Turn of Phrase
604 Area Code
For those of you way out of the 604 telephone area code, this post may not be of interest. For those of you in the 403 and 306 area codes, this post may be of some interest. It’s all about food. And the quality of food. Those of you who know me personally, know...
What to Remember When this is All Over
Is the world ever going to be the same again? It can’t be. COVID 19 is the canary in the coal mine. It’s changing the power balance between traditional “superpowers”. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, a 5,000 person aircraft carrier patrolling the South China Sea, was...
Top Ten Signs You Live in a COVID19 “Red Zone”
You surprise yourself with how shocked you are that servers in a restaurant outside your community are NOT wearing plastic gloves. Eating at home was never so appealing! In an effort to wash your hands long enough, you find yourself silently singing "Happy Birthday"...
A Blog about Traveling that’s about Not Traveling
Granted, these are spectacularly strange times. Orwellian, really. Today was Day One…Ground Zero if you like that term, of a shift in perception. I should have been waking up in Orange County. Am I disappointed? Honestly, no. But I am in danger of getting bored,...
A Surprising “Welcome Aboard”
there’s our captain greeting the car ahead of us. 5:40am The BC Ferries tagline, "Welcome Aboard" has never been so fitting. I never thought these words would cross my lips about a government-run monopoly. “I’m impressed”. It really rubs against my fiscally...
India Won’t Leave my Mind
men in Delhi Even though India is in my rear-view mirror as I am now immersed back into my west-coast Canadian routines, I find it is on my mind every day. Have you noticed how you get asked, or you ask yourself, "what were the highlights?" of recent trips? I have...
OMGOMGOMG
How incredibly stupid. The pink scarf's "esteemed" standing is now in serious jeopardy. But I am getting ahead of myself. Our last stop on this fast-paced vacation is to get-up-at-3:30am to leave Mussoorie and catch our 7:20 flight to Varanasi in the eastern part of...
My Next Wedding
For a completely different scene, we went to one of the hill stations in northern India in the part of India that used to be part of Tibet, 7,500 feet up the foothills of the Himalayas. Specifically, a town called Mussoorie, where the Dalai Lama first fled in 1959...
Highways, Goat Tracks, and Perspective
So the patterns on my scarf are Sanskrit, I learned from my sister-in-law. And apparently my scarf has “come home”. A guide told me the writing was about one of the three “main” gods in the Hindu religion Shiva the destroyer…as in the destroyer of bad things. If...
Grab the Bull by the Horns
(co-edited by the one in the blue scarf...aka my daughter) The versatile pink scarf is acquiring some new purposes on this trip. On safari to the “jungle” (which just looked too dry and sparse to allow my brain to categorize it as “jungle”) it was a bug screen. We...
Traveling with Brad and Angelina
How much do human beings actually value being different? Turns out, not too much.
When Something is All Things to All People. Or at least 7 million per year.
One way Canada and India are different is that for millennials, a university degree from abroad means they stay abroad. Most Canadian kids go to undergraduate school in Canada. Even if they go away for school, they tend to come back. Our guide’s only child, a son,...
Was Ghandi’s pocket watch a useful tool or a rare favourite posession?
Soft and thin. Airy. Yet warm. A shield when needed. Shade sometimes. It changes my mood. And it’s traveled the world. It can make a t shirt and pants feel more special. Occasionally it’s a pillow or a blanket. It’s one of my favourite things. What’s yours?...
Kettle Creek Provincial Park: A Requiem
This was our last stop with the RV and it had been my good intention to write about this fabulous campground and to recommend you stop there if you were driving Highway 33 through the Kettle Valley between Highway 3 and up through to Kelowna. But our holiday memories...
Note for the future: My daughter is never allowed near a microphone when the subject might be “me”…
I was just sharing with my 15 year old daughter that several of my friends had enjoyed the humour in "The Universe Has a Plan" blog post from earlier this month (thank you). "Really?" she says. "I should read it." So she plops down at my computer to read my witty...
Nelson: “Big City” in a Scenic Small Town Atmosphere
The room is swaying. It's a pleasant room, and I have to say, for a campground ladies' shower area, it passes the test. But it won't stop moving...but that's not its fault. It's the 17 year old motor home shocks that make us "float" around highway corners, rather...
RVing to Okanagan Wineries
So here’s my best solution to feeling stressed riding shotgun. She is oblivious to all potentialities and trusts her owner’s driving explicitly. Such is the peace of the zen existence of the family pet. I’m working on finding my groove. I’m getting there... Visiting...
Note to Gordon Lightfoot: “Carefree Highway” is not so care-free in a 33 foot Motor Home
Our decision to rent an rv for this trip was not made a long time ago. Eager Europeans (for the most part) long ago reserved their “normal” sized motor homes for their rocky mountain Canadiana. When we started looking, the only one my husband could find was a 17 year...
The Universe Has a Plan
And I shouldn't mess with it. As events of this morning unfolded, I realized my wickedness from the night before has caught up with me. 🙂 I can tell I'm about to go on holidays...I know this mental space. I micromanage things I shouldn't, I race around trying to...
Boston: It Could Still be a Great Canadian City
Boston. It should be part of Canada. I don't think Bostonians would really mind. They like hockey. They have snow. They use "sorry" like we do. They'd assimilate quickly. Have you ever noticed that? To me, "sorry" should be reserved for when an apology is required. A...
Time Travel: Cape Cod Style
Twenty years, at least, is the length of time this part of Massachusetts has been on my radar. A bucket list item. The trouble with bucket lists is that with anticipation like that, it's hard to separate out expectations. It's not that Boston and Cape Cod are "less...