It Really Didn't Add Much to the Experience

The local weather has reached its optimal state in the Lower Mainland of BC.  I got the little window fan out of the closet although it was a step that wasn't really necessary.  I think it is around 25C degrees at the moment. 

We did regular grocery shopping quite early today.  I plugged in the car for a half hour while inside.  I might have to top it up to 100% this week if we go ahead with plans for my birthday-week road trip to the Canadian Rockies.  

On the way back, I also stopped at a car wash in Coquitlam.  I seldom wash Kimchi, our EV.  I try to think of the dirt coating as protection from scratches.  However, if we do take off, I want to see just how many new bugs I can collect.  It must be with a fresh slate, so to speak.  The basic wash was around $9 w/tax.  The colourful light show was definitely worth that price alone, not!

The Narcissist Channel

I'm surely not showing off; I'm learning.  If I'm gonna get any use out of my DJI NEO, I've got to remember to play with it once in a while.  I found its orange case and walked out of our front door with the miniature drone.  

It is tiny enough to sit in the palm of one's hand.  In fact, that is how the owner 'retrieves' it when it is in FOLLOW ME mode.  You'll likely see my outstretched hand in this video a couple of times.

The drone is a technological miracle.  It's a toy that couldn't have been assembled or even even imagined a couple of decades ago.  The software side is equally amazing as the LightCut software, on my phone, uses AI to study the video clips and creates an interesting collage.  Picking which the royalty free music to add to the mix changes the outcome.  How awesome!

 

Don't judge these 44 seconds on the main character or the location.  Just imagine what someone with a little imagination and talent would be able to do with it.

Prime Days

Oh my, aren't we good, little Amazon.ca customers?  Four boxes and a packet arrived yesterday.
  

Also, one box for us appears to be in the neighbourhood at the moment.  I like the updated info on deliveries.

   

Raining Outside, Wet Inside

 

It was rainy when we got up. That's good. When the ground gets too parched, we now witness an increased forest fire hazard. A damp day in the middle of a great streak of weather is surely okay.  I spied a few moments this morning when it looked like it was clearing.  

I took the SkyTrain one stop to the west and went to see if the local thrift shop had any suitable 36" shorts.  I am a big fan of reuse.  It seems more logical and kinder to the environment to make use of good-quality, pre-owned items like clothing.  I donated all last summer's size 38" shorts to them.  When I lose or gain weight, I treat the thrift store as an exchange.  

As I entered, a sign read, "30% all swim wear."  I picked up a couple of pair that looked like new.  I didn't get them for us.  We have a hot tub and swimming pool in our building.  It's good to have a few extra pair if guests visit and want to go for a swim or spend time in the sauna.  

 

It hadn't turned very pleasant while I was in the store, so I went back home.  It wasn't pouring but it was still dark.  It seemed like a good time to visit our hot tub area.  I didn't make use of either of the extra swim suits that we now own.  

The water felt great.  I like looking outside at rain when I'm sitting in comfortably hot water.

Red is For Next Winter's Trip

Jay and I now have just four, plastic file folders. A yellow one wore out last winter during our journeys. 

We continue to print reservations and receipts as we can have a lot of irons in the fire. We sometimes have 3 or 4 trips in the planning stages simultaneously, often months or even years ahead. So, important paperwork must go into different folders.  Right now though, only two of these four colours have anything in them.

   

The black one has information for Jay's birthday week in September. It's mostly complete. 

The red one had just one item inside until today. This space will contain information about our upcoming winter of 2025-26.  Since retiring early, we leave for four to five months during Vancouver's rainy winters. We have known that Sri Lanka will be a base again for a while. We bought one-way tickets on Turkish Air a while ago. We visit with Jay's sisters on the island every few years.

Buying one-way tickets no longer costs much more than one would pay for roundtrips. For most of our lives this wasn't the case. We sort of welcome the new situation as it allows us additional options when planning our often complicated winters away. 

I'm posting this entry today because we have decided upon important aspects of our return to British Columbia. Although we fly east through Istanbul to get to Sri Lanka in November, we'll continue going east from there on our return in March. 

We visited our lovely cruise consultant at the Expedia Cruise Ship Centre in Queensborough this morning.  We know we'll be taking a bit of a sea voyage on the way home in the spring.  That means we will require two air tickets, one on each end of our Holland America exploration. There's still plenty of time to iron out those details.

At the Edge of Northern Wilderness

I was messaging with a friend about transit this afternoon. I mentioned that our SkyTrain system seems near capacity most of the day this year. This seems like a new phenomenon. We often have to wait for a full train arriving from Surrey, BC to pass before we board one headed to downtown Vancouver. 

(We live in the small city of New Westminster between Surrey and Burnaby.  Its label is not visible at this zoom level on the map.)

 

One can easily see how the region's growth is restricted by geography.  On this Google Map, the Fraser Valley is the only direction in which the area can expand.  The distance between Vancouver and Chilliwack is around 100 km or 60 miles.  Surrey is located just across the river from us.  It is expected to have a larger population than Vancouver either next year or in 2027.

Rinsing Off the Car Cover ... Finally!

During our winters away, the car stays parked downstairs in our building. It always rests for four or five months of the year. When we bought the car, we bought a cover too.  The parking areas in the building get tons of airborne dust and grime.

   

In 2025, we arrived back in town from South Africa on March 16th. So, we took off the somewhat filthy car cover on March 17th. We loosely bundled it up and stuck it in a garbage bag. That bag had been riding around in the back seat for the last three and a half months. 

Yet, the sun was so lovely today, we chose to move it and spray it down at our buildings' outside garden hose. There's a chain-link fence that is long enough for us to hang it over.  Streams of dirty water ran off as water cascaded over it.

   

As long as the car was nearby, Jay hosed off Kimchi, our EV, too. 

Now, the gray cover is drying on our balcony.  Obviously, there's no need to get to certain chores right away.  Although months late, today was perfect for this task.

 

Transit Improves Life in the City

Translink is the name of the consolidated transit system for the metro-Vancouver area.  Two lines of its driverless SkyTrain share tracks through a short tunnel in downtown New Westminster, BC. One stop is directly at the base of our buildings. We can take the elevator to our underground parking and exit right into the Columbia Station at the basement level.

The system connects to surrounding communities, the airport, and downtown Vancouver. A train passes by our apartment in each direction every three minutes during the day.

 

We frequently go by SkyTrain rather than driving.  For example, the hassle of driving and the cost of parking means I never drive Kimchi, our EV, into downtown Vancouver.  The train is stress free!

Jay and I now have senior discount cards at an annual cost of  CA $45/year.  We find ourselves onboard more than ever, even though the cost was never a prohibiting factor.  For a little exercise, it's easy to walk to the other end of our waterfront park and take the train to return home.  

In the photo above, taken today, we were about to return from the New Westminster Station from the other end of downtown. We live at the next station along that empty track.  The train heading to the Waterfront was going west and would be at Vancouver harbor in about 35 minutes.