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Hey All!

A quick photo blog to formally farewell Canada.  Our last couple of nights in North America were spent in Canmore, Canada getting up close and personal with the Canadian Rockies. Awesome, awesome!

We have spent the past few days in Chester, England before heading to meet up with our homeowner for our Manchester (suburb of Levenshulme) house sit.  Chester is a lovely, walled city from Roman times, with much of the wall still intact.  It’s about a 2 mile loop around the wall.  We loved the architecture, old Roman ruins, and many gardens and bridges (across the Dee River and canal network).  Stay tuned for photos of Chester and the greater Manchester area.  We are currently able to access wifi solely from a laptop and need to educate ourselves on the best way to get our photos from our mobile devices to the laptop to put into our blogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob and I are having a lovely Albertan vacation, as we are staying within the province before we head out later this week (already?!) for the UK. However, before we regale you with highly entertaining tidbits of our Tour de Alberta, we need to give one last shout out to our favorite Canadian feline friends — Purrcy and Squeak.  We are adjusting to not having Purrcy sleep curled up on our tummies (after the requisite number of turns), or curled up against our legs (when we sleep on our sides) or in-between us on Bob’s out-stretched arm allowing us to revel in his purrs (one of life’s happiest noises!). We miss his outstretched body on the floor begging for a tummy rub. And I seriously miss my cuddles with Squeak when she would lie up against me and reach her paw up at me.  She is a highly selective cat, so I felt honored by her attention.  However, they are both happily back with their owners, who are also Cool Cats (though not feline).

Since our time in Calgary, we have been flitting around the province in our rental jeep (upgraded for free from our requested economy-size car — pays to be a Hertz Goldmember in a shoulder season, I guess.). First stop was Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, and about a 2 hour drive north of Calgary. This was a full-on urban day with a 3-hour walkabout of the Old Strathcona district and the City Center including a visit to their farmer’s market (held each Saturday year-round) and viewings of the legislature building, Winston Churchhill Square, their award-winning public library, and their gorgeous art gallery. Like Calgary, a river runs through it (the North Saskatchewan), so we got to cross a couple of bridges as well and noted the in-progress construction of a new one. We finished the day at the West Edmonton Mall, the largest mall in North America (was largest in the world until 2004).  It is now the 10th largest (per Wikipedia, I’m not on top of these things), and at only two stories and with mostly surface-level parking, it seemed much smaller than what we were expecting.

We spent just a night in Edmonton before heading onto the town of Jasper which is located in Jasper National Park. To enter the park, you need to buy a pass. Since we were planning to be in the Jasper and Banff National Parks for parts of at least 3 days, we paid $39 C to cover us for both parks. Both parks are home to parts of the Canadian Rockies and are gorgeous. I definitely prefer life with a mountain view, and we have been busy hiking and seeing some of the natural features — including our first real snow of the trip and wildlife!

Due to the length of our current holiday, Bob and I are trying to be fairly responsible with our flexible expenditures (food, entry fees,etc.), so we like to do as many free activities as possible (super easy here with all the pathways to explore and public art to enjoy). We also regulate the food budget by limiting the amount of eating out that we do. That having been said, we can still get our Foodie fill by perusing local markets. Calgary has a number of them that we have explored.

The first time we were in Calgary (many moons ago) was basically to fly in and out on our way to Banff and Lake Louise. We had read about the Calgary Farmer’s Market; however, and made a point of stopping there on our way back into town. We really liked it and wanted to try to visit the market this time around as well. Our first effort failed. Since we really like to walk, and it’s a cheap way to really get to know a City, we had decided that we would walk to the market.  Well, it is located in the very southeast part of town (app. 5 miles from the condo). We used Google maps to plan the walking route and then took photos of the route to refer to while walking since we don’t have cell service to use this function outside of the condo (or wherever we are accessing wifi). Though we requested a walking route, Google Maps took us on a route that had us end up at the intersection of two major thoroughfares neither of which had sidewalks or a safe means of crossing.  Luckily, it was a good weather day, so we just enjoyed the fact that we had a good walk. Bob continued researching other walking routes after we returned and eventually found one that got us successfully to the market on another day. It was well worth the 2 attempts. Lots of fresh produce, locally made products (food, art, jewelry), and prepared foods. The walk also took us by the Chinook Center Mall (which we had learned is Canada’s 6th busiest), so we popped in there on the way back to poke around.

Another local market that is a mini version of the Calgary Farmer’s Market is the Crossroads Market. This one is closer to the downtown area just a bit east of the river in the Inglewood/Ramsay area. Again, our first effort to see it failed. This time though we successfully found it — just not on a day that it was open (open Fri-Sun only)! We did get to see it last weekend after our walk to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. We restocked on some local produce and goodies. Awesome!

Another “market” that we have perused is the Bridgeland Market — not surprisingly in the Bridgeland area of Calgary just north of the river and a bit east of us. This was more of a specialty foods store with lots of fun local and international items. Local markets (more like mini Whole Foods or Fresh Pluses in Austin) are Bite in Inglewood and the Sunterra Market at the bottom of our condo. Both of these markets sell produce, groceries, prepared foods, and serve food and drinks in their in-store cafes. We are regulars at Sunterra.

During our housesit in New Zealand, we started noting signs that we found amusing for one reason or another. We have found a few of these in Calgary as well. See below.

Over the past week, Bob and I have logged many miles and hours exploring Calgary — much of it along the lovely Bow and Elbow River pathways.  Beth will get one more chance to intimately connect with one or more parts of the trail during a 25 mile training run (It’s going to be chilly!) on Friday morning. Here is our Ode to the Bow — mostly through photos with minimal text.

On Saturday, we walked east on the south side of the Bow (having previously explored the north side) through Inglewood to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary (where we saw one small bird, heard some others, and met up with a coed young Explorer group.  The walk was along the river but also through some residential areas before heading out of town near the sanctuary.

On Sunday, we went west (young man) against a chilly head wind on the north shore of the bow all the way to Edworthy Park before crossing over to the south side for the walk back.  As some of the trail was closed, we ended up detouring onto the Douglas Fir Trail, which was open, but took us up into the hills along the footpath which was still ice and snow covered in parts.  However, it brought us back to a railroad crossing where Beth had run to on her first long run of the trip.  We continue to be pleasantly surprised by the number of people hiking, biking, and running on the trail.  Most of the runners wearing a lot less clothes than me when I head out!

 

Our next blog will wrap up Calgary with more on our feline friends, gastrointestinal finds, and some fun signs.

We are still loving the high-rise condo life — the views from this place are a nice way to wake up, drink coffee and read the local paper (in the am) and watch the lights in the evening.  We’ll be here until March 18 at which point we’ll be off to explore Edmonton, Jasper and Canmore via (rental) car.  But, before that happens, we have been busy exploring Calgary.

Trails, trails, trails. The Bow River is the main waterway through Calgary and the city was founded on the confluence of that river and the Elbow River. Along the rivers are tons of trails that we are enjoying exploring and running on. A lady told us there were over 300 kilometers (186 miles) of trails in the city. It is not even peak season, and the trails are active with walkers, runners, and bikers.  There are many great views and public art to look at. We think any city is enhanced with a good trail system!

Neighborhoods.  We have been hoofing it all over town to explore various neighborhoods — so far in addition to the greater downtown area, we have poked around the Inglewood and Ramsay neighborhoods to the East, Bridgeland, Kensington, and Nose Hill, and U of Calgary areas to the North, and the Mission area and 17th Avenue areas to the South and West.  All very cute with a good mix of residential and retail.

Flame out. We are not big hockey fans but when in Rome…. So, we went to a hockey match the other night in the Scotiabank Saddledome (a 10 minute walk away). It was a fine facility and very iconic, but we have heard talk of the possible building of a new stadium. While we enjoyed our cheap seats and watching the match, the Calgary Flames ultimately lost to the San Jose Sharks in OT.  The Flames are not having a great season, but they still drew a good-sized crowd with nearly all of the attendees in Flames jerseys.  Prices were reasonable for a sporting event with beers costing C$9 for 18oz (US$6.75).

Fort Calgary. This fort is located at the intersection of the Bow and Elbow rivers–near the location of the original fort which marked the founding of Calgary.  The fort was established by the North West Mounted Police (under the direction of Lt. Gen. James McCleod) in 1875. Later the CPR, Canadian Pacific Railway, would buy the land and build the train line into town which ensured the city’s growth. The Fort is now a museum and interpretive center with some nice videos and exhibits that explain the history of the city.

Poutine. I started loving a dish called poutine when Beth and I first visited Montreal a few years ago. It is a nutritional power house of French fries covered with gravy and then topped with melted cheese curds. Beth googled “best Calgary poutine” before we left Austin, and one of the top restaurants cited was Brasserie Kensington, so for Christmas, she bought me a gift certificate to the restaurant as a gift. We had a great time at the restaurant on Saturday night!  The food was good, and we sat at the bar overlooking the kitchen, so we got to watch all the action and talk with with the chef.  We also struck up a conversation with a couple next to us when we noticed their baby was wrapped in a Dallas Cowboy blanket.  The husband was originally from Iran, but had lived for a number of years in the Dallas area and still has family there.  She was originally from the Quebec area, but they all live in Calgary now.

That’s all I have for now — hope you are enjoying your own adventures!

I can’t believe Bob and I have only been here a little more than a week, as it already feels like home!  The condo is great — awesome, central location with great views.  Bob was always the high-rise guy, but I’m beginning to get persuaded – especially when you live over a market, wine store, and coffee shop.  We also are caring for some great cats.  Squeak, is female, inky black, and actually squeaks rather than meows.  She is her own individual, and you definitely play by her rules.  She takes medicine every other day which was a bit of an effort the first couple of times, but we have managed as she is beginning to accept us.  Purrcy is a ginger-colored male.  He is more outwardly affectionate and likes his tummy rubs.

This week was interesting in terms of weather and health.  Wednesday was pretty chilly and threatened rain all day, so we took advantage of the iffy weather to explore Calgary’s extensive indoor skywalk system, called +15.  This walkway links a number of buildings across the downtown area allowing the public to walk for miles regardless of the weather.  We saw a number of workers logging some miles over their lunch break.

Bob started feeling a bit under the weather earlier in the week but really felt bad Wednesday evening and all- day Thursday.  So, I left him to rest on Thursday and headed out to capture some good views of Calgary from atop Nose Hill and the check out some of the University of Calgary.  It was quite an adventure.  It was close to a 5 mile walk to Nose Hill, but the real effort was trying to find how to get into the park (via the parking lot of the Calgary Winter Club).  I thought the views were worth the effort.

After Nose Hill, I attempted to find the UnIversity of Calgary with a fairly user-unfriendly (unless you already know the area) map.  I was most interested in finding the Olympic Oval (speed skating rink) from the Calgary Olympic Games.  After way too much meandering on my own, I found the rink after asking directions from 3 different people.  After all that, I caught the rail line back into town, so Bob and I could take advantage of the free museum night at the Glenbow Museum where we got to see Canadian Art, Asian Art, and exhibits on important Canadiens.

Bob was feeling better by Friday (even after watching most of the 1,000th GOP debate this time featuring an unnecessary back and forth about hand size, etc), so after a good breakfast at a local deli suggested by homeowners we explored the 17th Ave entertainment district, the historic Loughheed House, and bought tickets for Monday night’s Calgary a Flames game.

Saturday I logged a 22 mile run along the Elbow and Bow River Trails in preparation for a marathon in a little over a month in Manchester.

Greetings from Calgary!  Today’s high — 43F/6C.

Almost everyone in the States that we told about coming to Calgary asked if we were going to the Stampede. We are not. It is held in July, and we will not be here then.  While it sounds like a very big, impressive event, we are finding that Calgary has much more to offer.

Calgary has a city population of over 1 million residents and is the largest city in the province of Alberta.  It has a pretty impressive, and architecturally interesting skyline and some fun public art (see below).

Another feature that I like about the City is that it is laid out in a very grid-like manner with streets running north and south and avenues east and west. There are northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest quadrants with Center Street dividing east and west and the Bow River dividing north from south.

Calgary also has lovely outdoor parks and a great network of hiking and biking options including the Bow River Pathway. This is a 30 mile network of hiking and biking trails along the Bow River that connects major parks and green areas in Calgary. Bob and I have walked just a portion of this to date (see below), but I have a 22 mile run this weekend that will allow me to see much more of it.

Today we explored one outdoor park, the Reader Rock, one indoor urban park, Devonian Gardens, and, in a nod to the Calgary Stampede, did the Art Walk on the Stampede grounds.

Reader Rock Garden is named for Mr. Reader a former long-time director of parks for the City of Calgary. The garden is on the grounds of his former house which came with the position. It also abuts a couple of large cemeteries. Mr. Reader’s former home is now a cafe (open May through January). It was a lovely stroll around the grounds though we had to watch our footing a bit on the stone steps as they are still a bit ice and snow covered.

The Reader Rock garden lies just to the south of Stampede Park, home of the Calgary Stampede (For my fellow Texans I find Calgary quite reminiscent of Ft. Worth.). We explored the grounds, outside of the buildings, to view the artwork — everything from sculptures to murals to carved stone and metalwork. Each piece depicting some aspect of the Stampede and it’s history. I don’t know if we’ll ever get back for the Stampede, but the grounds are very close to the Saddledome where the Calgary Flames play, and we are hoping to get to one of their games before we leave.

The indoor park, the Devonian Gardens, is a lovely garden oasis in The Core, Calgary’s downtown mall. When you first enter them on the third floor, you almost immediately relax due to the quieter ambiance and gorgeous greenery. The larger portion of the gardens is on the fourth floor and the various green spaces and ponds (along with a live piano player) eventually give way to a children’s play area and food court.

Bob and I have landed in Calgary to officially begin our 12 month adventure! It feels great. We met the human couple we are sitting for yesterday afternoon and spent about an hour with them getting acquainted with the particulars of their condo (23rd floor unit in downtown high rise) and meeting their cats — Squeak (female) and Purrcy (male). We’ll share more about our Canadian adventures and the AWESOME hike and bike path along the Bow and Elbow Rivers in our next blogs.

This blog is to recognize — once again — the many friends and family who helped facilitate this little adventure. Bob and I had lovely send-offs from Austin with farewell breakfasts, lunches, and happy hours with friends. We even had a strong 35 mph wind at our back pushing us out of Texas, so I guess the state was ready to see us off. To the extent that we can express our thanks (and at risk of forgetting people), please see below —

• Thanks to Virginia E. For one last lunch at Magnolia Cafe. I will miss our “Here’s How the World Should be Run” talks, but I hope that we can pick up where we left off when I return. I am certain that the world will need our sage advice even more in a year’s time.
• Thanks to the best group of women that I know — the three Ss and a J — Sally, Sandy, Stacy, and Jane for a great happy hour (Wink, Wink) and some fun Texas mementos — already put to use (see below).

• Many thanks to the downtown Trader Joe’s team for rehiring Bob and putting up with his jokes.
• A shout out to Bob A for providing us space to store our touring bikes and cedar chest until our storage room at the condo is rehabbed for use.
• A shout out to our neighbor Bud and Madelyn for helping to load and haul the aforementioned items to Bob As’ and also for offering some garage space for our remaining items until the completed rehab of our storage units.
• Thanks to our niece Amanda for taking time off work to meet us for coffee at a great coffee and chocolate shop in Wichita on our way north. It was a great visit and helped to provide a much-needed break on a long driving day.

• Thanks also to Shelli & John for being the usual awesome hosts — great room, great food, fun cocktails. Also a Big thanks for noticing that I had left my brand new waterproof hiking shoes at their house in time for us to turn and head back before going onto Des Moines.

• In Des Moines, our nephew Zack provided great lodging and munchies and continued to tolerate his uncle’s jokes and harassment as did friends Picker, Doug, and Steph while watching the UT men’s basketball team lose big to Baylor.
• There really aren’t enough words to thank Bob’s sister Cheryl and husband Jody for all that they did, and are doing, for us. In addition to hosting and feeding us for 2 nights (along with joke tolerance referenced above), they are keeping the remainder of our belongings (mostly Beth’s clothes and our car) and getting our mail while we’re away.  Jody also drove us 3 hours to Iowa City (and then back) to rendezvous with Beth’s sister for transport to Illinois and Wisconsin.
• Before heading out of Iowa, we had a great visit with Bob’s parents. They treated us to lunch, and Mrs. Peck gave Beth a great new maroon sweatshirt that has already come handy. Warmth is good!

• Hugs to my sister Brenda for being a great hostess!! She should work for the Rockford tourism bureau because she always takes us to the yummiest places to eat and acquaints us with the best hiking/biking/running possibilities. Knowing her sister’s lack of directionality, she even drew me a map to the nearby bike path, through the jog through a neighborhood, and back onto a larger, longer path with cool artwork in and along the river. She provided us a travel gift set — collapsible, reusable shopping bags, hand warmers, and adult coloring books with colored pencils. I now have my creative outlet since I couldn’t bring my big cross stitch project. The time there allowed us a visit to Janesville to see my mom and aunt, uncle, and cousin as well as run errands to finalize travel plans before our flight to Calgary.

NOTE:  Apologies to all who with whom we neglected to get a photo.  We need to become more photo obsessed.

I always thought I was such an independent little thing, but the older I get the more I realize how any success I’ve had has been the effort of a pretty amazing “village.” Thanks and love to all our friends and family!

Our Kifisia House Sit has ended. It’s been unique (as they all are) and is ended a bit uniquely as well. First, the new part of this house sit for us has been working with a puppy. She (still unnamed) is a charmer if you aren’t amused and taken in with this sweet little creature, there just isn’t enough human blood in you. That being said, she takes more work in terms of consistent activities, ensuring she doesn’t pee when and where you don’t want her too, and watching the interactions with the other pets who are still adjusting to the new inhabitant of “their” territory. We have been retrained in puppy training — so who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?

Second, we transitioned the care of the home and pets not back to the home owners as expected but to another house sitting couple. It is, however, for a very happy reason. The home owners, who are doing a house sit in the UK, have decided to get a marriage license there, and the required paperwork, etc. has them extending their stay.  Since we couldn’t easily (nor affordably) change our flight, they contacted another couple, already in Greece, to stay from Sunday night (1/31) until they return on Tuesday.

In terms of recent non-pet related activities we have continued to walk a bit around the local area and finally feel like we are getting a good sense of how to get around (no parallel streets here) just in time to head home. . .

Also, Beth did an 18 mile run last Friday to continue her marathon training. (Side note: 18 mile run done on treadmill at gym so Beth wasn’t forever lost in Kifisia and/or hit by a car on a “sidewalk” or street. No idea what the locals at the gym thought. She did put her big girl pants on Sunday morning, however, to beat most traffic and do an hour run around the neighborhood and down to the metro and back, so she can officially say she ran in Greece.)

The night of the long run, we went out for seafood which we hadn’t yet had (lots of chicken and pork for meat eaters).  We found a cute restaurant not too far from the house and had a lovely dinner AND got to hear some Greek folk music which Beth had been interested in doing.  We had wine with dinner, but it was served in a different manner than we have previously experienced. The waiter encouraged us to get a 1/2 “kilo” of wine. We learned that this is 500 ml which is less than a bottle (750 ml). The wine was served in a small carafe and then poured into glasses which seemed to be a tad larger than a shot glass. It all worked fine and seemed like a great way to control how much you drink. The cost of the 1/2 kilo (and this was good wine) was 3€ (about $3 since the exchange rate between the euro and American $ is pretty close). Bob ended up buying one more glass (still the small size), and it was .60€. Amazing!

For the seafood, I had a great piece of grilled octopus, and Bob got to select his fish to be grilled and filleted (but served with the head on).  Unfortunately, even with the small amount of wine we had, neither of us managed to see the dressing for the fish which was served in a separate dish so he didn’t really get the full experience of what his dish was suppose to taste like.

The Greek folk music was also good. There were 3 individuals — 2 men and a woman — who started singing about 9:30. They sat on stools on a raised platform in the corner. One gentlman played a guitar and the other a mandolin. The female just seemed to have a handheld microphone, so we thought for sure she was going to sing. However, when they started playing she continued to hold the mike in her lap and then we saw her start to shake what looked to be a smooth stone near the mike — either drawing it away from the mike or moving it up and down.

 

We are interrupting our normally-scheduled (well maybe not really that scheduled) blogs about Greece to share some sad news. Bob and I learned the other day about the passing of our (at least for a short time) beloved Jess. She was one of the dogs that we cared for in New Plymouth, New Zealand while her human parents were away. She was older and having some troubles with arthritis while we were there, but nothing too severe. However, her issues apparently became steadily worse until she was in quite a lot of pain. Her human parents and canine companion, Baz, are missing their beloved Jessie Lou, and Bob and I were saddened to learn of her death. She was a very special dog. The following is from our blog last fall as we were getting ready to end our stay in New Plymouth —

And we will definitely miss the beautiful dogs. Jess is the sweetest girl ever. She is impossible not to like. She loves to eat and likes to have her belly rubbed. She doesn’t get around as well as Baz due to her age, but she likes to try to hang with him as much as possible — joining in on barking at the neighborhood cat and starting out her walks with her version of a jog.

We miss you Jess — you were a very special part of our New Plymouth experience last fall and a very lovely soul!