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Things to do here

On purpose we left our pickleball equipment at home, so we would do other things.  When you are in the mountains, you go for walks and you take your camera!  Day 1 was the Menzies trail, in Golden Ears provincial park.  OMG, there were so many trails in this area that I think it will take the whole 3 weeks to walk them all!  We set off in the morning, since rain was supposed to be coming in about 2pm.  We picked a trail that online said easy to moderate, then ended up at a different parking area and on a different one entirely!  It ended up being just over 4k, with the first half being UP.  We were walking up a small gravel path, well marked – just surrounded by very tall trees.  We would see giant tree stumps – still standing from loggers having been through 100 years ago!    There was moss so thick on the branches, I’ve never seen anything like it.  Some of the trees looked like statues of monsters, that I could imagine them chasing after us. We were definitely in a rainforest! 

    

      

On the pathway down the other side the rains had washed away the earth and gravel, so it felt like we were walking down a dry creek bed.  Another hiker was sharing tips and background with us, that there were trails through old growth trees in another section of the park (I definitely want to see that!), and that we should have satellite calling on our phone, as much of the area has no cell signal.  Good thing Rogers has a beta trial on right now, which I had already signed up for but thought it was going to be wasted on us, hahaha.

There are a ton of very expensive things to do in the Vancouver area – as facebook knows!  There are aquariums and boat excursions, a milky way exploration in a dome, and a very cool looking thing called a Flyover experience.  But it is also an hour to get into Vancouver, so…  stay tuned …  We are enjoying the peacefulness of being where we are.

 

I take it back - It is day 6 of our incarceration…

Rain rain rain… combined with a head cold, which made me a whiney child.  It wasn’t at all good hiking weather. 

So what did we (meaning me) do?  Went to the movies, watched a lot of Netflix, soaked in the lovely deep bathtub, entertained the kitty.  Made lists of things we had to do when we were home.  Wished I had packed my Sunlight Deficiency Lamp. 

Just some thoughts – for long stays away from home, it would be best to bring some hobby materials or games to entertain yourself for some of those days, just in case there isn’t anything for you to do there if the weather isn’t cooperative.  These pet parents are into challenging jigsaw puzzles.  Emphasis on CHALLENGING. 

Looking on the bright side – by the time the sun comes out, I should be pretty much be over the worst of the cold…

Historical Museum

There was a little museum on the old brickmaker site about 5 minutes walk from our place, so we took a look through it.

   

 

Randy was interested mostly because the entire basement had been done up as the historical version of Maple Ridge in HO scale with a working model railway, and all of the buildings and area recreated according to historical archived documents.  It was very well done.

    

 

Apparently the railway club comes out and runs all the trains on the last Sunday of every month, which we of course had missed.  But since Randy is building his own model railway at home, he was quite interested in seeing how they put things together, especially making all of the evergreen trees, mountains and rock faces, etc.  It tied in nicely with our little shopping excursion to the local model train store where several goodies followed us home!  We ended up sharing the shopping information with the pet parents, because Don is also into N scale model railroading.  Then he let us know where he has his Model Railroading magazines, and Randy was able to enjoy browsing through them on some of the rainy days (which we had a lot of!)

   

What about all of the down time?

We have been taking house sits of different lengths of time, depending where it is we have been applying to go.  18 to 21 days is quite a long time if there is inclement weather.  But the places we pick to go are places we want to be, to have certain experiences.  We also know that we need to have down time.  It’s kind of like taking a vacation in Cuba – not a lot to do or see there.  Mostly you just hang out.  Some enforced down time with nothing to do is very good to have, as a restorative period.  For me, I use it as a reset button.  I am clearly not working on any of my never-ending projects at home, there is limited cooking I can do, and shopping is quite restricted based on my luggage space available.  But I can plan what it is I really want to do when I get home, and do some research on what that might look like!  It really does help me to focus on what that ONE thing should be that I do first! 

Even as a kid I would come up with my most creative ideas and plans when I was really bored.  These days – kids aren’t allowed to get bored.  But you know, I really think a bit of boredom is a good thing! 

(And what is it that I’m hyper-focussing on right now?  Doing a sparkling makeover on a pair or 2 of my winter boots!)