Travel

A life of its own

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I’m a Site Stats junkie. When I’m at home, I check WordPress several times a day to see how many people have viewed my blog. I guess that sounds a little narcissistic but I love knowing that someone has read what I’ve written and I’m always fascinated to see where they’re from and what search terms have led them here.

We were home for less than a week in June. Most of the month I was either camping without internet access or so busy that I didn’t have time to spend online. Consequently, I only posted three times and I rarely checked my stats. When I finally did, it was with a bit of trepidation. Had Following Augustine died of neglect? Would my stats page show nothing but a flat line like a heart monitor on a patient with no pulse?

No! It appears that the blog has taken on a life of its own.

Even when I’m not here, when I’m off gallivanting instead of writing and I’m not even checking my stats, you, my faithful readers are still here!

It thrills me to know that because the trailer is packed and we’re leaving again tomorrow morning! There will probably be much to blog about over the next few weeks but once again, we won’t always have access to the internet and when we do I’ll sometimes be too busy. There’s a family wedding to attend near Kamloops, BC and grandchildren and aging parents to visit in Vancouver. We’ll also cross by ferry to Vancouver Island and spend a few days with some of Richard’s relatives at Port Alberni. When our time with family is over, rather than coming straight home, we’re going to follow BC’s gold rush trail through the mighty Fraser River canyon to Cache Creek then on northward through Cariboo country. With a side trip to historic Barkerville, we’ll continue at least as far north as Prince George before circling back into Alberta. Along the way there will be geocaches to find and perhaps a few golf course to play as well as lots of history to explore.

Yes, there will be much to blog about and I will update as often as possible. In the meantime though, I’m happy to know that the blog will survive without me!

 

Five years!

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Tomorrow is the last day of school and also marks five years since I walked out of the classroom for the last time. It amazes me to think that we’ve been retired for that long already! Where has the time gone? For the past couple of days I’ve been doing some self-evaluation, asking myself what we’ve accomplished over those five years and whether or not we’ve done the things we wanted to do. Overall, I think the answer is a resounding yes!

We had some pretty specific goals in mind when we retired:

  • teach English in Asia for at least one year – done
  • travel – never completely done but 9 provinces and 15 states plus Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau, Saipan and Costa Rica are a pretty good start
  • short-term mission work – one summer in ministry has only whetted our appetite for more

Becoming grandparents was something we hoped for and though we can’t take any credit for that being accomplished, grandchildren have been one of the most delightful additions to our life since we retired. Four of them are firmly attached to the family tree and there are five others who also call us Gram and Grandpa. Four of those belong to two families in Japan who ‘adopted’ us while we lived there and with whom we’ve been able to carry on a relationship since our return to Canada.

The past few years have brought other unexpected surprises including becoming seasonal farm labourers! That definitely wasn’t part of the plan but we’ve enjoyed it immensely. For the first time since returning from Japan in early 2009, we weren’t involved in seeding this year’s crop. Louis, our 83-year-old ‘boss’ and very good friend, passed that part of the process on to his stepson and grandson this spring. He still plans to have us help him harvest the crop this fall though.

Surprisingly, we haven’t golfed as much as we thought we would since retiring. In fact, we haven’t golfed as much as we did before we retired! We’ve been too busy fulfilling our other goals. This year eight of the nine greens on our local course are undergoing reconstruction. The course is open but the temporary greens are pretty pathetic so the desire to play hasn’t really been there. It was a good year for us to take up a new hobby; geocaching. Though there are geocachers of all ages, many are retired. In fact, the activity is highlighted in the most recent issue of News and Views, the quarterly magazine published by the Alberta Retired Teachers’ Association.

Writing was always something I planned to return to in retirement. I thought I’d be freelancing again, sending my work off to publishers and waiting with baited breath to find out whether it would be accepted. Instead, I find myself blogging! Though I did experience the thrill of publication, in my early writing days I also received enough rejection slips to paper a small room! Blogging is so much more satisfying and I enjoy the opportunity to interact with some of my readers.

Do we ever regret retiring as early as we did? Never! Would we do it again? In a heartbeat! Have I enjoyed every moment of it? To be completely honest, no. Most of the time, I absolutely love being retired but there are moments, especially in the depths of our long Canadian winters, when I long to be doing something more meaningful with my days; moments when I join the writer of Ecclesiastes in lamenting that “Everything is meaningless, utterly meaningless!” Fortunately, those days are few and far between. I don’t think Richard has experienced them at all. Maybe that’s because he spends so much time playing Farmville that he doesn’t have time for such thoughts. His ‘farm’ is something else I didn’t expect to be part of our retirement but it keeps him happy!

As this school year comes to a close, I wonder what the next five years will hold. Our goals remain the same… more travel (we haven’t seen Europe yet) and more short-term mission work. I’m sure there will also be more unexpected surprises along the way.

 

 

Alex’s yellow lizard

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After a busy day planting flower beds and cleaning out our holiday trailer, I suggested that Richard and I spend the evening geocaching. One of the aspects of geocaching that I like best is the trackables; geocaching game pieces that are moved from cache to cache by geocachers like ourselves. These can be travel bugs, tags that are usually attached to other items known as hitchhikers, or geocoins, special coins or medallions created by individuals or groups. Both function in exactly the same way. Each trackable has a unique code that is used to log its movements on geocaching.com as it travels the world and most trackables have a goal or destination set by their owners. Some of them have travelled hundreds of thousands of miles! We have already found several trackables and moved them along.

On our way home from Winnipeg the week before last, we picked up a travel bug from a roadside cache in Manitoba. Alex’s Yellow Lizard began its journey in Minnesota last June. Its destination is Ireland and the owner asked that pictures be taken and posted along the way so that his seven-year-old son could watch his little yellow lizard as it travels around the world.

We wanted to find a special and interesting spot to leave Alex’s lizard. My first thought was the  world’s biggest pysanka or Easter egg at Vegreville, Alberta. Surely that would appeal to a seven-year-old boy. Alas, when we visited family in Vegreville last weekend we only had time for a quick search and didn’t find the cache located near the big egg. We’ll have to try again another time.

I’m very happy with the spot we finally chose, however; a cache hidden at a native ceremonial site on a high point of land about 24 km north of here. It’s one of nine places in Alberta where ribstone rocks have been found and the only one where the rocks remain in their original location. These rocks, carved by the Indians over 1000 years ago, are thought to depict the ribs of buffalo, the animal that provided for so many of their needs. Local natives still leave offerings of tobacco (cigarettes) and coins there. They have also hung many colourful prayer scarves in the trees at the site. Though I’d been there with a class of students quite a few years ago, Richard had never even heard of the place before. Isn’t it amazing how we can travel the world in search of interesting sights and yet sometimes miss fascinating ones on our own doorstep?

Ribstones

Prayer scarves

The site was a peaceful spot with a gorgeous view of the surrounding farmland, a perfect place to enjoy a few quiet moments on a sunny spring evening.

While we stood admiring the scene, this saucy little fellow popped out of his hole almost at our feet and proceeded to chirp at us!

Like Alex’s little lizard, we’ll soon be on the move again, hence the time spent cleaning the trailer today! I’m sure we’ll find plenty of geocaches along the way and hopefully there will be trackables in some of them.

Happy Rocks and Tomahawks

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We left Winnipeg yesterday morning and after spending two days on the road, we arrived home a few hours ago. Once again, we stopped to search for geocaches and again, I was surprised at all the interesting and unusual things we saw along the way.

When we passed through the town of Gladstone, Manitoba on our way east I spotted the Happy Rock and immediately thought that there must be a geocache hidden nearby. Sure enough, I checked online and discovered that I was right so we stopped to find it yesterday morning.

Glad stone… happy rock! What a cute idea. Imagine how surprised I was to walk around to the back side of the giant rock and discover two doors. In addition to being a tourist attraction, it houses public bathrooms!

We love the pretty little town of Neepawa and have fond memories of time spent there in the past but we didn’t know that it calls itself the Purple Martin Capital of Western Manitoba until we spotted this unusual tower of birdhouses. There’s a cache hidden in one of the trees nearby.

There are antique threshing machines like this one scattered across the prairie and many of them have geocaches hidden in, on or under them. We searched for quite awhile before we found the one that was tucked inside this one.

The Happy Rock is cute but this giant bull, standing outside the tourist information booth at Russell, Manitoba, didn’t do much for me. There was a cache hidden in one of the trees nearby though.

We’ve driven past the quaint little Ukrainian Greek Orthodox church at Insinger, Saskatchewan several times over the years. This time we stopped to take a closer look even though there are no caches hidden there. I really think there should be!

Though we’ve found 86 caches in all since we started hunting for them less than a month ago, we’ve also struck out a few times. This afternoon, we searched the trees around this much larger than life RCMP statue at North Battleford, Saskatchewan to no avail. If the cache was there, we certainly didn’t find it.

Apparently, there’s a brand new cache hidden near the world’s biggest tomahawk at Cut Knife, Saskatchewan but we couldn’t find that one either. If we had, we would have been the first to find it.

I thought the giant tomahawk was a bit strange until I learned a little of its history. Cut Knife was the site of several Indian uprisings in the 1880s. The Battle of Cut Knife Hill, between the Cree tribe led by Chief Poundmaker and the Northwest Mounted Police ended with the Mounties retreating. Poundmaker, who stopped his warriors from pursuing and ambushing the Mounties, later surrendered to the authorities to help restore peace between the Indians and the settlers. The giant tomahawk, with its 17 metre (57 feet) long handle, commemorates this.

Did you notice the Canada Goose on top of the head of the tomahawk? I didn’t either until it started honking at us! No, it’s not part of the statue. According to the neighbour who came out to chat with us when he noticed us carefully checking under and around the trees between his house and Tomahawk Park, there are seven goslings in the area and this was undoubtedly one of the parents warning us to keep our distance.

Winnipeg walk

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While Chrissy attended her first tae kwon do class this morning, I spent a couple of hours exploring downtown Winnipeg with my camera in hand. Located at the confluence of the Red and Assinboine Rivers, Winnipeg is the capital city of Manitoba and Canada’s seventh largest municipality.

The farther east one travels in Canada, the more history there is to be found. French traders built a fort here in 1738. The City of Winnipeg was incorporated 35 years later, long before anyone settled the area of Alberta that we call home.

My favourite part of this morning’s walk took me through the Exchange District National Historic Site, one of North America’s most colourful and cosmopolitan neighbourhoods. Home to the city’s arts district as well as fine cultural, dining and retail establishments, it showcases North America’s most extensive collection of turn-of-the-twentieth-century architecture.

Portage and Main, at the heart of downtown Winnipeg, is perhaps the most famous street corner in Canada. The hub of some of the city’s main transportation routes, it was once the centre of western Canada’s banking industry. The stately Bank of Monteal building, constructed in 1877, stands guard over the intersection.

I love the mixture of old architecture and new that I found as I walked Portage Avenue.


Reflections

There are so many photos that I’d love to share with you but here are just a few more.

            
Winnipeg may not be one of Canada’s prime tourist destinations, in fact it was the butt of a well-known and rather humourous 2005 Fountain Tire television ad, but it’s definitely worth a visit.

The interesting and the bizarre

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We spent most of the past two days on the road driving 1169 kilometres across the Canadian prairie from our home in Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Originally, we’d planned on doing the entire trip in one very long day but we decided that that would be foolish. After all, we’re retired. We have plenty of time and besides, there are geocaches to be found… lots of them!

We’ve discovered that geocaching gives us reason to stop and look at things that we might otherwise cruise right by. Some are interesting, others quite bizarre.

As many of you know, I love bits from the past. This wagon was no exception. A geocache was hidden nearby.

I love farm machinery too, especially combines, but what about one perched high in the sky? Yes, that’s a full sized combine way up there! It kind of reminded me of a giant insect!

The world’s largest bunnock had to be the most bizarre, however! What’s a bunnock, you ask?

Apparently Bunnock, also known as Glockenspiel or the Game of Bones, was created by Russian soldiers to pass the time while they were stationed in Siberia during the early 19th century. Bunnock was brought to Canada sometime in the early 20th century by Russian and German immigrants, many of whom settled in the province of Saskatchewan. The game pieces were made of horses’ anklebones, something the soldiers apparently had an abundance of! Players set up two parallel rows of bones, each row consisting of two guards and twenty bones. Two teams of four throwers each face off against one another. The object of the game is to knock down the other team’s bones beginning with the guards. The team that knocks down the opposition’s bones first, with the least number of throws, is declared the winner. Apparently the game became highly popular in and around the small town of Macklin, Saskatchewan, now the location of the world’s largest Bunnock. At 32 feet (9.8 m) high, the  giant anklebone constructed of steel pipes, chicken wire and fibreglass also acts as the town’s tourist information booth and yes, there is a geocache hidden close by.

As we crossed the prairies, stopping to view these and other unusual sights along the way, we found 20 geocaches. There are many more waiting to be found on our homeward journey next week!

The job jar

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I’ve taken on the daunting task of cleaning and reorganizing our basement storage room this week. It doesn’t happen very often and when it does, I’m always reminded how abundantly blessed we are. There are so many families in this world who live in less space than that 180 square foot storage room and who, even in their wildest dreams, couldn’t imagine owning enough stuff to fill it!

While I was down there this evening sorting through everything from gift wrap to sleeping bags and luggage, I was thinking that it was time to write another blog post and wondering what it should be about. Suddenly, there it was… the job jar! Why in the world had I ever kept that thing? Obviously, it must have been so that I could blog about it! My kids are definitely going to roll their eyes when they see this one!

The job jar came into existence in 1992. That spring, Matthew was 12, Melaina 8 and Nathan 7. Though being a mom was always my first priority, I’d been back in the classroom teaching approximately half time for the three years since Nathan had entered kindergarten. As plans were being made for the following school year, I was offered a significant increase in teaching time. If I accepted, I’d be working almost full time. When I thought about all the lesson planning, marking and reporting that would be involved, I wasn’t sure how I’d balance that with the demands of a busy family. Richard and I talked it over, decided that I should accept the position and then called a family meeting.

Family meetings weren’t part of our normal routine so the kids knew that something big was up. We gave them a choice. Since I wasn’t going to have time to do everything that I’d been doing around the house, we could either spend some of the extra money that I’d be earning to hire a housekeeper or we could all chip in and do the housework together, save the money and spend it on a trip to Disneyland the following summer. The vote was unanimous; Disneyland, of course!

We decided that we’d clean house every Saturday morning. The next question was how to divide the labour to ensure that everything got done reasonably well and that no one got stuck doing the same mundane tasks week after week. The job jar was Nathan’s idea. Even at seven, he was a creative thinker and a problem solver. Put the jobs you want us to do in a jar, he suggested, and we’ll do whichever ones we pull out.

That’s exactly what we did. Since there were five of us, ten jobs went into the jar; five easier ones and five more challenging ones. Every Saturday morning, everyone pulled one from each category out of the jar and got to work. The only rule was that the chores had to be completed by noon. Of course there were times when we had to make exceptions because someone had hockey or another activity that morning.

For the system to work, Richard and I also had to be willing to adjust our standards. We didn’t put up with sloppy work but obviously we couldn’t expect a 7 or 8 year old to do the same job we might do. If the bathroom didn’t get cleaned quite as thoroughly when it was a child’s turn, that was okay. The next time one of us might pull that job. An added benefit was the fact that all three of our children learned how to keep house at an early age!

So what were the jobs that went into the old Mason jar? The easier jobs included

  • Dust the livingroom
  • Clean the small bathroom (actually a half bathroom)
  • Tidy the basement playroom and empty the garbage cans
  • Wipe the walls in the porch, kitchen, livingroom, hall and bathrooms (just fingerprints and scuff marks)
  • Wash the breakfast dishes
The more difficult tasks were
  • Vacuum the livingroom, hall and bedrooms
  • Clean the main bathroom
  • Tidy the porch and sweep the kitchen, porch and stairs
  • Wash the kitchen floor, the porch and the stairs
  • Sweep and wash the bathroom floors

Things went smoothly and there were very few complaints until one point when we all began to notice that Melaina, an early riser, was doing the same jobs every Saturday. At first, we were proud of her for getting up and getting starting on her chores while the rest of us were still rubbing the sleep out of our eyes but we weren’t quite so happy when we realized that she was going through the job jar and picking out the chores she liked best!  All in all, though, the venture was a huge success.

The summer of 1993 became much more than just a trip to Disneyland. We started by driving out to Vancouver for my brother’s wedding on the 3rd of July. Following that, a six week road trip with the tent trailer in tow took us down the Pacific coast all the way to San Diego where we made a day trip across the Mexican border to Tijuana, then across the desert to Pheonix, Arizona, north to the Grand Canyon, and eventually all the way back to Alberta. In addition to Disneyland, we toured Universal Studios and the San Diego zoo, walked the streets of Hollywood and the beaches of the Oregon Coast, hiked the red rock canyons of Utah and experienced so much more!

And what happened to the job jar when the journey was done? By that time, it had become such a part of our family routine that regardless of how many hours I taught it continued in use until the kids left home! Only then did it find it’s way to the storage room shelf!

Cross Canada tractor trek

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photo credit

The source of information for western Canadian farmers for the past 89 years has been the weekly farm paper, The Western Producer. Every now and then, our farmer friend, Louis, passes his copy of the paper on to us when he finishes with it. Often there’s a specific article that he wants us to read, usually related to some topic that has come up when we’ve been working for him. Occasionally, however, he simply tells me “I think there’s something in this one that you’ll enjoy.” He knows me well and he’s usually right. Most of the time, I can figure out which article he’s referring to but this time I’m not quite sure. The latest issue has several possibilities but if he thought that the one entitled Immigrant farmer takes long way to farm would catch my fancy, he was absolutely right! It might be the gypsy in me but the story of Eduard Bomers has definitely captivated me.

Several years ago, Bomers, a Dutch dairy farmer, decided that he wanted to leave that profession and try his hand at grain farming. Dairy farming is a 24 hour a day, 365 days a year commitment. He wanted more out of life than that and so began the transition. He put his dairy farm in the Netherlands up for sale and set his sights on buying land on the Canadian prairie. He visited Alberta in 2008 then spent last year working on a Saskatchewan grain farm to gain experience. Last month, he took possession of his new farm near Sheho in southeastern Saskatchewan.

A century ago, western Canada was populated by European farmers looking for new beginnings. What makes this one any different? The adventure of a lifetime, that’s what!

Last month Bomers returned to his home at Eesveen in the Netherlands, packed his household belongings into a trailer, hitched it to his Fendt 936 tractor and set off for the port city of Antwerp, Belgium a long day’s journey away. There the tractor and trailer were loaded onto a ship destined for Halifax, Nova Scotia. After some delay, the ship docked in Halifax the day before yesterday. In the meantime, Eduard had flown back to Saskatchewan and driven his pick-up truck over 4000 km to Halifax picking up his friend, Jakob, on the way.

Early yesterday afternoon, the tractor and trailer were released from customs and an amazing cross Canada trek began! Yes, while Jakob drives the pick-up back to Saskatchewan, Eduard will make the trip behind the wheel of his Fendt tractor! What an audacious undertaking! Some might think he’s crazy but I think the world needs a few more people like Eduard Bomers! Why not join me as I follow the Boer on Toer here!

The worst and the best

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I’ve experienced the worst and the best of Alberta winter in less than 24 hours!

😦  The Worst

Winter travel in this part of the world is always unpredictable and yes, whether we like it or not, March is still winter here in Alberta! This year we’ve had so little snow that we haven’t had to worry about the roads the way we usually do but last night made up for that.

Richard had a medical appointment in Edmonton yesterday. The drive up to the city in the morning was uneventful and after his appointment, we spent the afternoon shopping at West Edmonton Mall. We were totally oblivious to what was happening outside. It wasn’t until we left the mall to meet Nathan for supper that we realized that the weather had become, to use Nathan’s word, stinky!

The trip home, which would normally take two hours, took over three and it was white knuckles all the way! I’m so glad that Richard was driving, not me. I don’t think he ever went more than 70 km/hour (for my American friend’s, that’s about 44 miles/hour) and much of the time we were going slower than that. The highway was a sheet of ice and for the last 50 km we were also driving through blowing snow. I’m amazed that we didn’t see any vehicles in the ditch along the way. I guess everyone else was being just as careful as we were. When we finally made it home, the driveway was full of drifts but we were never happier to be here!

🙂  The Best

Back in November when I blogged about the things I like best about winter, one of the things I mentioned was cross country skiing. This year, because of the lack of snow, my skis hadn’t been out of the shed all season. It was beginning to look like it they weren’t going to make it out at all but the snow kept falling after we went to bed last night and when I woke up this morning I knew that this was the day! I wasn’t sure how my still recovering toe would feel about being stuffed into a ski boot and put to work but it didn’t complain at all! That bodes well for hiking when spring finally comes.

As long as I can remember, I’ve loved being the first one to leave my footprints on fresh fallen snow. Imagine my delight at having an entire golf course of new snow laid out before me this afternoon! With the bright sun shining overhead as I set out to break a trail, the snow sparkled before me like a million diamonds. The temperature was just a few degrees below zero (celsius); cold enough to keep the snow crisp and dry but very comfortable for skiing. I’d love to get out on my skis a few more times before the snow melts away but if I don’t, at least I’ve had this one perfect afternoon!

Before

and after!

Costa Rica postscript

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Can it possibly be over a month since we returned from Costa Rica? Granted, even with its extra day, February was the shortest month of the year but still, where did it go?

Back in November when we booked our vacation, I noticed an optional $10 per person “help fix our school” charge on the invoice. Considering the amount that we were spending for a fairly luxurious holiday, that seemed little enough to give back to the people of our host country so I paid the amount in full. I couldn’t help wondering about that school though. I emailed our travel agent and asked her if it was located in or near one of the communities that we’d be visiting and if so, whether it would be possible or appropriate for us to take some school supplies with us that we could donate.

“It is absolutely possible and appropriate — and so refreshing, you’d be surprised by the number of people who complain about that $10 and don’t want to donate even that,” she told us. She went on to tell us that the school is located just a few minutes off the main road in La Fortuna and that if we wanted, someone from the tour company that would be providing our zipline and waterfall tours would take us there. We decided that that would be a good idea since we don’t speak Spanish and might have a difficult time explaining why we were there if we went on our own.

We always travel light. In fact, we didn’t even take the full allowable amount of baggage when we flew to Japan to teach for a year. Taking an extra backpack on this trip would be no problem at all. I found a bright red almost new one at our local thrift store. I think it cost me a dollar!

Then began the fun of filling it. I didn’t keep track of how much we spent but most of our purchases were made at bargain stores like Dollarama so it really wasn’t a lot. First we bought the basics: pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, pencil crayons and glue sticks. Schools always need paper so in went a package of plain white photocopier paper and a couple of packages of multi-coloured construction paper. There was still space so we started to think of some of the fun things that teachers and children might use. A big bag of colourful balloons didn’t take up much room. Neither did a couple of packages of brightly coloured pipe cleaners. Little nooks and crannies were filled with packages of paper clips, elastic bands and post it notes. Last but not least, in went a small foam ball painted to look like a world globe. I even checked to make sure that Costa Rica and Canada were both clearly marked!

The red backpack flew as one of our carry-ons and travelled around the country with us until we reached La Fortuna. That’s when we learned that we wouldn’t be able to visit the school after all! We had arrived at vacation time. The children wouldn’t be back in school until late February but Ericka from Sunset Tours met us at our hotel, took custody of the backpack and promised to deliver it for us. Today an email arrived with these pictures!

   

Education is valued in Costa Rica and the literacy rate is high but like much of the infrastructure, the school system has been in a slow and steady state of decay for decades. Poverty isn’t as rampant as it is in many parts of the world but the gap between the rich and the poor has been widening for years. Tourism has become one of the country’s major sources of income and we were more than happy to be able to share with the school children of La Fortuna just a bit of what we’ve been blessed with.

Photos by Ericka Chavarria