Man, that garden has grown

Flew in yesterday and staying with Knees and Clive‎ initially, and made our first visit to the house today to meet the tenants and talk about a replacement boiler, and survey what needs working on. Few patches of the conservatory need a coat of varnish, couple of minor things to look at inside, deck needs cleaning, treating and a couple of planks replacing,  and man does the garden need some work. We had to cut the ivy, bamboo and brambles back from the lower deck and summer house to get safe access to the shed, and it's going to definitely keep me busy for a month trying to get it all pruned back and under control again....oh well, gives me something to do.

Wrapped up for winter

‎Successful day trip down to Washington state to swap cycling stuff for ski and snow coats, and to put a tarp over Badger to keep the worst of the winter weather off the roof seals . Interesting exercise wrestling with a 20x40 foot sail given that the remnants of hurricane Anna were blowing through...thought I might have been getting an early flight home.

Leaving the car at the Holiday Inn at vancouver airport from tonight for 35 days, so I'm sure the battery will be flat again by the time we get back. Now we have 24 hours to kill before getting on the plane tomorrow evening, and then Maria can see how long she can cope with me on a beer and curry diet...

So long Whistler part 2

‎We leave Whistler again tomorrow for 5 weeks. It's been a bit of a weird time for the past 4 weeks, getting used to the flat and town, and Maria has been trying to get used to yet another oven and practising her winter recipes. The downhill mountain biking season finished a couple of weekends ago and skiing officially starts at the end of November, so while there are still quite a few people wandering around the town it has been fairly quiet and not much going on. 

Weather has been a bit on the wet side - 192mm of rain for the month so far with only 5 days completely dry, but I've managed to get out cycling on most days between the rain, and the legs and lungs are definitely doing better than they were at the start of month .  The peaks and upper runs have had snow for the past couple of weeks, but it hasn't been cold enough for snow yet in the village and valley floor.

Tomorrow we are having a day sightseeing in Vancouver and have opted to stay over so we are closer to the US for Tuesday ‎when we go down to wrap Badger up for the winter and swap bike gear for ski stuff, then fly out on Wednesday.

North America year one

Its a year since we flew into LA and started the North American leg of our trip. It has been a fun year and has mostly gone to plan. We've been very happy in Badger - maybe we could have got a better deal overall if we had bought somewhere other than California with cheaper tax,  registration and admin, but the hassle factor of trying to move around the country looking and the time it takes to work all this stuff out would probably have ended up costing us as much as we might have saved - and the more time we have spent living and driving around in him the happier we have been with our choice. The suzuki toad is a little gutless at high speeds on the freeway, but its a nice drive and so far on wet and dirt roads its been very sure footed. We bought it for the snow so hopefully it will come into its own in the coming months, not that we are expecting to do much driving as we are in the apartment.

Highlights of the trip so far for me are the Arizona desert, grand canyon and Alaskan glaciers calving into the pacific, and we have crossed a lot of stuff off the bucket list: Hoover dam, death valley, Vegas, cajun cooking, mardi gras, sunsets from Key West, the Valkyrie, Niagara falls, sea otters, the aurora and grizzly and black bears. And the Fairbanks earthquake was a bonus. And of course met friends both new and old...

We've actually covered more ground here than in Oz - 15,000 miles in Badger and slightly further as side trips in toad, and given that we spent a month not moving in each of southern California, Waterloo and Edmonton its still not been a rushed trip. And we expect subsequent years will be slower still.

So far we've had no real problems with borders or visas - both the US and Canada have let us back in following our initial arrivals, so hopefully we can continue as planned moving between the two countries every 6 months for the next 3 years.

We're getting settled in Whistler now for the winter, looking forward to our first proper visit back to the UK next week, and then need to decide what we are doing next spring - east coast or west?

Pumpkin time...

... is here. As they are currently in season, now is the time to stock up for the winter.

One down, three more to go. Into the oven to cook slowly then its bag them up for the freezer and the day I want to make soup, scones, roasted with Sunday lunch, etc. The seeds also make a nice snack once they're salted and roasted too. Yummy!

Skwikw - in the land of the hoary marmot...

... which is the native's name for Whistler. Apparently, the place is named after the 'whistle' or call the hoary marmot (a ground squirrel) makes to warn the rest of the clan when danger is nigh. Personally, I quite like the name Skwikw :-)

Anyway, we made it to our new winter home.

The photos don't really do it justice as the living area is much larger than we remembered. The kitchen, on the other hand, doesn't have as much storage space as Badger, so I've had an interesting evening trying to fit everything in! On the plus side, there is a huge fridge and great big stove, so I can make us some lovely roasts. The rest of the unpacking will have to wait for tomorrow as I am absolutely knackered! Time for a nice soak in the bath...

Sods law

‎After thousands of kms behind badger on some of the roughest roads and roadworks we have seen, toad just got a stone chip in the windscreen on a nice smooth piece of tarmac. Bam, right between the eyes, turning into a burger place in squamish....at least it's repairable and doesn't need a new screen