Lake Cowichan, nothing too exciting - Oct 14 - 24

Wednesday morning, We're still adjusting to the 4 hour time change, so were up way too early. (3am)  We did however, try and keep meal times etc at BC Time.  Tonight for dinner I cooked a prime rib roast on the BBQ as a thankyou to Steve and Dianne. They took such good care of our house and moved most of the summer stuff away for us.

Dianne came down with a cold on Friday before we got home and Steve of course, got it and is feeling pretty tough when they picked us up on Tuesday. Hopefully we miss it, but being in the same car, same house, I have my doubts. :)

Roy and June came over for a visit after dinner and June brought her pumpkin cheesecake. Yumm. They left at 9 and all of us headed to bed. We all slept really good. We didn't wake up until 6, I stayed in bed and slept to 7. Best sleep ever for all of us. Steve woke up feeling much better.

After our usual mornings, coffee, news on the tv and tablets, I made a big breakfast for us all. Nice to cook in my kitchen again! Steve, Dianne and Ray tidied up. Dianne and Steve had packed up most of their things yesterday into the truck and car with only a few things to go this morning. By 10 am they were on their way.

We spent the morning moving our suitcases back into the upstairs bedrooms, bringing down our fall/winter clothes and moving our summer stuff back upstairs. Between laundry and packing stuff back and forth it's time for lunch. Off to Jake's. We'd been given a gift certificate from Dianne and Steve's son Chris, for letting them all stay here for the week of Steve's birthday in August. Thanks a bunch Chris and Angela.

I also filled up our hot tub in preparation to turning it on. Unfortunately there is a relief plug that is leaking water and air, so had to postpone turning it on to heat until I get a new plug hopefully tomorrow in Duncan. (that didn't fix it ... repair guy coming next week from Victoria.)

Back home after lunch, my "garden angel Penny," was working in the garden and I joined her for a couple of hours, emptying planters in preparation for moving them under the sundeck for the winter and putting all my garden ornaments away. All in all, a very busy day. The weather's fabulous, sunny and warm at 17.5C.

Friday, Ray went for a walk while I was getting my hair done at the campsite next to us and found a bear! He turned around and went another way. This picture is zoomed in. This bear was about 300 feet away.

We ran into Duncan after my hair appointment for errands. We stopped for Chinese food for lunch and back home for the afternoon. We are still pretty tired. 

Sataurday, I spent the morning prepping dinner and getting ready for the kids to arrive. Kristi arrived at about 1 pm with Jason and Amelia arriving at 3 pm, after Amelia attended a birthday party. Poor Jason  survived a 5 year's old BD party at McDonalds!

Jason and Kristi got busy moving the planters under the sundeck and other furniture into the basement.  Good luck if you need anything under the stairs. In the spare bedroom downstairs is the overflow of chairs from the dock.

Now we can access some of the Christmas Village Pieces. Ray has them stored in every nook and cranny in here and the boat garage.

Next up Jason pressure washed the sundeck and front concrete from the dirt from the planters. Then he hung up a strand of xmas lights on the beams where Ray will be assembling the xmas villages underneath.nt Jason doesn't want to reach over the villages and possibly break something like last year.

Amelia kept busy while I made scalloped potatoes and baked ham for dinner.

Yup Jason is one tired guy!

Of course after dinner, ice cream was involved. Both were wearing their new T-Shirts from St. Martins NB.

Sunday morning Amelia and I made our standard blueberry pancakes and maple breakast sausages. Jason and Ray moved the summer furniture into the storage room and stacked the rest in the spare bedroom downstairs. They also made a dump run to get rid of some yard waste and garbage that missed garbage day.

Kristi, Amelia and Olaf went to the park and raked some leaves to play in.

They even involved Olaf, such fun.

Friends of Kristi and Jason, also came for dinner on Sunday arriving at 3 pm. Tonight's meal is chicken on the rotisserie, baked potatoes, homemade cesear salad and stir fryed vegetables. Dinner's early at 5 pm, so they were all gone by 6:30 pm as Amelia has school tomorrow. Rita and Ted are going to stay at Kristi's for a couple of nights.

Ted, Rita, Deb, Ray, Amelia, Kristi and Jason

Monday, after my appointment we headed into Duncan so I could pick up my laptop. I had dropped it in Nova Scotia and the mouse pad popped out. I bent some tabs back to get it back in, but wanted to make sure I hadn't damaged anything. Fortunately I didn't :) After another quick stop to pick up a parcel, we had lunch at OJ's, saying Hi to our favourite server, Nicole. Back home we just puttered until dinner.

Tuesday, dental appointments, oh joy! Back to the lake by lunchtime. We had a service guy come from South Island Fireplaces and get our gas fireplace running again. I had changed batteries in the remote module and accidentily pulled a wire. It needed glass cleaning anyways, so a service call was made. He showed me where the wire goes so I know for next time. :)

Meanwhile with the leftover chicken, I made 2 chicken pot pies, one for tonight and one to freeze. All leftover veggies went in as well.  

The lake level is really low since we have not had any rain to speak of for months. They have the weir gates down to put water into the river for the salmon.

We cleared off the buffet and moved our coffee station to the island. This is in preparation for Ray's Christmas Village. This one he has to remake as he now has 2 trains he has to get running in this area, and still be able to fix if they derail. The other two villages (tables) will come after. We have Amelia for the weekend November 7th so one of the other villages has to be ready to set up as she wants to place the houses this year, not just the people. Ray has work to do. :)

Wednesday, the repair guy for the hot tub should be here around 11 am. I have a leak around the lid for the filter cannister. Unfortunately the only Coast Spa dealer/repair is from Victoria not Duncan. Hopefully not too serious a fix. Since I have to pay for $150 call out, plus at least an hour at $120, I will have him check everything else while he is here. 

Turned out that the lid Ray purchased in Duncan did not fit well. 10 minutes it was all fixed. Yeesh! Checking out the rest of the hot tub there was one jet control that needed a little tightening and a pipe going to the pump needed a 1/4 turn. Otherwise our 8 year old tub received a clean bill of health. $482 for 30 minutes work.

Wednesday, Ray tried the FP in the morning, it wouldn't stay lit! Now what. The stove wouldn't stay lit either, so no cooking. Ray called Superior and they came Thursday to fill us up. We had filled in June so we shouldn't have been empty. The app on Ray's computer showed the tank empty. Well they were not. Both were at 80%. Turns out that the regulator was hooped. I managed to call a guy and he was already in Duncan and after sending him some pictures he picked up the part and installed it Friday morning. The regulator is probably 18 years old so I guess time to change it out. We have had "three  things" go wrong in the past few days, hopefully that is the end of problems. :)

Friday morning we had some fog on the lake and as it lifted Ray grabbed a few pictures. Beautiful

Friday night we were invited over to Roy and June's to tour their "tiny house" as it is mostly finished. Gorgeous. It was also movie night and we watched The Black Bag. Thanks for the invite, we really enjoyed your new Theatre Room and the snacks.

Saturday, we finally have some rain. Mostly sprinkles. Before the clouds came in heavy we noticed fresh snow on the mountains across from us!

Today is Election Day, hopefully it goes well. I think everyone in the province is ready for a change in government after 9 years of more spending and not much to show for it. As expected the Conservative Party defeated the New Democrat party but with numbers no one expected. 64 to 27 seats.

We have had a pretty busy 10 days since we came back home. Not very "picture worthy" though. lol

Last days in Halifax and then home to Lake Cowichan. Oct 11 - 13

Our fabulous maritime trip is almost over! 8 weeks went by pretty fast. We found lots of the colour Ray wanted to photograph.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Not home to cook this year.

We've experienced an amazing 8 weeks here in Newfoundland and the Maritimes. The weather for the most part, has been fabulous with only a few days of rain. We've seen, deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, tons of shore birds but no moose. We never drove at dawn or dusk though, which are prime times.

I drove us over 4000 km in Newfoundland and over 4500 km in the Maritimes. In NL with a Volvo and in NS a Nissan Rogue. I have to say the Volvo is a better drive and hugged the road better and didn't slip in the rain. 

I think we now have a "good feel" of the people and places and will miss the warm hospitality and their friendly smiling faces. All the shops, restaurants, hotels and B & B's take customer care to a whole new level.  

You'll notice I'm mostly wearing a ball cap in the pictures. The water here is terrible for my hair and it usually sticks out everywhere. I gave up fussing and do a wash n wear with a hat'. lol Doesn't help I'm 8 weeks out from a hair cut so it's really too long.

This trip also taught us that we would rather travel in a motorhome, taking our beds with us than changing every couple of days. The pack up and unpack every couple days is really tiring. Good sleep here, not so good there etc., definitely played havac with Ray's back and my hips and knee, but we powered through. Also, only wanting "a little something" for breakfast or dinner instead of a whole meal proved a little challenging too. We made use of Ray's arrowroot cookies and granola bars.

We made the decision to buy a small 25 foot motorhome July 31st and will take possession of it sometime in the New Year. Stay tuned. This trip really reinforced our decision we made, before we left for our trip. We will take shorter trips closer to home. There is so much to see in BC, Alberta and the Yukon we have yet to visit. (Ray's already making lists of attractions, waterfalls, etc lol.)

Today, Sunday, woke up to clear skys again. The wind from yesterday died sometime overnight. These pictures I took off of our deck, in the cabin. Gorgeous. Nice to see the owner's boat is still there after the 50 km gusts of wind we had for 36 hours. lol I saw someone come down and check their little dock out front yesterday afternoon.

Packing up day again.... heading into Halifax for our last stay before flying out Tuesday morning, back to the island.

Ray saw this beautiful sunrise and the fact that the wind had stopped, so he made another run to Peggy's Cove to get some reflection shots.

Look how clear the water is here.

He came back home to gather me and all our stuff. Today's adventure will be finding a laundromat to wash our clothes, I'm not packing a bunch of dirty things mixed with clean clothes. lol I would do it tomorrow instead, but it is a statutory holiday for Thanksgiving and the laundromats may be closed.

Found a place about 15 minutes from out hotel, 2 hours later by noon, we were done. Last time not using my own. Yay! The laundromat is spotless and we were the only ones there.

Now what? Check in is not until 3 pm. Ray found a park to visit close to the Inn.

Shubie Park is a 16-hectare urban park in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia maintained by the Halifax Regional Municipality. Heavily forested, Shubie Park is roughly linear in shape as it is bounded on the north and west by Highway 118 expressway and on the south and east by Lake Micmac and the southern edge of Lake Charles. It centers around a key segment of the historic 114-kilometre Shubenacadie Canal, which connects Halifax Harbour to the Bay of Fundy.

Lock 2: Originally built in 1826 and rebuilt in 1854 due to freeze-thaw stress, this is the only composite lock on the canal, featuring original granite blocks combined with North American-style stone walls reinforced with lumber. 
Lock 3: Located alongside Lock 2, this lock helps link Lake Micmac and Lake Charles (which marks the high point of the canal system at 31 meters above sea level). 
The Deep Cut: A dramatic channel carved through the local bedrock by Irish and Scottish immigrant laborers using simple pickaxes and shovels. 

This is a U-Tube Video that was made about the history of the canal and how it was used. Kinda cool.

https://youtu.be/I0LpCxwc3To?si=A1DVvgnUM7sTqefu

The lock as it is today.

Beautiful colour along the walking paths. Tons of little chipmunks. I saw a bunch of peanuts being left for them in various places. They also have a lot of hazelnuts to eat. Certainly no starving this winter. 

You can rent a kayak and paddle down to the lake and back.

The Lake Micmac

Lots and lots of ducks too.

We spent about an hour and walked 1.5 km. Enough for today. Back to the Inn for lunch. Today they are serving Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner, so of course, that is what we had.

This Inn is 54 years old and showing it's age in places. They got some financing in 2025, so they are working on repairing and fixing a bunch of stuff. The room was clean and comfortable although the carpet should be torn up.

It was delicious and we also shared a slice of pie from locally grown pumpkins.

By the time we finished lunch, our room is ready. Now came the fun part. Emptying the car of everything into our room so we could pack up tomorrow for our flight home on Tuesday. Hopefully everything fits.

We rested for a couple hours in our room before heading to the Pub for a drink. Ray a mocktail caesar  and me a G & T. 

Monday morning, cloudy and it rained overnight. Glad we went to the park yesterday in the sunshine. After showering and getting dressed, we headed out for a big breakfast about 10 minutes away, then back to the hotel so I could pack up our 4 suitcases ready for tomorrow, leaving our toiletries and change of clothes for tomorrow. The rain started pouring driving back to the Inn. Happy I didn't have to go far as there are "divits" in the highway and this car likes to hydroplane. 

Happy to have the packing done early in case I had to empty and reorganize more to get everything in for travel to the airport. Ray put the 4 suitcases into the car.  We will stuff everything else into our carry-on backpacks.

This afternoon, Ray did a bit of a walk about to the lake and the creek next to the parking lot. There is actual fish rising in the lake. Great fall colours here too.

There be fish! Ray looked it up, there is yellow perch, small mouthed bass and striped bass.

Tonight for our last meal here, other than the airport, we decided on Chinese Food a few minutes away. It opens at 4 and I guarantee we will be full by 5 pm and back to our room lol.  It was delicious.

Early night as we have a wake-up call set for 4:30 am .... yuck.

I ended up waking up at 3 am ... so definitely a long day for me. Ray was up at 4:15 am. By 4:45 w'ere  at the airport returning the rental car. After checking our bags and going through security we waited for boarding at 7 am. Our flight pretty much left on time for our 5.5 hour flight to Calgary.

We had a delicious breakfast of Banana Foster French Toast.

Landing in Calgary.

We had a 3.75 hour layover so took Kristi and Jason's suggestion and relaxed in Westjet's Premier Lounge as Westjet Gold clients.

Free Empress G&T and N/A beer

Our flight took off on time and we actually ended up arriving in Victoria 20 minutes early. Amazing. We were picked up by Steve and Dianne. We treated them to lunch/dinner in Sidney at Mary's Bleue Moon Cafe.

We left the restaurant at 5 pm and then got stuck in horrible Victoria traffic trying to get back to the lake. Ray drove us all home. A great trip but are looking forward to our own bed and our own things around us.

Thanks a huge bunch Steve and Dianne for taking such good care of our house while we were gone. They also put away most of our summer stuff so much less for us to do.