The days at Beauvais Lake continued to be languid and wonderful. The beautiful warm and dry weather lingered, and we enjoyed the tranquility and the easy living. We walked, biked (Ann), and watched the wildlife.
While there we also got word from a friend from Newfoundland (Brian Beck) who had checked in on our boat for us. He reported things were looking pretty good, and even sent us some pictures. He did this all on his own, without even being asked — that’s just who Newfoundlanders are. Thanks Brian.
And then later in the month our other great friends, Paula & Byron — the ones we owe so much to already for their kindness and assistance — they too stopped in to check on our baby. They checked things out and made some more minor tweaks, but report everything looks pretty good. More kindness unbidden, but not surprising given who they are. Many thanks.
Although the weather remained beautiful, a hint of autumn was creeping into the air. Motorcycling is an awesome way to travel, but it’s not so good in a Canadian winter, so our two-wheeled days were numbered. We had already made plans to store our bikes at Kevin & Barb’s farm, which is the old Crook farm where June grew up near Pincher Creek. So the day finally came when we went for our last ride up to the farm.
Ann’s cousin, Kevin and his Barb, are the new sailors, and now they are the keepers of our little bikes. They’ve taken over the old Crook farm, and have built an amazing home on the land. We spent another wonderful afternoon with them, getting the bikes safely stowed, then doing a bit of gardening, and checking out the animals; horse and donkey a work mule and an ass 😉 .
With the bikes safely tucked away we packed up our things and moved back up to Calgary with Donna & Sam. Our planned Penticton house sit with little (grumpy) Maxi was coming up soon, but first we got to spend a few more fun days hanging out with the kids of cow town.
The travelling day to Penticton turned out to be the first real taste of winter — of course. Donna & Sam, ever the generous ones, lent us one of their cars, and even made sure we had good snow tires for the journey. Good thing! The drive through the mountains was a bit snowy. But we made it without incident, and were soon greeted by the ever-loving Maxi!
It was wonderful coming back to Dave & Leslie (and Maxi)’s place in Penticton. Felt very much like a home coming. This was our first house sitting place, and it still felt very familiar. There had been a few improvements to the decks, and Dave had drawn a pickle ball court in his driveway, but otherwise it all looked pretty much the same — which was wonderful. We spent the next two weeks relaxing and hanging out with our little orange kitty. Fun, fun.
Dave & Leslie’s trip turned out to be a fairly quick one since most fun places were still closed and locked down due the continuing (and growing!) apocalypse. So all too soon we said our goodbyes to Maxi and headed back to Calgary.
We got back to Calgary just ahead of the spooks and ghouls of Hallow’s Eve. Even though the kids were few this year, the day demanded pumpkins be carved and costumes be worn.
Monique and Phil also came over to help celebrate the spooks and goblins. This meant the guitars, ukuleles and voices came out … Nique and Phil make us sound way better than we normally do 🙂 .
The days passed easily and slowly. Good conversation, good food, relaxing times. Ann spent the days swimming and working on Donna’s files. And I pissed around doing not much at all. And then the day finally came for that big election. The one we’ve all been waiting for, with a combination of anticipatory elation, but tinged with fear of how it might go … again …!
Finally … What a relief!
So for now we are just hanging out here in Calgary. We are scheduled to fly back to Thunder Bay at the end of the month, assuming Westjet doesn’t cancel our flights or go into bankruptcy or something. From there we’ll pick up our mouse-infested car (more on that later), and drive to Ottawa. We plan to spend much of December with mom & sis, including doing X-mas, which will be fun. Then we move into our next house sit; a home in my old neighbourhood of The Glebe:
Thanks for all the great views from the west. Your boat looks good.
Can’t wait to see you!❤️