... try and find us

Uber-cute Ali and Megan Feeling so virtuous that we have kept all four cats and the dog alive for nearly two weeks, we have taken on a couple more critters - these two uber-cute poppets!  We are hopeful all seven will still be with us on Sunday when their mamas and papas return!  We have had some grand adventures - playing by the river with Bear (the dog), cycling down for the best gelato in Calgary, exploring cool apps on the iPad and hiking Grotto Canyon.  The girls have been fabulous fun and wonderfully behaved.  Mum and Dad have been enjoying the luxury of The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel but working hard at a 5-day conference.  Glad we could help out! Gelato for dessert! Hanging out by the river with Bear (the dog) Hiking Grotto Canyon The canyon walls are smooth and tall. We could reach from side-to-side: Almost! Free climbing Cool app on the iPad Same cool app...

A glorious day for a hike!  So off we set with Gord and Jenny to Sunshine Village.  We gained some easy vertical metres by catching the gondola!  Sunshine is running the gondola Friday - Sunday until the September long weekend.  More convenient and less dusty than the bus and makes the high alpine meadows accessible to all.  The Standish Chair is also running so we caught that just for fun.  It was a very weird experience without our skies - and we all automatically 'lifted our tips' before getting off! We headed out along the Citidel Pass trail to Quartz Ridge where we lunched and turned for home. Pikas everywhere, a couple of eagles and a fox... Lunch on Quartz Ridge Yoga on a mountain top - no need for a helicopter Rachael! Stunning Rock Isle Lake Overlooking Howard Douglas Lake to Mt Assiniboine Lunch, looking down Howard Douglas Creek Up the chairlift.  We're not purists! Wildflowers still in bloom...

Dead offering - thanks kitty! In exchange for a house, we have been left in charge of a dog and four cats, one of whom is diabetic!  Our job is to ensure all the critters survive the next two weeks... Critter count this evening - five alive and one dead offering! Morning Roll Call.

At 1618 Thanks to Suzanne and Hugh, we are having a wonderful time back on Broadview Road.  We are house-sitting, so we have a low-pressure "job" and a place to set down our backpacks.  Since the departure of Mum and Liz, the sun has come out and parking on the porch has become de rigueur.  And being Broadview Road, it does not take long for the neighbours to pop in - and stay! Neighbours popping by to visit! At 1623 Even back at 1621 Having some time back in Calgary without guests or firm plans means we can tackle some of those niggly little jobs that everyone has to do - like taxes!  Like moving tenants out and in.  Like going to the dentist, and optometrist, and doctor.  Like swapping the four different outfits we have been wearing for the past two months for a different four outfits from our packed boxes.  Like tidying up the 'blog, adding pictures, et cetera. It feels good to catch up with friends and family.  We are find...

After getting Nancy and Liz onto a plane headed for AUS, our Calgary friends have begun to call and ask us out for local adventures. Today was a beautiful day for our first foray onto the High Rockies Trail . We bumped our way over the first 14km of the trail to the Driftwood day use area in the wonderful company of Sue and Rick.  It is not a technical ride but quite 'sporty' (great term Sue!) due to the newness of the trail.   Having not been on my mountain bike for over 18 months, my skills were somewhat rusty and a couple of minor spills were all part of the fun.  On the way home, we ran into 'Skier Bob' and now are famously on his blog .

When Mum comes to visit, we like to take her on adventures and experience activities she has not partaken in before.  Little (or no) consideration is usually given to her advanced age and she is game for anything we suggest.  That, or she is simply too terrified to protest! It was decided that the activity for this trip is sea kayaking around the Copeland Islands Marine Provincial Park.  It is know as the Ragged Islands and consist of four islands and 14 islets.  They lie just north of Lund on the Malaspina Peninsula of the Sunshine Coast. We booked a 7-hour tour with Powell River Sea-Kayaking, operating out of Lund.  Erica was our guide and lead us north long the shoreline and across the Thulin Passage to the islands. 

After a week of non-cycling activities, which admittedly, have involved much eating and drinking, we were missing our 1000m a day climbs and the burning of the additional 3000 calories. So we leapt onto our trusty bikes and did the run up Mont Sainte-Odile. Proof that riding 1300km across a mountain range does improve your fitness, we zoomed by the placed we had stopped in a gasping, sweaty mess last time and arrived at the Convent with only one sneaky foot-down. 500m of vertical with grades 7-10% - c'est facile! Mont Sainte-Odile, you cannot daunt us!

So we are back in Bischoffsheim in beautiful Alsace but not at 3 rue des Merles where we have spent some many wonderful times.  Florence and Christophe have decided to go their separate ways so we are at Florence's new pad at 2 Impasse du Castel! And just to prove how homogenous our world has become that despite living in an ancient village in rural France, Florence still heads to IKEA for shelves, light fixtures and laundry hampers! IKEA is such an amazing business. The Strasbourg store was as busy as the one in SW Calgary on a Saturday afternoon with excited kids racing around, overtired toddlers screaming, young couples pondering kitchen fixtures and us hunting down the Billy bookcase! Stopping for coffee and cake at the cafe, we were very impressed to find wine available to have with our cake and IKEA has its own beer brand - cheaper than pop! Our weekend, in and out of amazing food and wine, has included the assembly of all sorts of IKEA furnishings and decorations. Flor...

assembled models from Leonardo de Vinci's drawings We jumped on the train this morning and were out exploring Milan before lunch! We lost time in the Leonardo Da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology. Despite the guide saying you needed two hours to do it justice, we managed about a third of it in four hours when it inconveniently closed!  The computing gallery contained an original Enigma machine and an Apple I, Apple ll and the first Mac and the telephony gallery had every cell we have ever owned - rather disconcerting when stuff you had is in the museum! But what took up our time was the gallery where they had made models from Da Vinci's drawings. Amazing! Piling rigs, cranes, 'Bailey' type bridges, machines to measure the tensile strength of wires and strings, looms for weaving, carding (of textiles) machines and his flying machines. What a mind! Also some very cool exhibits on his town planning, water management and anatomy. Sforza Castel - a ...

Backstreet?  Back canal? We stepped of the train at Venice's Santa Lucia railway station and indeed, the streets are actually water! The station over looks the Canal Grande and the impressive San Simeone Piccolo. Venice is one of the few cities in which bikes are not allowed. Our tired legs were thankful and with the narrow streets and many bridges, we understand why! Venice, we determined, is rather crumbly and in need of a good pressure-wash but what a beautiful place. We skipped the gondola ride but hit most of the major sights, we ate some of the best pasta either of us have ever eaten and joined the hundreds of other tourists in aimless wandering and endless gawking.  We loved the architecture, the history, the canals (of course), the narrow streets.... We toured the Teatro La Fenice which was amazing and wandered around the Vivaldi museum filled with wonderful instruments. We discovered that they believe Vivaldi's Four Seasons to be the most played classical piece,...

After having an extended visit to Switzerland, you do not notice leaving the country as much as you notice entering someplace else.  The metaphoric handrail that would magically be present in the correct spot when you happen to slightly come off your balance ... was suddenly and noticably absent. The asphalt on the roads was a little bit rougher and in worse repair.  The traffic seemed to whiz by just that little bit closer.  The houses seemed less carefully finished and more in need of a good scrub.  However, we are paying 1/3 the price for just about everything, so we are happy to be here. Our multi-day ride from Stelvio to Feltre was a lazy cyclist's dream - gentle, undulating downhills (less than 300m elevation gain!) through valley bottoms. We were lucky to have neutral or tailwinds most of the time.  The route we had taken up is part of the Via Claudia Augusta , an ancient Roman road that links the german valley of the Po River to Rome.  We no...