Homework for the Flock

Retirement has cruelly stripped one of my distinct pedagogical pleasures in life, namely the assigning of mandatory homework with impossible deadlines. Fortunately, the impending arrival of the 'Duck Group' this coming Saturday has presented me with this opportunity.

The gang will be descending upon Carnarvon Place for dinner. It marks the final formal gathering of the year. Recent convocations have tilted heavily toward wine, but an introductory round of beer alongside pre-dinner appetizers seemed appropriate.

Initial calculations focused on frugality. There are four or five vintage cans lurking in the permafrost near the rear cooling element of our refrigerator. They have occupied that prime real estate for an embarrassing number of years. I am reasonably certain they froze solid during the polar vortex of twenty-twenty-three. Being far too much of an unrepentant miser to toss perfectly serviceable alcohol into the recycling bin, I reasoned that our guests could perform civil duty by relieving me of the burden.

Conscience, or perhaps sheer survival instinct, intervened. A stroll down to the local BC Liquor branch in New Westminster was undertaken to procure an additional fifteen-pack. The familiar Big Rock variety carton was nowhere to be seen. What caught my eye instead was a twelve-pack variety carton from Unibroue, hailing from Chambly, Quebec.

A glance at the specifications rendered the purchase of a bulky fifteen-pack entirely redundant. These are not timid lawnmower lagers. These are heavyweight Belgian-style concoctions clocking in between seven point seven and nine point five percent alcohol by volume. Two cans of this nectar equate to roughly half a conventional six-pack. A prudent economy of volume, if ever there was one.

Naturally, the titles are entirely in French. A quick photographic consult with my digital confederate, Ajith, decoded the mythologies behind each brew. Given that there are exactly two cans of each variant in the carton, the flock cannot simply arrive and bicker casually by the fridge. The assignment must be completed in advance:

• Ce n'est pas la fin du monde (9.5%): "It is Not the End of the World." A potent Belgian IPA. Sarcastic, unyielding, and likely the first to ignite a territorial dispute.

• Maudite (8.0%): "The Damned." Named after the legendary voyageur canoe that flew across the sky via a contract with the Devil. Those who drink this without reading the lore risk paddling alone.

• Don de Dieu (9.0%): "Gift of God." An imperial wheat ale commemorating Champlain's flagship from 1608. The group will appreciate the ecclesiastical naming convention, even if the gravity is decidedly terrestrial.

• Trois Pistoles (9.0%): "Three Pistoles." A dark strong ale paying tribute to lost seventeenth-century silver coins and ghostly black steeds. Deep, moody, and heavy enough to stop conversation dead in its tracks.

• Fin du Monde (9.0%): "The End of the World." The flagship triple. Early European navigators were convinced they had hit the literal rim of creation. Drinkers may share the illusion by the second glass. 

• Eau Bénite (7.7%): "Holy Water." The "lightest" offering of the lot, displaying an angel soaking in a pint pot. Pure blasphemy in a can, though thoroughly delicious.

Consider this your required syllabus, gentlemen. Study the parameters. Tim will predictably bypass the folklore entirely and hone straight in on the nine point five percent metric, while the rest will undoubtedly plot intricate diplomatic alliances.  Come Saturday at around 3:30 pm, but select your weapon early. Otherwise, you will be handed a frozen relic from the back of the fridge.  Your PDF study guide may be found here.

Where the River Squeezes and History Settles

Looking down from the balcony on Carnarvon Street, the river feels surprisingly hemmed in. From the foot of Sixth Street across to the quiet stretch of park off Tannery Road in Surrey, the water spans barely over five hundred metres bank to bank. The bluff's steep elevation deceives the eye, compressing that half-kilometre gap until the opposing shoreline looks almost within arm's reach. The water feels compressed. Bulkheads, wharves, and industrial docks funnel the Fraser into a tight, muscular throat. That urban pinch only magnifies the raw power moving through it, draining a quarter of British Columbia from a watershed larger than the whole of Great Britain. Even here, thirty-five kilometres inland from the ocean, the Pacific pushes back with a heavy twice-daily tide, driving saltwater beneath an average outgoing torrent of thirty-five hundred cubic metres of silt every second.

That relentless volume makes it an irreplaceable biological artery. Millions of returning wild salmon (chinook, sockeye, coho, pink, and chum) funnel through this narrow gap every year, fighting their way past our pier toward interior spawning beds that can lie more than a thousand kilometres upstream near the Rocky Mountains. Down in the murky sediment below the shipping channel, prehistoric white sturgeon continue to patrol the riverbed, some living over a century and growing several metres in length. The river never stops working.

Indigenous communities lived and fished along this waterway for thousands of years, respecting both the dangerous current and the massive salmon runs it carried. When outside explorers finally tried navigating it by boat, they quickly learned the hard way that the churning canyons upstream were nearly suicidal to travel. Then came the 1858 gold rush. Thousands of miners poured in practically overnight, turning this violent river into the only practical supply highway into the interior. A permanent settlement had to be established quickly near the river mouth to collect taxes, maintain law, and guard the border.

The surveyors chose this exact spot because of its geography. Flatter ground farther upstream was rejected because it sat low and defenseless. This north bluff offered high ground with a clear view down the channel, backed by deep water where ocean ships could tie up right against the bank. The military blasted through massive timber to lay out the steep hillside streets we walk today. Because this was the narrowest practical place to cross the lower river, that decision eventually funnelled the current three major bridges straight into downtown. Even after the political capital was shifted over to Vancouver Island a few years later, the riverfront stayed busy. The docks, timber mills, and railways remained right here because the physical geography made sense.

Living alongside this rushing channel for three decades has never dimmed our appreciation of its quiet majesty nor its daily importance. The light still catches the silty boils in unexpected ways at dusk, and the deep horn of an outbound tug continues to command our attention as it clears the bridge pilings. Skylines grow taller, seasons cycle through, and shipping schedules shift, but the brown water keeps paying the freight.

A Dozen Years of Freedom

Today marks the exact twelfth anniversary of Jay stepping out of the workforce for an early retirement. On Sunday, October 19, 2014, he returned home from his very last shift after thirteen years of dedicated service at Covenant House Vancouver. Waiting on the counter to greet him was a celebratory cheesecake, vibrant balloons, and cards congratulating him on the milestone. That sweet afternoon welcome officially marked the end of his employment and inaugurated his new life as a gentleman of leisure.

 

My own turn arrived exactly three days later, on Wednesday, October 22nd. As my final cohort of students concentrated on their term-end examination at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, fellow instructors quietly entered the room bearing a farewell cake and a few mementos to remember my seventeen years teaching at BCIT, marking my definitive final exit from classrooms and computer labs.

 

That coordinated double-play in October of 2014 allowed both of us to chart our own unconventional course and step into permanent liberty. That was the week when decades of commutes, early morning alarms, lesson plans, and punch clocks simply vanished into thin air. The deliberate objective was always to cast off domestic predictable schedules entirely in favour of international departures, long rail journeys, and unhurried exploration across an open calendar. Twelve years down the road, looking back on that joint leap confirms that escaping early was sheer strategic brilliance. These past dozen years have undeniably been some of the premier years of our lives.

 

Voting Twice in the Royal City

We marked our ballots early last weekend for the municipal vote, and the numbers finally surfaced last night. Yet thanks to an ill-timed gamble by the ruling provincial party, an early general election arrived almost immediately on its heels. That overlap produced an unbearable din of competing campaign signs and lawn rhetoric, making it far harder for individual candidates to cut through the local static. The upside to this political clutter was purely logistical. It allowed us to turn out early once again today and cast our ballots for the province of British Columbia.

We caught the local bus two stops up 6th Street and joined the tiny queue outside the New Westminster Armoury. Completed in 1895, the hall stands out as a genuine rarity among Canadian drill halls, which were almost universally built from heavy stone or brick. This facility was framed and sided entirely in regional timber, flanked by square towers with distinctive flared mansard roofs. Miraculously, the massive structure survived the Great Fire of 1898 that flattened downtown New Westminster, serving as emergency shelter for hundreds left homeless by the blaze. Wood outlasted the brick. Today it remains an active wooden military post, home to The Royal Westminster Regiment. Rounding toward the rear of the property, we caught sight of fresh recruits sorting gear and running through equipment checks in preparation for weekend exercises or upcoming deployment.

The line moved with crisp military efficiency. We were in and out of the drill floor within a couple of minutes, leaving behind the gratifying sensation of having our civic chores tidy and squared away. Rather than boarding transit for the return, we drifted homeward on foot through Tipperary Park, enjoying the quiet green slope before turning down 4th Street toward our building. These photographs offer a modest visual log of our morning loop through the neighborhood.

Leisurely Heading Towards Our Departure

It was a standard Saturday routine if not entirely in form, given that Jay was nursing the familiar post-vaccine malaise from yesterday’s twin flu and COVID jabs. We made our customary morning grocery run, though with a distinctly restrained basket. With a mere fortnight remaining before our winter departure, the larder strategy has shifted to ruthless depletion.

Because the power to the apartment gets shut down entirely while we are away, leaving a single forgotten condiment to fend for itself is out of the question. Jay is an absolute master of logistics on this front; by the time departure morning arrives, the refrigerator will be stripped bare, meticulously wiped, and completely food-free.

Our upcoming arrival at Gatwick on November 2nd marks a long overdue return to standard British sightseeing. We will establish base camp in Southampton for five nights before embarking on the cruise to Rio de Janeiro on November 7th. Having not properly played city tourists in London since 2005, a dedicated day trip by rail is firmly on the docket, along with potential runs out toward Stonehenge. Besides, with fresh Electronic Travel Authorizations in hand, one may as well squeeze every drop of value from them; June will see us back again for an extended wander across the realm.

My Fake Seven-Cent Heirlooms

I enjoy wearing a ring, but I have never possessed the discipline required to keep one. Jewelry simply does not cling to me for long. Years ago, I purchased an authentic ruby ear stud in Sri Lanka, an island celebrated for magnificent gems that occasionally migrated into the British Crown Jewels through imperial appropriation. That modest stud survived eight years before vanishing into the ether without a sound. Most precious ornaments fare far worse in my custody. With traditional rings, my personal ownership lifespan is routinely measured in mere weeks.

A sensible alternative presented itself directly on the build plate. I now fabricate PLA rings en masse whenever the impulse strikes. Today I am running off half a dozen fresh bands for our winter voyage to Brazil. Given that a standard spool of budget filament costs roughly twenty-five dollars CAD, each three-gram ring runs to about seven cents. One gets the full aesthetic pleasure of an acceptable band on the knuckle without the lingering heartbreak of an abandoned authentic heirloom.

Reclaiming the Living Room Gallery

A little ahead of Joel and May's recent visit, I noticed a new problem with my television setup.  A bridge had collapsed.

For six years, a modest little application had quietly linked my online photographic archive directly to the television. The app cost less than five dollars to install. That was a bargain. Time, however, is rarely kind to aging code. Operating system updates and newer streaming hardware finally caught up with its plumbing, leaving the software unable to load a single frame. When our guests arrived, the only recourse was casting directly from a phone. It worked, but barely. Handsets disconnect, notifications intrude, and managing an album on a small glass handheld is a poor substitute for a native television interface.

The proper remedy arrived shortly afterward. My AI collaborator suggested looking into an updated viewer called FlickFolio. After a short evaluation, securing a pro lifetime license felt entirely fair. The application treats an archive that now stands at 50,207 photographs on Flickr as a true exhibition. That collection spans a lifetime of visual record, holding everything from snapshots taken this morning right back to scanned paper prints from my earliest childhood years. One can navigate directly to a specific journey with a click, complete with original dates and locations discreetly noted in the corner, or simply leave the screen to wander through decades of our milestones and global travel during quiet hours.

The living room gallery is back in service. It is properly catalogued and ready for the next round of guests without any casting gymnastics. Testing the feed earlier today, photographs of a camel trek from this June flashed across the display, its golden desert tones rendered with startling clarity. Sitting back this afternoon, watching old moments rekindle in vivid colour across the screen, it felt as though decades of a life well lived had stepped back into the room.

Public Health: It's Not All About You

Maintaining an eJournal continues to serve as an indispensable tool for resolving routine household debates over personal chronology. Jay insisted this morning that we had received both our flu and COVID shots at this exact juncture last year, though my own recollection remained entirely blank. A prompt review of the digital log proved his instincts correct, confirming that our previous visit occurred precisely one year ago this week. In the end, a faithfully maintained personal archive leaves no room for uncertainty and settles the historical record decisively.

The provincial booking portal has made securing an immunization appointment remarkably straightforward and efficient. Rather than navigating cumbersome administrative hurdles, one can simply log in, review local pharmacy availability, and lock in a reservation within seconds. Selecting yesterday's 9:45 am slot took virtually no effort at all. Modern public health scheduling proves that well-designed digital infrastructure can strip away unnecessary friction entirely.

Proximity to rapid transit transforms an ordinary health errand into an effortless neighbourhood stroll. A brief descent downstairs into the SkyTrain tunnel led directly to New West Station barely two minutes later, placing Shoppers Drug Mart within immediate reach. Inside the pharmacy, a brief three-minute wait while the staff member finished with the previous patron was the only delay before receiving both injections and heading on. Seamless urban design and transit accessibility make routine daily tasks exceptionally easy to accomplish.

Immunization extends far beyond private autonomy; it is fundamentally an act of shared civic responsibility rather than an isolated personal choice. By stepping up for seasonal influenza and COVID shots, an individual actively severs chains of transmission that would otherwise ripple unchecked through the general public. That simple, routine injection may well be the solitary barrier that shields a fragile neighbour or keeps someone's vulnerable grandparent alive. Wrapping vaccine hesitancy in the hollow banner of individual freedom is both selfish and foolish, confusing anti-social defiance with genuine liberty. Ultimately, being a constructive member of a civilized society requires protecting the vulnerable, proving that collective survival will always matter more than self-absorbed indulgence.

It's a Bit Chilly! (9°C = 48°F )

Jay and I headed uptown this morning for a routine visit to the Walmart at Royal City Centre, mainly picking up odds and ends and getting our prescriptions sorted so we have enough medicine to see us through the winter travels. With the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend behind us, the holiday quiet had dissolved and the town was visibly back at work. Yet beneath the usual errands and post-holiday bustle, there was an unmistakable shift in the air, something that felt distinctly different.

One becomes spoiled with absurd rapidity.

For the better part of a week, the Lower Mainland has basked beneath an unbroken dome of deep cobalt. Day after day arrived without so much as a stray wisp of cloud drifting off the Strait of Georgia. The light was sharp, the air pleasantly dry, and the usual damp chill seemed entirely forgotten. In such moments, the human mind engages in its favourite parlour trick, quietly convincing itself that the anomaly has become the permanent order of things. One steps out onto the balcony, takes in the sunshine, and begins to operate under the collective delusion that autumn has simply been cancelled this year.

It never lasts, of course.

This morning, reality resumed its scheduled broadcast. The sky outside is a flat, uncompromising wool blanket, and the temperature has settled into that familiar, damp bite. It is completely ordinary for October. In fact, anything else is outright fiction. Yet, looking out across the rooftops, one cannot help feeling an unreasonable twinge of mild betrayal, as if the atmosphere had broken an unspoken promise. We build an entire philosophy of permanence out of five consecutive sunny days, only to act shocked when the rain decides to punch the clock on time.

Updating the October 2025 Lists

We started 2026 at the Galle Face Green, in Colombo Sri Lanka.

Our history marks twelve full years since the start of early retirement. Jay and I have completed eleven seasons of vanishing from the Lower Mainland for four or five consecutive months. One winter was spent tending to a medical issue. And now, the logistical framework for the upcoming journey is firmly ironed out. We plan to spend roughly a month meandering toward Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and settling there from December straight through February. Our homeward trajectory takes a scenic detour through the equator, carving out a week in the Galápagos followed by another in Bogotá, Colombia.

Because those ports and apartments belong to the imminent calendar rather than the finished ledger, they remain off the master tallies for today. Instead, this writing serves as an annual audit of the notes I first published a year ago. I have updated our primary residency figures to account for our most recent months in Sri Lanka, while folding our varied excursions alongside Jay's sisters into the roster of short-term visits.  We've lived a for cumulative total of over four years in the following places during our retirement winters.

Our Retirement Winters (2014 to 2026)

Location	Duration
Bali, Indonesia	2 months
Buenos Aires, Argentina	3 months
Cape Town, South Africa	1 month
Colombo, Sri Lanka	1 year and 1 month (4 stays)
Durban, South Africa	1 month
Dubai, UAE	2.5 months (4 stays)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	5 months (2 stays)
Luxor, Egypt	5 months
Flic en Flac, Mauritius	1 month
Mazatlán, Mexico	2 months
Penang, Malaysia	3 months
Playa del Carmen, Mexico	3 months
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico	5 months
Siem Reap, Cambodia	2 months
South American Cruise Ports	1 month

The ledger above outlines the domestic bases that have anchored our winter seasons. Even so, our migrations rarely follow a tidy, direct path from Carnarvon Street to a single overseas terrace. We routinely thread regional circuits into the itinerary, whether tacking on side journeys prior to settling down or exploring neighbouring territories on the long haul back to the Canadian West Coast.

The partial catalog below captures some of those short-term detours and transit pauses. Last winter offered a prime illustration of this habit. Beyond our residential weeks in Sri Lanka, we orchestrated several shared excursions alongside Jay’s sisters, looping through both the Middle East and Thailand before joining a cruise from Hong Kong to Japan on our gradual circumnavigation home this past spring.

Additional Short-Term Trips and Visits
Location	Location
Antananarivo, Madagascar	Manila, Philippines
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei	Mokhotlong, Lesotho
Bangkok, Thailand	Naha (Okinawa), Japan
Boracay, Philippines	Osaka, Japan
Chiang Mai, Thailand	Pattaya, Thailand
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania	Philippines Cruise Ports
Doha, Qatar	Phuket, Thailand
Hong Kong, China	Puerto Princesa, Philippines
Ipoh, Malaysia	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Ishigaki, Japan	Sabah, Malaysia
Island-Wide Trips, Sri Lanka	Saint-Denis, Reunion Island
Istanbul, Turkey	Sarawak, Malaysia
Kaohsiung, Taiwan	Stone Town, Zanzibar
Krabi, Thailand	Taipei (Keelung), Taiwan
Kuching, Malaysia	Taipei, Taiwan
Langkawi, Malaysia	Tokyo (Yokohama), Japan
Malacca, Malaysia	Tokyo, Japan
Manama, Bahrain	Tunis, Tunisia

In the early seasons of early retirement, I indulged in an exhaustive inventory of aspirational targets, scribbling down every distant meridian that caught my eye. Over the ensuing decade, Jay and I methodically picked our way through that optimistic docket with surprising thoroughness. As a consequence of our persistent wandering, the grand archive has dwindled down to a remarkably modest pair of unclaimed frontiers. Even with the official manifest looking lean, the kitchen table tells a different tale, as fresh possibilities and sudden logistical schemes constantly bounce back and forth between my morning coffee and Jay’s proper cup of Ceylon tea.

Planned and Possible Locations

Location
Goa, India
Kampala, Uganda

 

An Eighty-Eight-Year Span Ends

Since 1937, the massive orange truss of the Pattullo Bridge defined the eastern view from downtown New Westminster. A replacement had been endlessly debated ever since our arrival thirty years ago, dragging through decades of provincial hand-wringing until the new stal̕əw̓asəm Bridge finally opened earlier this year. The venerable steel arch is officially down, leaving the concrete towers of the stal̕əw̓asəm and the SkyTrain bridges to dominate the river alone.

Under a crisp, cloudless October sky, Jayantha and I boarded the SkyTrain toward Scott Road to inspect the resulting vacancy in our skyline. Crews engineered a neat solution by cutting the central arch in two, securing each half across a pair of lashed-together barges. From the train, we watched the floating assembly sit out mid-river before tugs eased the massive rust-coloured structure against the Surrey bank. It now sits directly across the river from us, patiently awaiting the scrapyard shears.

Driving across that span always felt like an aggressive video game; one simply held the wheel steady and prayed whenever a heavy truck drifted into the adjoining lane. Nobody will mourn the sheer terror of that commute, but staring across the Fraser River without that tangled orange silhouette feels surprisingly disorienting. The water is quieter, safer, and noticeably emptier tonight, though getting used to such a tidy horizon will take some time.

Detours from Cariboo Road to Sixth and Sixth

Saturday started out on a quiet note, but civic duty soon set the pace for a partial day of wanderings with May and Joel. Jay and I got our ballots cast bright and early in the advanced voting for the municipal elections, which felt great to cross off the list. From there, we drove over to the BCRV on Cariboo Road around ten-thirty to rendezvous with our visitors and plan out the morning. We walked the dogs near the RV park.  

Next, we originally pointed Kimchi toward home, yet somehow we never made it back to the apartment. Spontaneous curiosity drew us toward New Westminster's təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic Centre, and before we knew it, we rolled into the uptown shopping center and parked right up on the roof. The short stroll over to Sixth and Sixth brought us right into the bustling heart of our hometown, providing a perfect spot for snapping a few pictures at the crossroads of our local world.

With the clock nudging toward one in the afternoon, appetites kicked in and we began scanning the neighborhood for a solid meal. We browsed a few storefronts along the street, but Jay and I knew exactly where we needed to take them and steered the group straight toward the Han Lin Noodle House. It has been a beloved local landmark for decades, dating all the way back to when it was known as Hon's. A new rebranding sign hangs out front today, yet the comforting food, the vintage 1980s atmosphere, and even several veteran staff members remain completely unchanged. The meal was an absolute home run from the first bite to the last. We enjoyed the whole experience so much that we swore we need to start treating ourselves to restaurant meals more often, even if Jay's brilliant culinary skills in our own kitchen make dining out a genuine rarity.

Making our way back to the car on the roof turned out to involve some quick shopping. We cut inside the mall through Walmart, walked upstairs, and Joel found what he needed in the clothing racks. He bought three pairs of Wrangler cargo pants because he needed extra pocket space at a reasonable price. With the purchase bagged, we headed out to the rooftop stalls and loaded everything into the car.

Before heading back to the campsite, we squeezed in a stop at the original Canadian Costco location on Government Road in Burnaby because May specifically wanted to visit. She genuinely enjoys the thrill of the retail hunt, making the stop well worth the detour despite the inevitable challenges of the venue. The building is noticeably on the small side compared to modern warehouses, leaving the aisles perpetually overfilled with merchandise. Today brought an extra layer of congestion because it was the opening Saturday of the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend, filling the floor with heavy holiday crowds. We navigated the tight spaces and busy checkout lanes, taking care of business before finally making our way out of the retail crush.

The rest of the evening belonged to rest and canine duties back at the campsite. The two dogs in the RV needed their long evening walk, so May and Joel decided to make dinner inside their rig and hit the hay early instead of coming over to our apartment. They have a massive adventure on tap for Sunday morning with North Vancouver's Grouse Grind, an infamous two-point-nine-kilometer trail that climbs over eight hundred vertical meters straight up the mountain face on thousands of rough timber steps. Tackling Mother Nature's StairMaster requires fully rested legs and plenty of stamina, but the sunny, panoramic views waiting at the peak will make all that hard climbing completely worthwhile before they pack up and point the rig toward Alberta on Monday morning.

The View From My Place on the Couch

The fresh upholstery has barely settled into the frame, yet the vantage point carries the weight of nearly three decades. Below the balcony rail, the Fraser rolls past with the steady clamour of railway freights and working tugs, entirely indifferent to the human hours passing above it. A new piece of furniture simply assumes the duty of the post, inheriting the daily habit of watching the river run toward the strait.

At sixty-seven, the mathematics of the calendar become impossible to ignore. The years accumulated in the rear-view mirror clearly outnumber the miles visible ahead, yet the machine is running cleanly and the journey remains well in hand. Twenty-eight years anchored to this single living room have witnessed long flights across oceans, desert crossings, and restless departures, but the home coordinates remain immovable. Time accelerates whether one submits to routine or resists it, stacking birthdays with an unnerving, brisk efficiency. Paying that steady admission fee is the only sensible bargain available, because it keeps a person firmly on the cushions, perfectly intact, and watching the tides from the Strait of Georgia drive upriver to wrestle with the Fraser current.

RV Maneuvers and the Crystal Mall Rendezvous

Joel and May rolled across the border into Canada around 4:00 PM yesterday, steering an RV into the concrete jungle of Metrotown. Predictably, trying to park a rolling apartment along Kingsway proved to be an exercise in frustration. Where sprawling surface lots once accommodated land yachts, soaring residential towers have sprouted instead. Modern urban density strikes again. Over Whatsapp, Jay thought of a rescue by steering them toward parking space over by Bonsor Recreation Centre.

They had a four-night reservation sorted at an RV park near Cariboo Road, but Metrotown was the designated rendezvous point because May had arranged to meet up with friends from Calgary. Those folks just happened to be in town after disembarking from a Pacific Coastal cruise. While the visitors gave their dogs a much-needed stretch, Jay and I hopped aboard the SkyTrain from New West to join the gathering.

     

From the station, we cut through the main complex over to the Crystal Mall, Burnaby’s vibrant Asian hub. The choice for the evening was a bustling Chinese restaurant. The food was sensational, though Jay and I were forced into the mildly humiliating ritual of asking the server for forks. To be completely honest, we are genuinely a bit embarrassed about our total incompetence with chopsticks. After living in the Lower Mainland for three decades, failing to master the region's most ubiquitous dining tool feels like a glaring cultural blind spot, but hunger ultimately trumped our wounded pride.

It was wonderful getting to know May, and equally delightful catching up with Joel, whom we had not seen since 2017. The meal was made even sweeter when May generously picked up the entire tab for the table. After full bellies and lively conversation, the gathering dispersed in three directions: May's Calgary friends headed off to stay with pals in Edmonds, Joel and May set out to finally check in at their campsite, and Jay and I caught the SkyTrain back home. With the visitors settled in for a four-night stay, we look forward to properly catching up over the coming days.