The Rockies

Pictures will never do justice to the breathtaking beauty of the mountains, nor to white knuckling it along some of the narrow winding roads and switch-backs with the stomach churning drop-offs. Better to focus on the beauty. From Calgary to Vancouver Island took two days. Here are a few pics taken along the way: mountain passes, Horseshoe Bay and the crossing to Nanaimo.

Time Flies

Over a month since my last post and lots to report.

• On April 23rd Roy retired from GO Transit. He had a retirement party attended by friends and co-workers over the years and was totally overwhelmed by the accolades, gifts and best wishes. I'm now married to a pensioner. That will take some getting used to.

• On April 27th the Regional District of Nanaimo approved the following resolution: the construction of a house on Lot 5 Charlton Drive. WooHoo! After 11 years of dreaming we can now start to build our home....well, we can start once we get our design finished, a budget approved and hundreds of major and minor construction related decisions made. Let the games begin.

• On April 28th Roy turned 56.

• On April 30th Roy's oldest daughter Kelly married Brandon Nickel with close family and friends in attendance.

• On May 6th I flew to Calgary and met Roy midway through his journey to bring our first car to BC. We drove through the mountains together and talked endlessly, catching up on our 12 weeks apart. Pictures in a separate post.

• On May 11th, with Development Permit in hand we visited the Post Office in Qualicum and applied for a mail box. We now have a mailing address and are no longer "Persons of no fixed address". Pic below: a proud moment - picking up mail.

• May 12-21, we applied for car insurance, drivers licenses, license plates, the Care Card (BC's equivalent to OHIP), fishing and hunting licenses and numerous other tasks all related to having an address which makes us residents. We also purchased a cell phone, a non event to most, a first for us, finally coming out of the dark ages. Roy has figured it out and pulls it out and pretends to talk at every opportunity.
  

• On May 25th we purchased a 5th Wheel and over the next couple of days we completed the transfers, insured and temporarily licensed it for its trip down island to an empty lot just down from ours. Our neighbor, the owner of the lot has been extremely kind in letting us park there and hook up to his water and power for the time it will take us to build. The "trailer" is about 21' long and has everything a couple could need, except space. I hope the weather here improves and that we will be able to use the BBQ (once recovered from storage), eat outdoors and enjoy the time like an extended camping trip. Pic of trailer below. As a sidebar to this: in 3 months we have gone from a home in Pickering to a basement apartment in the "Shwa" and now a trailer in Qualicum. Our kids should be proud.
  

I think that pretty well brings us up to date and looking at it, even I'm impressed.
Tomorrow Roy comes out of retirement and starts a temporary job in Union Bay. It will help fill the time until we can get everything together and start construction. So retirement lasted a month and I'm still married to a pensioner...