On the Road Again

After two very wonderful weeks lounging about and taking care of loose ends in Vancouver, we're off on another adventure... this time, a tour of Western Canada. We left Vancouver on Monday and made our way through the city by public transit (with all of our bags and 2 Chinese conical hats that we're bringing back with us as souvenirs... the Chinese transit riders were all eyeing us very suspiciously...). We made it to the Greyhound bus station with no wear for the worse and got our tickets to board The Dog (thanks Gary for the great name!). Little did we know that Greyhound has tightened up its baggage allowance (but surprisingly NOT its security, despite the recent bus head-chopping... scary!). This meant that Bob and I had to suddenly make our 7 bags into 2 carry-on and 2 checked. No easy feat, I tell ya... but we managed... and what we didn't manage to compress, we DID manage to sneak on... :)

The bus ride was surprisingly easy and smooth... we think that after our traveling experience in Asia, Canadian travel is a breeze. Our bus ride lasted a quick 5 hours, as opposed to the 48-hour train rides that we'd grown accustomed to in China... Plus the roads were smooth and predictable (unlike the hell death highways in Laos)... But best of all was our ability to understand everything that was said! It's amazing how easy travel can be when you actually understand where and when to get off, which stops are for bathroom breaks, etc. etc. The short little jaunt from Vancouver to Kamloops, which at one time in our cushy lives would have seemed like a royal pain in the butt is now a piece of cake!

So here we are in Sorrento, at Cousin Kenny's very cool and quiet little cabin on Hilltop Road... It's been a joy to come back here and relax, cooking Canadian food and drinking Canadian beer. Kenny was one of those brave souls who ventured halfway across the world in May to come and visit us in China, for which we are so pleased. It's awesome to be here and to reconnect with him. We also had the fun experience yesterday of going through a van-load of our belongings that we'd packed away last year before our move to Vancouver and again before our move to China... Luckily, we didn't experience the "What the hell did we keep this damn thing for?!" feeling too often, and happily packed most of our treasures back into their safe, mouse-proof plastic boxes to be sorted through again in a year... or two...

We'll be here for another day or so before we hop back into our trusty Honda Accord and hit the road for Saskatchewan. There, who knows what adventures life holds in store for us... Somehow, Saskatchewan always seems to bring us a little more fun and, uh, madness shall we say?, than we'd anticipated... ;)

Ciao from Sorrento.

Musique du jour: Willie Nelson - On the Road Again, of course!