Life's a Stitch

I always asked my kids the same two questions after they returned travelling: What was the best part and what was the worst?

 

This was an epic 29 day tour of four countries in South America: Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador (including the Galapagos) and Peru. Our travel mates were nine other Canadians and one Brit. 

 

The best part? Tied between visits to Machu Picchu:

and the Galapagos:

The worst part? Eight days involving internal flights. That’s our own responsibility, what we’re we thinking? We covered a good part of an entire continent. I’ll cover each country in separate posts soon.

Those who know me are aware of my passion for geocaching, the world wide gps guided treasure hunt. I’m not a fanatic, although C, AKA the anti-cacher, might dispute that. In 16 years I’ve logged over 750 finds. 

 

Geocaching takes you to well known sites or introduces you places you otherwise might not have discovered. These past few weeks have added a new continent to my Geo adventures – South America.

 

These three finds required photo proof:

Rio de Janiero, Brazil

Buenos Aires, Argentina 

and the Middle of the Earth City in Ecuador.

More good memories to come.

With a tinge of guilt I admit that I am thoroughly enjoying this climate change induced Fall. The monsoons, aka atmospheric rivers, usually hit us between the second and fourth week of September. But this year it's been steady sunshine and warm temperatures since July. I consider it a form of pure luxury, the ability to eat breakfast outside every day. And recently on my morning walks I'm serenaded by the songs of tree frogs. It has to be weather related, I've only heard them rarely prior to this week.

It extended the camping/picnic table painting season. We had the camper on the road for a record number of nights. This is my painting of a pug-nosed van, a 1960's Bedford CA, parked near one of our favourite camping spots at Pinantan Lake, BC.

B and S, who were with us for three months were not desperate to get home to their Bali sunshine. We had fun last weekend in a local park for a photo shoot of her new stock of glittery overalls (see all her designs at Jackalopeland) Normally, this time of year, we'd be slipping on moss and sloshing through mud.

 

And the fall sunsets have been spectacular.

One of the best parts of camping is the food. We do well within the limitations of the Micro Minnie Winnie, our little mouse house on wheels. One of our standards is pizza on a cast iron griddle cooked on the grill. This year, combined with Elina's family, I did six in one meal, using a wine bottle instead of a rolling pin.

I was challenged making gnocchi without the correct equipment, using the end of a spatula instead of a potato ricer, pastry cutter or a bench scraper. They were delicious.

The best of the best are meals fresh caught from the water. This summer gave us two large meals of fresh Dungeness crab, many trout and one Kokanee (fresh water salmon). We split the fish open, dredge both sides in flour, then dip the meaty side in egg, followed by a parmesan/breadcrumb mixture with garlic salt and pepper. It's pan fried in olive oil and butter, so delicious. Pair it with Greek Salad, perfect.

E has a standing request for crab for her birthday. This year we didn't quite catch enough so amped up the amount with a bought one. The next day at the beach, we threw the trap out from the kayak and came up with enough crab for another delicious dinner. It was a lot more productive and reasonable than the previous day's two hour boat rental.

Every camper has its piece of improbable cooking equipment, something its owners can't live without. My daughter camps with an ice maker, for KC's sister it's her toaster. For me it's my little waffle iron and toaster over. On longer trips I replenish the freezer with my sweet potato, pumpkin, and oat waffles, my standard breakfast.

Oh yeah, truth be told, I've also been known to cook campside in my smaller size Instant Pot. 

I concede, I give you permission to call this experience glamper cooking.

And what goes best with camper cooking? Friends and family.

The end of the camping season was signalled as we descended from summer in the mountains to autumn on the coast. It seems the colours of fall now includes the all too familiar orange smoky conditions from forest fires with resulting air quality alerts.

The fires we passed last year were tame compared to this out of control blaze . 

The Hope/Flood fire grew to ten times this size with seven full time helicopters employed to dump their buckets of river water high on the mountain’s ridge. 

 

On the positive side, the change of seasons on our second trip this year to Lake Pinantan, gave us spectacular sun rises. 

Wildlife-wise is was the quintessential Canadian camping trip as we saw bear, beaver, deer, and were awakened in two locations to the howls of large packs of coyote. We successfully fished for trout and Kokanee. 

 

In between the two lakes we spent two days in Kamloops visiting friends, Mack and Rika, who toured us around and hosted us at their beautiful home.

Winterizing the trailer is next on the agenda, unpacking the food and linens, filling the water lines with non toxic antifreeze. In denial, I’m scheming one more quick trip out. 

Summer stories from the water, first one is a fish tale. Logan Lake has become our camping home, the place we stop between our house and BC's interior. It's a pleasant small municipal campground with a stocked lake. Chuck spends a fair amount of time on the dock, meeting other campers and exchanging fishing experiences. He put his rod down and turned his back for a brief moment and splash! His rod and reel was pulled off by a trout and away it went. Not the Walmart equipment, but the Cabella's rod and reel that was a Father's Day gift.

Along came two guys in a boat who pointed to the general area where they saw it on the bottom of the lake. Thank goodness for BC's crystal clear water. With the his largest hook and a heavy weight, he started casting and dragging. On the third try, voila! Up came the rod and reel and attached to it a good sized trout! You might think this uniquely near impossible, but  SIL Sean had the same experience last year. Add in the few traditional prayers said to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost objects…

The second story belongs to SIL KC, trying out his new inflatable paddle board from the beach, a ten minute walk from our house. While on the water, he discovered his sunglasses no longer on his head and his fitbit missing from his wrist. Luckily a swimmer with goggles was nearby, and after estimating distance, was able to retrieve the glasses. The fitbit wasn't to be found. Three days later KC was determined. Unbelievably he located it on the rocky portion of the beach. Three days of tides and wind had washed it ashore. 

Two happy guys!

Another happy Wilboe man cooking on the beach:

Sausages on the beach have become a tradition when the kids are here.

 

We’ve just returned from our yearly camping trip with the Edmonton contingent. This Oregon coast trip was previously cancelled due to Covid border restrictions, so it was two years delayed. On the ferry from Whidbey Island, Wa to Port Townsand:

The beach at Nehalem Bay Campground, our ultimate destination:

The highlights:

– Two successful crabbing expeditions, one in a rented boat and one off the beach in a kayak, yielded two Dungeness dinners in a row for six.

– Picnic table painting:

Three snags amongst a foxglove field, the view on an early morning hike in search of painting subjects.

The calmer river side of the campground.

 

The term for outside painting may be in French, but I did these little paintings on our recent Canadian camping trip.

I’ve never particularly enjoyed watercolours outside: the wind, lack of space to spread out supplies and the hazards produced by birds flying over. This happened in France:

These were painted for Opus Art’s Plein Aire Challenge. I needed motivation to try again and was lucky to both avoid pooping birds and win a prize in their participant’s draw.

Top: painting from our picnic table at Lake Pinantan, BC

Bottom: same tree from two sides, Nicola Lake, BC

Don’t even know where to start. I have an excuse, I really do. Since my last post I was informed that a space had become available for David Smith’s watercolour tour in the southwest of France. A sudden cancellation, a fluke, I was meant to take it.

Here’s a preview of my first finished painting while there.

It'a been a long pandemic. I write as if it's over, but statistically speaking it's not. Looking at the North American population data I was surprised at the differences. In Canada, 1 person in ten caught Covid, in the US it was 1 in 4.  Amazing considering we were months behind in the ability to obtain vaccines. It probably has to do with population density and the relatively greater numbers of people concentrated in US urban centres, along with higher rates of poverty and those lacking access to medical care. Somebody's got to think about these things and leave it to the former sociology, anthropology and counselling psych student to do just that. It was the US hitting a million Covid deaths that motivated the statistical exploration. In America one in 336 of the overall population died of Covid, in Canada it was 1 in 946. 

I was going to write about reemergence as I finally started the process a couple of weekends ago, taking my first in-person painting class after two long years. It was back in the saddle again with Marney-Rose Edge (@edgefineart) reinforcing what I've learned with her in the past – deliciously rich, multi-layered deep, dark backgrounds and transforming ordinary flower photos into watercolour backlit beauties. This one, 11×14, is based on my own reference photos.

Now that our fourth dose of vaccine has taken effect, I'm going to walk on the wild side. Masked, of course. We've been inside a restaurant only three times in two years, as this particular Japanese place has the equivalent of dining in your own little room. We're lucky that outside eating starts early in our neck of the woods. Tonight, though, we'll venture inside to a place more conventional. 

On Monday this butterfly will continue her emergence from the cocoon. We will be part of an audience for the first time in ages. We're breaking our fast with a Pink Martini concert, our fourth or fifth over the years, but the first one in three. I'm trusting that the days of hacking audience members are over. I remember going to see the Three Tenors on one New Year's Eve, where the stadium sounded like a TB ward. It even merited mention in a review. I hope those days are gone and that we all learned something about viral spread.