A Few More Pictures from Kelowna

Kelowna visit

 

We went out yesterday with Lisa and Laura's ashes and planted them with some native plants at an out- of-the-way spot chosen by Richard. It was good to be together to do that; it's almost exactly five years since Lisa died. We are having a great visit; I don't think we have been all together for four years or so. The last time Laura was with us.

Camping

 Had quite a few people over on Folk Fest weekend for lunch - hope everyone who came had fun. It was good to see everyone. We had a total of 24 guests this year.

On the Monday after, Nancy and I headed out to Kananaskis, where we camped from M-F. The campground we were at - Spray Lakes West - was both new to us and "new", having been recently rebuilt. It's a very nice campground, set right on Spray Lakes (reservoir for the Bow Hydro power system). The access road to the campground is built over a dam and there is the Three Sisters hydro plant on one side so that was also interesting. Highway 742 south of Canmore is gravel, as were accesses to all the hikes we did, but our little car did great bumping over the washboards and potholes despite being loaded with our camping gear, including 100 lbs of firewood and a 3'+ long cooler we lug along these days due to its superior ice retention properties.

After the fires this year, we weren't getting our hopes up but the fire ban was lifted, so we could have a proper camping trip, pizza irons and all. 

Morning fog over Spray Lakes by the campground

Deer in campground

Hydro station

We mostly had good weather. A couple of days it rained briefly in the afternoon but we were back from hiking by then.. Had some loud neighbours for a couple nights but what can you do. 

We did some nice hiking. On Nancy's birthday, we did the Tent Ridge horseshoe, which has you climbing to the top of a  ridge and following it around in a semi-circle to two more peaks so you are on the top of the ridge for most of the day. This is probably one of my new favourite hikes. 

Tent Ridge in centre frame of this panorama, with the semi-circular ridge approach to the left

Nancy doing some light scrambling to the first ridge peak

Rock that looks like a middle finger

Repeater station at the top of the first ridge point

Approach to Tent Ridge. Unfortunately you have to descend from the first peak, then back up again

Valley from the col

Top of the second high point

From Tent Ridge summit

The next day we did Windtower, which I partly picked out of the guidebook from its proximity to our campsite, and partly due to the cool-sounding name. Nancy didn't make it to the top but that's what walkie-talkies are for. At the summit the cliffs around it are sheer, which makes it pretty exciting-looking. 

Windtower from the meadow before the final ascent

The dropoff from Windtower is sheer

View of Spray Lake and the summit cairns on Windtower

The next day we opted for something a bit more prosaic. Ha Ling is one of the most popular hikes around Canmore and the trail was redone in 2019. We had never done it though so we went up this trail, which was indeed very busy despite it being midweek. All ages were doing this, including some babies (firmly attached to mom) and what appeared to be a group from the octogenarian set.

In some parts what are basically staircases have been built to assist hikers up steep sections

Nancy approaches the summit

Ha Ling summit panorama

Miners Peak is off the saddle of Ha Ling. This is the view from it. There was a lone patch of green with a couple of trees that I found quite charming

We also went to Grassi Lakes. It was a bit more strenous than expected after just having done Ha Ling half an hour before but was worth it. 

Upper Grassi Lake

Climber on the rock wall above Grassi Lakes

For the third camping trip in a row, we left on a Friday after camping for the week and for the third time in a row, we had to pack up wet as it was raining on departure. C'est la vie. 

Next week we have Symphony Under the Sky and I've been toying with seeing Metallica when they visit Commonwealth as well. 

In other news, Nancy is thinking of working remotely in Spain for a month or so next year and I would take a couple weeks off for us to go on vacation there. It's very preliminary but thinking mid-spring. 

Garden

 

 

 

Allison, you wanted garden pictures. The top is Will and Allie's rododendrens. Bottom  is hostas. The hostas everywhere here are very lush and large. The garden isn't doing much yet.

After such a busy week we decided to give the boys and their parents a day to themselves and we drove over to the Hopewell Rocks at the Bay of Fundy. We have been there once before, when we were here for Will's wedding, but the site wasn't open for the season so we just kind of snuck in. This time we did the whole thing. It is a very well done site, with a big interpretative center (with gift shop!) and trails down to the bay. We arrived at high tide, so you can see in the first picture that the water is high. Low tide was at 7 pm, so we thought we would have to hang around till then, but 7 is when the tide starts to return, so we could go down at around 4. It was amazing to walk where the bay had been covered in 35 feet of water only hours before. Most people just walked around the rocks you see in the picture, but we walked quite a bit further along the water and saw some spectacular rock formations. On the way home we went to a Big Stop for supper.
Weather has been pretty nice, although we were under a heat dome for a couple of days, which is something we don't experience often at home. We certainly don't have the humidity.

Will is done parental leave and they don't have childcare for the summer so there will be a lot of juggling of schedules for them. At least we will be here for a couple of weeks to help out.

Owen calls me Baba and Geoff is Babi. Sim is most interested in the Titanic, he talks about it a lot. We are having a lot of fun with the boys.

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Second "annual" family lunch - August 10

 Nancy and I would be happy to host everyone who wants to come for a casual get-together/lunch on August 10 at around noon (Folk Fest weekend) at our house. Nancy's family (most of them anyway) will also be coming over. This will be similar to last year's, which was successful.

If interested, please confirm in the comment section here so we know what to plan for food. Please share with those not on the blog (or who forgot about it).

Truro

 I guess our travelling is not quite done. We went to Truro on Monday to look after the boys while Will and Allie attended a conference. They left Monday morning and we followed on the afternoon after picking Sim up from school. We had a good time with the boys on Tuesday. The weather was good so we spent most of the day outside. We went to one of the best playgrounds I have ever been to, called the Fundy Discover Site. Among other things it has a large sandy area with a working water pump and lots of shovels and pots for water play. The boys both had a great time there.

Since we were there for childcare, the diocese covered our room and meals - a pretty good deal for us,  and we didn't even have to put the kids to bed, their parents did that. We came back early this morning to get Sim to school.

It's so good to see the boys. Owen has changed so much since we saw him last. He's toddling everywhere and talking all the time.

It's hot here today and supposed to be hotter tomorrow. It feels almost tropical with the humidity. I'm not complaining - frost warnings in Rocky, Jude had to cover the plants.

This is a very busy household. Both Will and Allie are off to meetings again tomorrow, but we will stay here this time. On Friday there is a community supper that Will and Allie coordinate.

 

 

End of the road

 

We are safely in Nova Scotia. You can see the kms we traveled in the picture. Here's what I took away from our drive: there are a lot of trees in Canada.

Now it's time to enjoy our grandsons and their parents. This is Will's last week of parental leave. He and Allie will both be attending a conference this week so we will go along to be with the boys while they have their meetings. So just a tiny bit more travellings.

Quebec City

 I didn't post yesterday because all we did was drive. We left the courteous Ontario drivers and encountered the crazy Quebecois ones. Alberta drivers are aggressive but the ones here leave them in the dust.

We found our hotel without any problem and are glad we decided to stay two nights. It was  very nice not to have to go rushing off this morning. We went to old Quebec today. Spent a couple of hours in the Citadel, an old fort that is still used today as the headquarters of the Royal 22 Regiment, the first French-Canadian Regiment in the country. Since it is an active base, you can only see it via a guided tour which was very interesting. And there were lots of nice young soldiers all over the place. There was a museum about the regiment too. I remember hearing about the "Van Doos" somewhere. That's the 22nd Regiment. They started calling themselves the Van Doos because that's how the English pronounce "vingt-deux," twenty- two in French.

Wandered around the old town. It is high up over the St. Lawrence, and looking down we saw that a cruise ship was docked there. It turned out to be the Volendam, the ship we took our Alaska cruise on. The old town reminded me of Victoria's inner harbour, lots of tourists and businesses catering to them. The old town was nice to walk through, I guess lots of people find the old-world European feel to be charming, but (I don't want to sound superior here) we see lots of old buildings and neighbourhoods when we visit Anne.

This is really cool. It's a tobaggon run by the Chateau Frontenac that was built in 1864 and is still used today in the winter. 

We're going to try to get to Amherst tomorrow. An eight- hour drive, but we're ready to get somewhere and stay for a while.