Vancouver Day 1

We went to the store Caitlin worked at Wednesday night.We were both up at 6:30 Thursday morning and decided to have breakfast then race up Mt. Seymour (elevation 4,150 ft) to catch the sunrise. My dad speaks fondly of a drive up there many years ago. The fog (cloud)? was so heavy driving up we ended up turning around and heading back down.

We went to Deep Cove instead. You can see the low cloud cover behind us.
We went to Lonsdale Quay, took the seabus across to Gastown. Made a stop at Rogers chocolates (my dad used to bring Roger's chocolates home from business trips and now I get to bring him some). Took the seabus back.

We had lunch on the trunk of Caitlin's car then biked around Stanley Park for a few hours.


And enjoyed the fall colours
Make sure you check out Caitlin's blog too for a different perspective.

I told Caitlin she looks pale in this picture. She said that is because the sun is rarely out in Vancouver. I think the plant behind her is a gunnera. This is exciting for me to see all the plants I read about in gardening magazines.We spotted these two raccoons on the side and took a few pics.
Then we spotted these ones across the road.
There were 7 coons! When I tried to walk to a view down that path you can see in front of Caitlin, one of them stalked me and kept getting closer and closer. I used my bike as a shield and we left. As we rode off someone started feeding them peanuts. I guess all they wanted was food.
A beautiful blue hydrangea

Aquarium Pics

We spent more than 3 hours at the aquarium. Caitlin has been there before so was a little bored because as an aquarium keeper I wanted to absorb everything. We also went to a 4D movie here. In addition to wearing 3D glasses, their are special features built into the chairs and the do things like mist you with water and blow bubbles when appropriate. Very cool.I wish I could remember the names of these cuties. They spend their lives like this.
This is an Irish Lord fish. They all looked grumpy.
Stawberry anemone
A caiman

This is Daisy. She is a Harbour Porpoise and is very interactive.
This is a brugmansia. I tried to grow one for years. It looked nothing like this.

And we finally made it up Mt Seymour! It was almost dark so this is the best shot we could get.And we had an almost flat tire at the bottom. Please pray we have no other problems this trip.

Vancouver - Initial Impressions

Vancouver is green. Very green. And manicured.
Everything is big. Big trees. Big bridges.
Big hills. Big leaves.
Vancouver drivers are crazy. Aggressive. Ignorant. I am content to let Caitlin drive. I am amazed how well she has adjusted to big city life. She used to say she wanted to be a hermit. She used to have a very poor sense of direction - had no idea how to get to an adjoining town and now she zips around congested highways at high speed.

Spinning

This year was going to be my quiet year. Because I hurt my hands shoveling snow I only worked 3 or sometimes 4 days a week instead of full time. We went on a family vacation to Bar Harbor and Kevin and I had a few days away in Muskoka at a lovely B & B. Tori went back to University as scheduled. All according to plan.

Then chaos.

My dad was taken to the hospital on September 19 when my sister noticed his speech was garbled. He was diagnosed with a stroke that day but the doctors felt something wasn't right. The next day more tests and the diagnosis was changed to a brain tumour. He spent 3 days on a stretcher in emerg before being moved upstairs. The care he received in emerg was good but you must remember that they don't carry pillows and blankets for long term stays and that stretchers are not meant for tall men. The second night I stayed with him to help out and let my mom get some rest. Once he was moved to the ward there were many more tests and finally the recommendation for the gamma knife as his weak mitral valve and lung cancer rendered him unsuitable for invasive surgery. He underwent this procedure at Princess Margaret at 6 am on October 4. Kudos to Leanne for getting my parents there at that hour. This shot was taken just before 7 am. The next day was their 55th wedding anniversary.

Since then he has had good days and bad days. Mostly he just wants to sleep. His speech is still hard to understand most of the time. He understands us but we don't always understand him. It is so frustrating for everyone. His spirits are good considering the circumstances.

So you can imagine what my days are like now. Work 3 days, travel to my parents for 2, back home to get caught up and pay attention to the dogs, back to my parents, back to home and work .... I feel like I am on merry-go-round spinning out of control a lot of days.

Last week Connor was in Florida with his cousins and Kevin was in New Brunswick on business so things really spun faster without their weight to anchor the ride. And tomorrow I leave for BC so I can drive back with Caitlin who feels the need to be here with all that is going on. So in less than 10 days our family has covered most of the continent. Coast to coast to coast and now we are filling in the middle.

I am getting off the merry-go-round and onto a roller coaster through the mountains of the northern US.