Addendum to "Jaunting..."

The row of houses where our friends live; their property is 19' wide.

Comment on travelling separately: boring.
Comment on airlines: Air Canada is hands-down the best one we've been on (including Swiss Air, BA, Iberia, United, American, Delta, KLM) for quite a few years even though we used to love-to-hate AC when Canadian was absorbed.
Comment on expedia.com: not nearly as helpful and doesn't have as good deals as expedia.ca.
Which brings me to our recent travels east. My trip was uneventful but Jim got stuck in Calgary because his ticket didn't allow enough time to clear the backlog at US Immigration. (American readers - at our major Canadian airports we clear US Immigration & Customs in Canada before we embark). This happened about 10:30 in the morning. By 6:00 in the afternoon Jim had been back and forth to the US and Canada without leaving the airport, had a premium room at the Delta hotel, and a ticket into Windsor (instead of Detroit and WAY more expensive) for the next day, plus a dinner and breakfast voucher at the hotel. He says he had a fabulous steak dinner and all the whole deal cost him was for the Graham Beck Shiraz that he purchased to go with the steak. If it had been me who was stuck I would have ended up paying $500.00 for a new ticket routed by way of Nowheresville and would have slept on the floor in the airport, so I have to say I was mighty glad my trip was only boring. If you know Jim at all you know he could sell coal to Newcastle (Is Newcastle still famous for coal or is that reference completely out of date. I was going to say "ice to Eskimos" but thought that might be considered rude nowadays. Aging is fraught in so many different ways not the least of which is communication!)

Once he fnally arrived on Wednesday Jim & Alan began labouring away on the deck, which wasn't completely co-operative so progress was slow.
One of the many bumps was that the only place that carries 2x12 stair stringers, Rona, had sold out because everyone else in town was also building decks. Alan had purchased 2x10 stringers (from Lowe's and amazingly cheaply made!) but they make for skimpy treads which just aren't as safe.
Did I mention that it was hot? And that the men were working on the sunny side of the house? Yikes, it must have been 120F out there (despite being Canadian, Windsorites speak in Farenheit.
Meanwhile Sally & I saw some of the sights and enjoyed ourselves in air-conditioned comfort.
The view of Detroit along the river walk in Windsor!

Sunday we went to the Detroit Institute of Art where Sally introduced me to some amazing murals by Diego Rivera http://www.dia.org/art/rivera-court.aspx and we saw a special exhibit on the central west Africans view of Europeans in the 1850's, "Through African Eyes" 

That night Sally dug out the picnic gear and we grabbed a bench near the river to eat and watch the world go by. It was a perfect evening. 

Monday we had drinks on the deck, even though it wasn't as finished as everyone hoped. The building inspector arrived, while we were taking our group photo on Tuesday morning, and pooped on our parade leaving Alan with an ugly job of digging 2 new post holes by himself and Jim feeling that he was abandoning ship.

 

And then we came home, separately and smoothly, to cold gray weather and the wish that Sally & Alan will have many happy times on the new deck and memories of its construction. And also the wish that all of our 'dear ones' lived nearby.

Jaunting off again

The trouble with starting things, like blogs, is that if you don't keep them up-to-date it's a bit hard to get going again; too much has happened in the interim. I suppose that’s that ‘inertia’ concept that Mr Boyer tried to teach me in grade 8 science. It was something about it taking less energy to keep something moving than to start from a standing position. Whatever…which was probably my reaction to the concept at the time but I do understand how it extrapolates to the non-physics world. If you get tired of not hearing from me and want to follow a blog that is fun and interesting and well written take a look at http://muckybootsfarm.blogspot.com/ the creation of a very good friend who, with her partner, quit her teaching job, bought a small-holding and is living the dream. There isn't anything they don't tackle.


So here I am back in touch after about 5 weeks of silence. Yikes.

We are on the eve of going to Windsor, Ontario to visit some dear friends, Sally & Alan, who used to live here. I know, why would anyone leave Victoria to go to Windsor, not known as a hotbed of migration. Well you would be surprised. First of all Windsor is way south of anywhere Canadian, in fact it is south of Detroit, Michigan, its very close neighbour (about ½ mile away), which is kind of disorienting when our entire culture is built around being north of everything. And being south of anywhere the climate is not too bad. Sure they get a few weeks of winter and some brutal heat in summer but lots of the time it’s kind of nice. And they have the Detroit skyline, spectacular, and all the cultural diversions of the big city without the hassles: opera, art centre, shopping, Red Wings, Tigers (do they still exist?) etc. On the Windsor side there is a fabulous park/garden/walkway along the Detroit River with interesting sculptures, and there is Hiram Walker’s distillery, and the Big Three car factories, and wineries, and farmland, and a nice university, and I could go on… I have to admit it is a titch FLAT, but nevertheless it’s a good place so we are glad to be going.

But we aren’t going together.

A few months ago I suggested that Jim go for a week to help Alan build a deck. They live in a 100 year old row house, and that long ago people didn’t build decks. There is a concrete stair and stoop and the space is narrow and there are other issues and it just seemed like Jim would enjoy having coffee with Alan again, something they used to do regularly. After some hemming and hawing and fussing with flights Jim found a reasonably inexpensive one and booked it. A couple of weeks later I decided I was wasting too much time being tied to my studio and announced that I wanted to go too. Which is why we aren’t travelling together. We could have, at great expense, but thought it made more sense to save $500.00 and go our separate ways, both flying into Detroit, on different airlines, leaving and arriving an hour apart. Crazy.

We are back in a week and are amazed at how simple it is to go away for that short a period. It seems our travels are often long and complicated. And did I mention how glad I am that we aren’t trying to go to or through Europe this spring? What a mess that continues to be and it’s not like you can just put a cork in a volcano.

Meanwhile is is spring, and beautiful in Victoria!
Lots more to catch up on and I'll get back to posting somewhat regularly on our return...