How Squatters Make Pie

Our lovely friend who is renting us the house has been calling us squatters- for fun of course- mostly because we have limited stuff- basically what we had in the trailer.  We did visit the sea can and took out Leland's play station, Anna's two big bags of stuffies, the printer for the computer, some winter clothes and the toaster.   That's it! 
Thanksgiving weekend I am in charge of pumpkin pie for dinner with friends.  I have roasted the pumpkin, made the filling, made the pastry the oven is preheating and I go to roll out the crust.....no rolling pin.   Hmmmm- a stick?   Piece of fence post?   Piece of plumbing tubing?  A can....too short?  I know a bottle of booze!!!!  

Works like a damn I must say.   And no I didn't drink it all. 

Guess Where?

Haaaa haaaa haaa the best laid plans- foiled again- but we have managed to land back on our feet with the kindness of friends to help.  Unable to find a suitable place to rent in the Kootenays we are back near Millarville camping out in a house that friends are trying to sell  We unpacked and winterized the trailer in record time- just ahead of the frost.  There is a table and four chairs and a TV because according to Marvin "Squatters need TV"

Do you remember Flubber?

It feels like our life is like Flubber- from that crazy 90's remake where the green stuff bounces around and the more it bounces the faster it goes and there's no control really....We were in Writing on Stone ready to head across the border- plans to go to Utah and New Mexico and Texas and Arizona for six months- now that we have our feet under us- we can do this.   But Greg checks the radiator fluid and the level is down, it seems to have boiled off and spewed out the cap.  The code reader is reading lots of stuff.   We feel sick.  Two garages in Milk River refuse to even look at it. The Ford dealership there sold Greg a new cap for the radiator.  Wow.    So we come back to Okotoks Ford where our trusty friend Lyn gets it looked at.   The clutch for the fan for the coolant system is gone.  $1300 repair.  Okay.  So apparently a 2004 F250 4x4 diesel truck with only 240,000 km (when we started) is done- over- that's it.  It now has 255,000 km after spending almost $18,000 and it's not trustworthy.  In hind sight (which I hate) we should have bought a new truck before we started.  But we aren't made of money.  So frustrating!  So now are leaving Southern Alberta where it's getting cold and the campgrounds are all closing.  Not going south.  Throwing in the towel and heading to the Kootenay's to look for a cabin or house to rent for the winter.  Try to regroup- make this part of the adventure- make it fun for the kids....damn.

Hopefully the truck will get us moved somewhere....stay tuned to the future adventure of the Flubbers.

Writing-On-Stone

Petroglyph reproduced in iron at the visitor centre.

We love rocks and rock art.   On our way south to the border we decided to visit Writing on Stone Provincial Park for a few days.   It's a very cool place.  Hoodoos, valley, river and rock art.  The Blackfoot people used to visit here and record events or happenings and visit the spirits. 
The kids and I went on a tour of the archeological preserve and were able to see hundreds of rock art figures.  Mostly carved into the rocks prior to 1897.

 Great stories, and landscape and climbing and hiking and....wait for it....truck trouble.

August/September

We spent most of August and September tootling around Southern Alberta.  Visiting friends and taking down a garage and a shed.  Going fishing. 

This pike was yummy.

Jessie caught her first fish.

 

Dropping Leland off for a week of chaos at his buddy's ranch.  Taking Anna's friend fishing.  Seeing family.  Helping friends paint a house.  Taking time to help who needs help. 

Alberta again.

 

The only way we could pry ourselves off of Haida Gwaii is a promise to ourselves to come back someday.  Who knows when, but it is a very special place.  We are headed to Alberta to get the kids together with some friends before their summer vacation is over and regular school starts again.   Everywhere we stop- what about here we ask each other?  Could you live here?  What would we do?  There is some real anxiety over making the wrong decision- until we circle around to there is no wrong decision, if we don't like what we decide, then we'll change it again.  We really don't know what we're doing next, so we're doing what we're doing now- a week at a time-  that's cool.   So if for some reason you really need to know what we're doing next- just make something up- or let us know.

Being.

Camping next to the ocean- living.   Checking out creatures- living.  Running on the beach, fishing, dragging the boat through the tidal mud, swimming. Checking out boats.  Quiet, ocean air.  Saw the Milky Way and bats. 
Just being.

Tree Fort

Next stop on Moresby Island was a fresh water lake- Mosquito Lake.  The kids made a great tree fort, went swimming, made a swing- played and played. 

The quiet and the air is so rejuvenating-  can feel myself healing. 

Moresby Island

 

 

Big white was fixed for a lot of money ($10,000) pretty much our whole contingency fund.  We are still reeling, but have wheels again and headed south across to Moresby Island. 
We drove down some logging roads to a place called Gray Bay.  Beautiful beach, grey sand and the highlight.  Hermit Crabs!

Hours and hours and hours of entertainment. 

And apparently a soul sucking sea anemone.  (Anna's words)

 

 

Pure Happiness

 

 

 

 

Big White is broken.

Ah the best laid plans....Agate Beach was a paradise until Big White has a melt down.  Leland and I were coming back from town with groceries when the heater stopped working.  Greg checked the fluids and the radiator overflow was full of sludge.   To make a long story short it's going to be really really expensive-

....it all seems like paradise until there is  a broken truck and an expensive rental car, then there is the sticky damp, the phone that doesn't work, no wifi, sand in the bed, laundry that piles up, a coating of salt on everything, parts that were ordered on Friday arrive on Tuesday but don't get picked up until Wednesday- and that's by plane!  The truck is really broken- like 7-10,000 dollars broken- but we have no choice. 

Lawrence- who owns the garage is super nice- they had us over for supper yesterday.  The mechanic is a young guy who just moved here six months ago from Calgary and specializes in these engines and knows exactly how to fix it (we hope).  Greg and Leland took the rental car to find a campsite near town to move the trailer to so we could get rid of the car and just walk until the truck is fixed.  The guy at the campground lent us his truck to go get the trailer and bring it here- they want us to borrow their jeep to go to the beach if we want.  People continue to surprise us with their generosity and hospitality.   There isn't one bookstore in the whole place so we have been scrounging paperbacks and haunting the odd library (each town has one and they are open about a total of 8 hrs per week- some things are really backward here.   So at this campsite there is wifi, a pay washer and dryer and electricity for the trailer- showers- a loonie a minute and the first minute is cold.  But we can walk to town and just chill.   Breathe, chill, breathe some more.  

 

We had a marathon game of monopoly.   We are on day 7 of a broken truck.   Who knows when it will get fixed.   Just when we have a plan,  are on a roll----tada! 
Breathing, chilling, hanging.....appreciating the kindness of strangers who aren't strangers anymore. 

Agate Beach

Agate beach is on the very north end of Graham Island and on a clear day you can see Alaska.  It's rock and beach combing heaven.  

 

 

It's near north beach where we caught the crabs and also near Tow Hill. -a volcanic formation.

Leland was fascinated by the blow hole.  (When the tide is coming in it compresses and shoots through a hole in the rock)

 

Greg got surprised by the blow hole, jumped back and stepped into another hole full of water.  Those cowboy boots will dry......maybe.

 

 

Crabbing!

 

Writing by Anna coming soon.