was already there watching. They had two giant ladders trucks going, and some of the airport fire trucks too, very cool to see that machinery in action, normally just get to see it sitting all shiny in the sun when you drive past the firehall.

It's now half past one in the morning, and we have to get up in three and a half hours to catch our flight. So much for going to bed early, of course I've been feeling exhausted and tired all day, and now that it's time to go to bed, I'm wide awake. Someone is going to have to fill us in on the details when we get home!

The Beach

I had this past weekend off, so we had planned to go canoeing on Sunday. Unfortunately we woke up to rain, which must have snuck in from somewhere because the weather people never said a word about it! Oh well, instead we slept in and had pancakes for breakfast with fresh blueberries, yum. Then we did some things around the house, by which time the weather had cleared and Steve called to say they were going to the beach, so off we went on our bikes. Yes, we have a beach in Yellowknife, with sand and everything. Connor wasn't so happy about getting his feet put in the water, but the rest of us had a swim, and we lay around a bit reading until we'd dried off. On the way home we saw this truck with a bunch of new Skidoos in crates. Later that evening we joined Steve, Michelle, Jack and Kim for dinner. Didn't get the canoe wet, but made the best of the day, I think.