Thursday, April 10^th, 2014. The day had finally arrived: Fran’s last day of work. While waiting for Doug to arrive from LA, she went for a celebratory drink and played a few slot machines. Once Doug arrived we headed north. We drove until about 10 pm and parked outside a motel near Lund, Nevada.

Naturally we awoke early and continued the drive. We had good weather and the drive along the Columbia Gorge was beautiful; very green.  We made it into Washington State where we spent the night at a rest stop. It took us most of the next day to get through Washington, due to numerous slow-downs and stoppages, including a quick transfer at our storage shed of stuff we found we don’t need and stuff we realized we did. We do not miss Washington traffic.

We enjoyed the evening and morning with our long time Kiwi friends, Margaret and Claude Paterson. After arriving on Vancouver Island our anticipated relaxing week turned busy and stressful, due mainly to Fran’s Mom going into the hospital and trying to still fit in all the family and friend visits, and Doug still working fulltime that week.  Fran’s mom is fine but her mobility has bee severely affected by an infected pressure ulcer on her foot which means a continued stay in hospital until she’s mobile again; nothing life threatening and she did not want us to pass up on our trip.

Friday, April 18^th. This was Doug’s last day of work.  woof woot! Having left the island and finished work by early afternoon, the vacation truly began. We had a relaxing and fun time with our friends from University days, Chris and Irene Turcotte. We then drove/ferried to Sechelt to visit Fran’s sister and to drop off Tigger while on vacation. Fran’s sister, Sandra will be making some space usage improvements for us. We did some hiking, watched the last hockey game we’ll probably see for a few months and savored all of Anna’s cooking.

On the Sunday we learned when attempting to check-in that our 1:50 am Monday departure was delayed until 4:40 am. We spent the afternoon strolling the West Vancouver waterfront and Easter dinner with our University friends who also went to South Africa after graduation, Pat and Therese Bryan. We decided to get a hotel to catch a few hours sleep, given the later departure. When we got to the airport we discovered the flight was actually leaving a half hour earlier, at 4:20 – fortunately we hadn’t cut our check-in time short so it wasn’t a problem.

 

AND AWAY WE GO!