Catch Up, Quatre ...

Linda and I set off on the 30th and drove to Nelson, B.C., where we spent Canada Day with at the beach Patty, Sarah, Ally and Raye, singing Oh Canada, having birthday cake, building sand castles and getting face painted.

Here's Linda in her borrowed bathing suit (hand-me-down from Nina that doesn't quite fit Sarah, yet), maple leaf tattoo, Alberta rose painting, and holding one of the baby budgies being bird-sat by Patty's family for the summer:


Later, we went to the fireworks and Jaime came, too. We don't know if the dogs (brother and sister samoyeds) were set off by the fireworks or by the thunder later, but when we got home, Chloe was two storeys up on the roof, having gone out through the girls' window (and taken out the bars and the screen on the way). Jaime talked her back in. It took a while for all the girls to calm down enough for bed.

The rest of the drive was hot enough that holding a hand out the window while going highway speed felt like holding it under a hot blowdryer. Icky! Fortunately, the temperatures were more reasonable for the Fair, in the 30's, rather than the 40's. Once we got in, we noticed that we had squatters in our camping spot. We reported them to the Quartermonster and spent the night in Chewie's tent, since he was going into town and didn't need it. In the night, Linda ended up sideways across the bottom of my sleeping bag and rolled up to the top, a little at a time, squeezing me out of it like toothpaste out of a tube!

After dark, Bee Craig came and blasted the squatting bald-faced hornets with some kind of nasty toxic spray. One got in his sleeve and stung him a few times, so he headed to the hospital, then came back later and checked on the hive. He checked one more time in the morning and advised us to slosh a couple of pails of water on the ground under it before putting the tent back. Vick did the sloshing and we finally set up our home-for-the-week.

This is the Western Tanager feeding on the larvae from his (her?) new larder in the canopy a couple of feet above my tent:



(I washed the tent a couple of times after the Fair, to get the toxic bird poop off it)

And this is Linda telling her Mom all about it:



(Yes, that is marabou on Linda's tent! We found boas at the store in town and decided they were required camping gear)

As promised, I took Linda to Patti's Pies for breakfast one day.

We ate our breakfast by DeSpain Bridge, where this little girl was hooping and playing the flute (at the same time, and doing both very well!):



Patti's pies are made from gently stirred banana and cinnamon, topped with fresh peaches, nectarines, apples, cherries, and berries, all in an unbaked crust of dates and crushed nuts ... utterly delicious whole food!