Travel

Your Perfect 10

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LogoThis weekend I’ll be packing for another trip to Vancouver. You may remember that we were there in June to celebrate my father’s 95th birthday. On that trip, a lot of things never came out of my suitcase because the weather was unseasonably cool and damp. Spring and fall are easily the most difficult times of year to pack efficiently for in this part of the world because weather can vary widely and one needs to be prepared for almost any eventuality. I’m hoping to do a better job this time though!

So how am I going to do that? I’ll definitely be packing layering pieces for warmth and versatility. I’m also going to adopt some ideas from “Your Perfect 10 – Building a Core Wardrobe for Maximum Versatility” which my friend Deborah, an independent stylist for cabi, recently shared with me. The Perfect 10 is a variation of the popular capsule wardrobe idea and allows you to mix and match creating many outfits with a minimal number of pieces.

In a nutshell, here’s how it works:

Choose 3 colours that work well together. A dark, a light and an accent colour. Choose a jacket, top and bottom in each of the colours and then choose one extra bottom in your darkest colour = Total of 10 Garments. Those 10 garments, when designed around colours that work well together will give you 25 to 30 different outfit options, a must have for any traveler!

I’ll be tweaking this list to suit my own style and I’m sure that I’ll end up with more than the 10 basic items in my suitcase, but it’s a great starting point for planning. If this was a business trip, jackets would be appropriate and at least one of the bottoms would probably be a skirt, but I’m retired. I don’t go on business trips! Our main reason for going to Vancouver this time is to be with Dad when he has a minor surgical procedure. Of course, we’ll also be spending time with our son and his family. Rather than jackets, I’ll be packing cardigans and my bottoms will be pants, mostly jeans. I simply can’t imagine only taking 3 tops though! If I was going to restrict myself to 10 items, I would definitely make a trade and pack 4 tops and only 3 bottoms. At least one of the tops would be a print that included 2 or 3 of the colours I was building my perfect 10 around.

Do you have any packing tips that have worked well for you?

 

Back to school week

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I loved seeing all the back to school photos on Facebook earlier this week. Here are three of our littles.

photos: Melaina Graham

The campground attendant at Camp Lake Park near Kinsella, Alberta was happy to take our “what retired teachers do on the first day of school” photo shortly after we arrived there on Tuesday morning!

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We had the campground almost entirely to ourselves and we thoroughly enjoyed the solitude. We spent Tuesday to Friday relaxing, reading, going for walks, and exploring the lake by kayak.

Although the colours of fall aren’t as spectacular here as they are in eastern Canada, I still find them beautiful, especially when they’re reflected on the water.

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While we were out on one of our walks, we came across this critter sunning itself on the grass.

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It barely flinched even when I got up close and personal with my macro lens.

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Thankfully, it was a harmless garter snake, the only kind common to this area!

This little chipmunk was curious enough to stick around while I snapped a quick picture too.

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We saw plenty of wildlife while we were out on the water. The ducks ignored us unless we got too close, but the Canada Geese set up quite a squawk if they spotted our UFO (unidentified floating object) anywhere in their vicinity! The lake was calm on Tuesday and Wednesday, but there was a strong breeze blowing on Thursday so we stayed close to the sheltered edge of the lake and that’s when we saw the most wildlife. The muskrats and beavers didn’t stay still long enough for me to get any pictures, but these three white-tailed deer watched us approach and only started moving toward the bushes when we got quite close.

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Now we’re home and unpacking the trailer as this was the last time we’ll have it out this year. On Monday it goes to Camrose for repairs as a result of the golf ball sized hail that hit while we were camping at Bottrel on August 1st. The insurance adjuster found a bit more damage than we had noticed initially, but thankfully it wasn’t enough to keep us from being able to use it for the rest of the season!

Calgary Zoo

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While camping with our daughter and her family at Bottrel, Alberta we were less than an hour away from the Calgary Zoo so we made a day trip into the city to spend a few hours there. I’ve loved visiting the zoo ever since my days as a University of Calgary student in the early 1970s. In those days it was a great place to take a relaxing break from my studies. Now it’s fun to share it with my grandchildren!

One of the city’s favourite family destinations, the Calgary Zoo is home to almost 1000 animals from 119 unique species. One of only five zoos in Canada accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, its mission is to become Canada’s leader in wildlife conservation. I love the fact that the zoo is committed to high quality care, housing only those animals that they can best care for and being intentional about providing habitats that are well suited to each species.  The Calgary Zoo is also an urban forest boasting more than 7000 trees and numerous smaller shrubs and flower beds that add to its beauty.

The zoo is very spacious requiring lots of walking, but we bought Melaina and the kids annual passes for Christmas this year, so they’re able to visit often and we didn’t feel compelled to try to see everything on our recent visit. Before we left the campground, I asked the children which animals they most wanted to see. The penguins, said one. The tiger, said another, but for me this visit was all about the giant pandas!

The panda has been my favourite animal for as long as I can remember, probably going back as far as the big black and white stuffed teddy bear that I loved as a very wee child. In 2012, I was delighted to hear that a pair of giant pandas were coming to Canada on a ten year loan from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Szechuan, China! Da Mao and Er Shun would spend their first five years in the Toronto Zoo and then come to Calgary for the second half of their stay. Simon wasn’t even born yet, but I determined then that I would be taking my Calgary grandchildren to see them!

Five-year-old female, Er Shun, and four-year-old male, Da Mao, arrived in Toronto on March 25, 2013. Canadians across the land were delighted when Er Shun gave birth to two cubs, Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue, on Canadian soil in late 2015! All four were moved to Calgary earlier this year.

When we arrived at the zoo, we stopped first at the Penguin Plunge. Agile in the water and entertaining on land, all four varieties are delightful to watch. Here, the little fellows basking in the sun are Humboldt penguins and most of the larger ones shown inside their temperature controlled habitat are King penguins. If you look very closely, there’s also a Rockhopper penguin in the centre of the second photo. He can be distinguished by the yellow crests on both sides of his head.

On our way to the Panda Passage, we stopped to watch the flamingoes. I love their beautiful colouring. Though these two look rather elegant, a group of their mates were having quite a squawking match.

Then came the moment I’d waited over five years for! After my hand to paw experience with a giant panda at the Dalian Forest Zoo when we were living in China, I was afraid I might be disappointed, but that was not to be the case and we didn’t even have to wait in line! Da Mao, in his separate enclosure, was rolling around playfully.

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Next door, Er Shun was resting right in front of the plexiglass window. If it hadn’t been there, we could have reached out and touched her.

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Though his sister was hiding and we didn’t see her, Jia Panpan entertained us by playfully tearing up a large sheet of cardboard.

Outside the panda enclosure Drew, Simon, and I had our photo taken with this giant pretender!

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After lunch at the on-site Kitamba Café we continued on to see many more of the animals. The baby Bactrian camel, with his two humps just beginning to form, was quite hilarious looking.

IMG_6080 The Amur tiger didn’t disappoint, coming right up to the fence in front of us.

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Though I didn’t take pictures of every animal we saw, I had to photograph one of the zebras, symbol of my neuroendocrine cancer.

IMG_6088IMG_6084Perhaps the most fun of the entire day was watching and listening to four year old Simon as he watched the antics of the comical little meerkats following their keeper around their enclosure and getting underfoot as he prepared to bring in their food! Simon laughed and laughed! Unfortunately, neither he nor most of the meerkats would stay still long enough for a photo, but this one little character decided to chill while his buddies scurried around. Perhaps he was posing for me!

 

Digital detox

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After two weeks away from my computer and with very limited cell phone access, I’m home and back at the keyboard again. I was able to write my last two Fashion Friday posts in advance and schedule them to publish automatically while I enjoyed a much needed digital detox.

We spent the first week camping with our daughter and her family on the banks of the same lovely little creek at Botrell, Alberta that we visited with them last summer.

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Every now and then, we retreated under the awning or into the trailer when the sky began to rumble with thunder and it started to rain. One afternoon, about ten minutes of golf ball sized hail left us with damage to the awning and a hole in one of the skylights. Those will need to be replaced, but we patched them up with some awning repair tape and carried on.

Another day, we did the same hike at nearby Big Hill Springs Provincial Park that we did last year. A beautiful spot, it also has historical significance as the location of Alberta’s first commercial creamery as well as a failed attempt at a fish farm.

On the trail, our old knees had a hard time keeping up with the grandkids who ran up and down the hills like little deer!

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When they stopped long enough, it was a beautiful spot to get some great photos of them.

Time with these little people is always such a blessing!

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We spent our second week away from home at Camp Harmattan, the Church of the Nazarene campsite located in the valley of the Little Red Deer River between Olds and Sundre. There we enjoyed rich times of worship and prayer and sat under the teaching of two extremely gifted speakers. We also spent most of our afternoons relaxing and reading and evenings visiting around a campfire. What a blessed time of rest and rejuvenation!

Now we’re back in the real world, but feeling very refreshed by our time away.

 

The notion of “home”

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When and where are you truly at home?

Except for short stints of five months to a year spent living in Asia, I’ve lived in the same small Alberta town for more than four decades, but there’s always been deep within me a yearning to be somewhere else, to be traveling, to see new places. The dictionary calls it wanderlust.

When I did live overseas for a time, it sometimes felt almost surreal. I remember walking the streets of Funabashi, Japan shortly after our arrival there and marvelling that this place, so foreign, so different, and yet so fascinating was actually my home. I lived there!

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Funabashi

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The view from our apartment

A friend who has been an expat for almost six years, living in China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and now Mexico, recently said this: “I am very comfortable here, but every once in a while, say, once in six months, I will be out walking in my lovely colonial town, which looks nothing like what I grew up with, and all the sounds I hear are in a language which I did not grow up hearing, and it is like I am in some kind of strange dream place, and I wonder what is going on.” That got me thinking about the notion of “home.” What makes a place home and why is it that I always have that yearning to go somewhere else, to see someplace new?

I have a theory about why I feel this way. In the New King James Version of the Bible, 1 Peter 2:11 calls us “sojourners and pilgrims.” The New International Version translates it “foreigners and exiles.” The writer of Hebrews says that “we are looking for the city that is to come” (13:14), “longing for a better country—a heavenly one. (11:16) At best, we are temporary residents here. We are pilgrims on a journey. While there is much to be experienced and enjoyed along the way, I believe that there is deep within me a longing for that eternal home. That, I believe, is the source of my wanderlust, the reason that I could probably settle almost anyplace and yet not truly feel at home anywhere.

Interestingly, I was in the middle of sorting through my thoughts and had already started writing this post when I attended the funeral of a long time resident of our small community. Though she was only 71 years old, the lady who passed away had suffered debilitating illness and endured a great deal of pain in the final years of her life. In his message, entitled “Home Sweet Home”, the pastor told us of her readiness to go “home.” He referred to 1 Corinthians 5:1. “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” Our bodies are but tents, temporary dwellings! Like refugees, we live in them until the time comes when we can go to a more permanent home.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not in any hurry to vacate my tent! In fact, with the help of medical professionals, I’m doing everything I can to keep it intact. Though life is often far from easy, it’s a wonderful thing to be able to enjoy all that we’ve been blessed with during our sojourn here on earth and I’m in no hurry to see that come to an end! I’ll have all of eternity to enjoy my heavenly home. In the meantime, I will continue to wander this globe, perhaps never feeling quite at home, but marvelling at all the good things that this life has to offer.  There is, after all, a lot of world that I haven’t yet seen!

Devon to Edmonton by kayak

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On July 16, 2008 we climbed Mt Fuji, Japan’s most famous peak. Yesterday, exactly ten years later to the day, we kayaked the North Saskatchewan River from Devon, Alberta to Edmonton, which turned out to be a much easier challenge. Much easier, in fact, than we had expected it to be.

According to the Edmonton Canoe website which offers all day excursions, the 33.6 km paddle would take “five to six leisurely hours.” Maybe in canoe. Maybe if you just floated and didn’t paddle. Maybe, but not in our kayak!

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At exactly 10:00 AM, with the help of our daughter-in-law who dropped us off and delivered the vehicle to our end point, we launched the kayak at Devon’s Voyageur Park and headed down river. We usually paddle quite vigorously, but expecting this to be a longer trip than any we’d done before, we reminded ourselves to set a leisurely pace. After all, the river would do some of the work for us. In fact, even if we stopped paddling altogether, we’d eventually reach our destination!

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The day was perfect, hot and sunny with a gentle breeze to keep us comfortable. We aren’t white water kayakers. This stretch of the North Saskatchewan flows steadily, but there are no rapids to contend with. Though there was the occasional small eddy, for the most part the water was very calm. With few other boaters on the river, it was very peaceful and we spotted a couple of deer as well as a bald eagle, though not close enough to get pictures.

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An hour after setting off, we broke for a snack and drifted by the Blackhawk Golf Club on our left. Forty minutes later, we passed the Windermere Golf and Country Club on our right and one of the golfers hailed us with a hearty “Ahoy!” We’d been told that this course was located at approximately our half way point. Already? How could that be?

Sure enough, we’d been paddling less than two hours when the Anthony Henday bridge came into view and it was exactly noon when we passed under it! We hadn’t even stopped for lunch yet and we were already entering Edmonton!

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We found a spot along the riverbank of Terwillegar Park where we could pull ashore for lunch and a rest before finishing our journey.

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When we spotted two replica York boats at anchor we knew that we were passing Fort Edmonton. Imagine taking one of those all the way to Hudson Bay with a heavy load of furs!

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Around the next bend we saw the Whitemud bridge and knew that our destination, the Sir Wilfred Laurier Park boat launch, was just beyond it. We pulled the kayak out of the water at 2:00 PM. The anticipated 5 or 6 hour trip took us only 4. Considering the fact that we spent 45 minutes on shore over lunch, it wasn’t any longer and was actually an easier paddle than last week’s jaunt on the Battle River!

I’m sure that we’ll never climb Mt Fuji again, but I definitely want to do another trip on the North Saskatchewan! I’d like the next one to be longer though.

#13 Haunted Lakes

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Sometimes we travel long distances to see new sights when there are hidden gems right on our own doorsteps. Though they’re only about an hour and a half from home, I’d never heard of Haunted Lakes until I started looking for new places to golf and kayak.

According to legend, the natives of the plains had been in the habit of pitching their teepees on the eastern shore of the larger of the two small lakes. Once, in midwinter, seven braves camped there overnight and when they woke the next morning, they spotted the head and antlers of a magnificent buck that was caught in the ice on the other side of the lake. They hastened across the ice to claim their prize, but as soon as they started to chop the ice around the antlers, the mighty beast, still very much alive, broke free and smashing a passageway before him, swam straight to shore and disappeared into the woods. All seven braves were drowned and it is claimed that their spirits still haunt the lake. Supposedly, every winter when the lake is frozen over, a huge fissure appears along the exact path that the deer traveled to shore.

Not being even slightly superstitious, I thought it was pretty funny when I phoned ahead to reserve a camp spot and was told that we would be in site #13! It was actually the perfect spot for us as we were able to launch the kayak directly from our campsite.

I absolutely loved the picturesque Haunted Lakes golf course!

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Never before have I had to tee off with a freight train thundering overhead!

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After playing 18 holes our first day there, we kayaked the perimeter of the lake in the evening. Though it was bigger than it appeared from the campsite, it took just a little over an hour. Later, as we sat outside the trailer doing our devotions and enjoying the evening air, Richard glanced up and noticed what looked to him like the hand of God hovering over the water!

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Our first day at Haunted Lakes was so perfect that we  hoped to repeat it the next day, but after 16 holes of golf, we were driven off the course by thunder rumbling overhead and rain beginning to fall. We spent the remainder of the day hunkered down in the trailer listening to the rain on the roof and watching the wind churn up the lake. Considering how dry it’s been here in central Alberta, we weren’t terribly disappointed, but I look forward to returning again some day and hopefully enjoying more sunshine!

IMG_20180712_133842499_HDRSince this is supposed to be Fashion Friday, here’s a picture of me golfing on another course on our little trip. This is a typical golfing outfit for me. As long as the weather allows, I’ll be found on the course wearing shorts or a skort, a sleeveless golf shirt, a ball cap, and golf sandals. And yes, that’s a knee brace. According to one of my doctors, my knees are older than the rest of me! That’s a nice way of saying that they’re arthritic. I bought the brace mainly for hiking, but since 18 holes of golf (even with a cart) was beginning to cause discomfort, I decided to try it for golfing too and found it very comfortable.

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Strong arms at the ready?

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I lift weights every winter to keep in shape, but this past winter I had a more specific goal to spur me on. I wanted to be able to paddle our kayak longer than I could last summer without feeling like my arms were going to fall off! In particular, I wanted to be able to do a five or six hour trip on the North Saskatchewan River this summer. I started lifting earlier in the fall than I usually do and I continued later into the spring. By the time I quit, just before my May 23 cancer treatment, I was lifting more than I had for several years!

No, we haven’t done that kayak trip yet, but over the past three days, I’ve tested out those arms and shoulders and I think I can do it! On Wednesday we played 18 holes of golf in our local seniors tournament. That’s not a big deal, but then on Thursday we paddled the kayak for more than three hours. Last year that would have been more than I could handle and I must admit that by the time we finished, my arms were sore. I went to bed that night wondering if I really could handle the long river trip, but when I woke up the soreness was gone and I golfed another 18 holes!

Thursday’s excursion took us back to the Battle River, a tributary of the North Saskatchewan  that meanders through central Alberta and western Saskatchewan. Starting at Big Knife Provincial Park, we paddled upstream for an hour an a half. The river moves slowly, so paddling against the flow isn’t as challenging as it might sound.

Battle River

Other than waterfowl, we didn’t see any wildlife, but we were both reminded of Psalm 50:10 when we saw the cows grazing on the grassy hills overlooking parts of the river. “Every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.”

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Can you see the curious bovine faces peeking at us in this one?

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Holding the camera still enough in a moving kayak to get crisp photos with the zoom lens is virtually impossible, but I did manage to get this one of a very protective Mama duck and her offspring.

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We really weren’t very close, but she squawked and flapped about in quite a frenzy trying to warn us away from her lone duckling. I’m sure her poor heart was beating faster than any duck’s is meant to and I wished I could reassure her that we were no threat. As if scaring her once wasn’t enough, we met her again in exactly the same spot on our trip back down the river. This time Junior was hidden somewhere in the reeds, but once again she did her best to scare us away.

In spite of the fact that the Battle moves slowly, the trip downstream should have been a bit quicker, but we were bucking a stiff wind much of the way and it took a little longer than we expected. We were glad when the bright yellow buoy marking the location of the Big Knife boat launch came into view!

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There will be more kayaking and more golf before we tackle the North Saskatchewan, but campgrounds with decent wifi are few and far between, so it might be a little while before I can post again. Even this one took hours to put together!

 

Trailer packing

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LogoIn a previous packing post, I mentioned that there are some items that I can take with me in the trailer that don’t pack well in a suitcase. Since we’re out and about with the trailer this week, I thought I’d share my trailer packing techniques today.

As RVs go, our travel trailer is small; just 24 feet from hitch to bumper with no slide-outs. Though we’ve managed to squeeze in an extra adult and two kids on a couple of occasions, it’s really perfect for just the two of us.

One of the things that attracted me to this particular unit when we bought it was the amount of storage space. Last summer, we spent a full six weeks on the road and if I remember correctly, other than washing my bras by hand, we did laundry three times. This year, we’re planning shorter jaunts, but even on a long trip like that one, I had no problem fitting in enough clothes.

On our current trip, we plan to play several rounds of golf and do quite a bit of kayaking, but we’ll also be spending time in urban settings and we plan to attend church on Sunday. When I was packing the weather forecast looked very favourable, but we all know how quickly that can change, so I packed for a variety of activities and conditions. In fact, I probably packed way more than I’ll actually need!

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The trailer bathroom has a roomy closet where we hang most of our clothes. I’m showing you only my half. As you can see, I packed mostly neutral colours, so that it’s easy to mix things up and create many looks with just a few garments. I do like brightly coloured golf shirts though, so you can see some of those in there and I added my bright red jeans for an additional pop of colour. Although the closet isn’t full length, I did manage to take a dress all the way to Dawson City, Yukon for our nephew’s wedding last summer. I hung it at the end of the closet against the wall and laid the bottom portion of the skirt flat being careful not to pile anything on it.

A second smaller closet near the entrance to the trailer is used for jackets and there’s room beneath them for hats.

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The trailer does have a couple of drawers that we could use for clothing, but we have chosen other uses for them. The one in the bathroom holds toiletries, medications, a travel blow dryer and a handy little travel iron as well as a a few other odds and ends. The reason that we don’t need to use the drawers for clothing is that as soon as I spotted the storage space under the foot of our queen bed, I had a brainwave. I bought each of us a plastic bin to fit into that space. Mine holds socks, underwear, camisoles, pyjamas, shorts and skorts… everything that would usually be folded in drawers. They make packing very simple as we can carry our bins into the house, load them up, and return them to the trailer. Easy peasy!

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Just inside the trailer door there’s a cubby where we pack our shoes. There are usually more shoes crammed in there than you can see here, but Richard hadn’t packed his in yet. What you see is my trusty Merrells used mostly for hiking; some old shoes, sandals and flip flops that I use only around the campground, and the slippers that we keep in the trailer for chilly evenings and mornings. The cupboard is much bigger than it looks from the outside, so there are other things hidden in behind including shoe boxes that hold my dressier shoes and sandals.

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I don’t anticipate having access to wifi very often on this trip, but I look forward to sharing our travels with you as I’m able. If there isn’t a Fashion Friday post next week, be sure to look for one again the week after.

Packing fail?

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LogoWe’re home from Vancouver and I just unpacked a dress, two pairs of capris, a pair of cropped pants, and four tops that never came out of the suitcase during the sixteen days that we were away from home! Considering how much time we spend living out of a suitcase, that definitely felt like a packing failure, but was it?

Why did it happen? Spring and fall are easily the most difficult times of year to pack efficiently for in this part of the world. Weather can vary widely and one needs to be prepared for almost any eventuality. It was 30ºC (86ºF) when I was packing. but I knew it wouldn’t be that hot in Vancouver. I packed for a variety of weather conditions, but I definitely wasn’t prepared for the month that Vancouverites are referring to as Junuary! I expected cool days, but also some warmer ones, but day after day it was cool and damp with temperatures in the mid teens. I only wore my sandals and the third pair of capris in the suitcase once. Thankfully, the day that we played tourist was the nicest one of our stay.

Two of the tops were definitely a packing fail. I actually considered wearing them, but in spite of careful folding, they came out of the suitcase looking creased and crumpled. When I shop for clothing, packability is one of the factors that I consider, but these two were hand-me-downs from my sister-in-law. I hadn’t traveled with them before and I learned that I’ll be able take them with me in the trailer where I can hang them up, but not when I’m traveling with a suitcase.

So how did I manage when my choices of what to wear were severely limited? Three factors saved the day:

  1. The morning we left home was a cool one prompting me to add one more pair of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt to the suitcase at the last moment. I was very thankful for those two extra pieces!
  2. The majority of what I packed was neutral in colour allowing me to mix and match, creating a variety of different looks with a limited number of pieces.
  3. I packed plenty of layering pieces including two camis for added warmth under lightweight tops, a jean jacket, a lightweight cardigan, and my cabi waterfront shirt from several seasons ago.

Regardless of season or destination, the latter two are always keys to successful packing. So, while this wasn’t the best packing job I’ve ever done, it wasn’t a total fail!