purple room vents: ON THE ROAD AGAIN

I am sitting at Kathy's beautiful dining room table in her gorgeous house looking out at her amazing view. I love everything about this house! And my brother is renting their basement suite and his wife Antonia happens to be here right now. Consequently we have had the most amazing weekend. Kathy arranged for Mom to be brought over by taxi. We can't get her into the house because of steps, but they have a lovely covered patio in back, on the view side, so we sat out there and had coffee. What a lovely time and it was so good to see mom somewhere else besides in her hospitally type room and place.

We had a fun trip up. Ever since we got back from the Paris trip we seem to not be able to sleep much past six am. So we got an early start to the day. We stopped for breakfast along the way and it was so beautiful out. But really early on in the trip my bra started to bug me. It was brand new, just bought the day before. It started to slide up in the back, around to the side and just....not where it belonged. Stuff like that just plain drives me crazy!! Finally, just before Merritt, I couldn't stand it any longer. I told Bill not to pass any big trucks for a minute, undid my shirt and got that sucker off. I opened my window and threw it out, I don't care if thats littering. The stupid thing needed to go. Fortunately there were no cops about to fine me and I had a different better one in my suitcase, which I put on the minute we got here. Dumb things..I hate bras.

Yesterday Kathy and I went for a walk in the ravine/valley/gully along side her area here. First, though, we had to pass some of the most beautiful back gardens I have ever seen. I put a couple of pics below. And then along the way in this valley you could hear the birds, the wind in the trees, the creek at the bottom and you could smell the pine needles. It was pure heaven. Up high above the city we found a bench and rested a while. Ahhhhh......

Later, Bill and I made a trip to Costco for a few items (like water) and then off to see Mom. I took this laptop with me and showed her some pictures. When I showed her the pics of her visit here yesterday she was incredulous! She had no memory of the visit and I think it kind of creeped her out. We didn't stay too long...I was getting tired! She can't hear very well and her cognitive thinking is slow so everything has to be simplified and repeated. But she really enjoyed the pictures.

We had an awesome dinner last night with Antonia and Stan and K and K. And then visiting and off to bed. In the 'old' days we used to sit up half the night and have intense world solving discussions. Now we yawn and mumble, don't talk too much because we have said it all before a million times, and wait for it to get dark enough to stumble off to bed. Pretty sad I say!

Today we are off to Osoyoos and then down through the states. We are heading off to where we left Princess that time, Winthrop area. For those of you that don't know who Princess is.....she was a wee bit bigger version of our Molly. Many years ago we were on a trip through that area and we stopped at the side of the road at a pull off to have lunch. Hours later, near dark and nearly home we realized that Princess was missing. She had obviously gotten out of the truck back there and not gotten back in. OH MY GOD!!! This was horrible beyond belief. It still makes me want to cry when I think about it too long. We couldn't go back at that moment, but I phoned the rangers and told them exactly where we had been and they went out and looked and looked for her. We figure someone picked her up and kept her. We put the word out everywhere from Winthrop to the border and Bill and April went back in a couple of days to look for her but she was gone. She was about fourteen years old and we had had her from babyhood. Took a long time to get over that one.

So now we are off. TTYL