The Castlegar leg of the journey

After our week of boating and real-estate ogling, we left Pender Island on the morning of the 25th, but weren't flying to Castlegar till the 26th, so we had a day in Vancouver.

Just by chance my brother was there, and we met up with some old friends for a bit of fun at the beach and a fine dinner!

(Note the grey sky and the fact that we were the only ones on the beach!)

Then, off to the Kootenays. We saw family,

Arthur and my dad

Me, my sister, her daughter, and my crazy kids

saw the river, mountains and sky,


and ventured into an old gold mine, which was kind of dark, so we don't have much in the way of pictures, but here are the kids with about a ton of ore.

(If you go to that page and click the link for the Le Roi mine, you will see a picture of stalactites and stalagmites. These are fake, since it's a metal mine in an ancient lava lake and not a limestone cave at all! There are tiny, tiny stalactites forming there, but they're only about a hundred years old, and a bit rusty!)

When we left Castlegar we flew back to Vancouver, instead of eastward to Calgary. (You take what you get when you fly 4 people on points...) So, we saw Stanley Park clear as anything, and you can see all the damage done by a big storm last winter.


And then we waited and waited for a pilot, our plane was over two hours late leaving, and we got home about 3 in the morning!

I think we've been forced out of any jet lag, since Elaine has to be at school at 8:30 these days, but I'm not sure we're "back to normal." I realize Arthur needs a new raincoat, Elaine's pants are practically up to her knees because she's been growing, it took us several trips to the grocery store to get our cupboards fullish, and the knitting UFO pile is looking ominous. Maybe this is normal, after all....