Rainy Day Musings

   If you've been following our adventures you'll know we haven't seen rain since May 30. Dry, drier, driest. When we arrived in Surrey, BC we found this normally damp area hadn't seen rain in a month. Well, the spell was broken yesterday and we marveled at water falling from the sky. "What is this?", we said as we stared in awe out the window. Penny took it as a sign that the two months' worth of dirt the car has accumulated should be washed off so she took her umbrella and a rag and off she went. Rain again today so it's time to catch up.

  It's going on a week since we arrived and we've spent most of that time shopping for new clothes, getting the car fixed, getting to know Makita and the neighbourhood, etc. It's not like we've been doing nothing, just not much that was noteworthy.

  It turns out Makita is not the untrained dog we were led to expect. She's very intelligent and remembers a lot of the "failed" training the owners told us about. It took me two days before I had her sitting before crossing the road and going on runs with me in a very well-mannered fashion. Now, she's best buddies with Penny and I and, if it wasn't for amount of fur she sheds, I'd happily get a Bernese like her.

  On Friday we got together with David (Penny's brother) and Michele, whom we hadn't seen since they moved west three years ago. Penny and Michele went clothes shopping for the afternoon and we all had dinner when the stores were emptied. It was nice to see them again and I'm sure we'll visit a few times before we move on next month.

  As my kids will tell you I've always thought it would be cool to go to Walla Walla, WA and visit the Wal-Mart. I mean, who doesn't want to say they went to the Walla Walla Wal-Mart? Sad to say, Walla Walla was about 250 miles out of our way so that will have to remain a dream. When I was grocery shopping for Friday night's dinner I did happen upon this:

That's as close as I'll get this time around 😏.

  As part of our neighbourhood exploration we drove around White Rock and Surrey Saturday, checking out the local beaches. Crescent Beach looks like a nice spot to hang out, do some hiking, etc. and we'll explore that further when the weather improves. We did manage to have The World's Best Gelato there although they couldn't satisfy my craving for a corn dog. Bastards.

  Sunday was the date I'd long ago circled on the calendar -- the Blue Jays game in Seattle. We, along with about 30,000 other Canadians, flooded downtown Seattle to cheer on our heroes. They'd lost the first two games of the series Friday and Saturday so they were in desperate need of our support.

  With two-thirds of the ballpark wearing Blue Jay Blue the thunderous roar that accompanied their seventh inning rally sent chills through us. We'd experienced something close to this last year when we visited Pittsburgh with 10,000 other Toronto fans but this was something else. It was like being in Toronto... but not. I'm sure the Mariners' fans hate us for taking over their ballpark but I'll bet they like the money we spend there, just the same.

  Regarding the ballpark itself, in a word, disappointing. Architecturally, it's impressive in a sort of steampunk kind of way, all iron and rivets.

  It just seems like they shoehorned too many seats into it. The concourses were so tight it was near impossible to move at times and there was little room for food concessions, forcing many of them to locate beyond the centre field fence making for frustratingly long treks for eats. The food was nothing to write home about either, and very expensive. Anyway, it was a fun game and I knocked another ballpark off the bucket list. In September we'll hit the ballparks in Minneapolis and Milwaukee, leaving only ten ballparks I haven't visited.

  Tomorrow, we're off to see Oppenheimer in the IMAX theatre and the beach beckons Thursday. We expect to do another food tour in Vancouver and I'm sure we'll come up with lots of other interesting things to occupy us here on Canada's Left Coast. TTFN 😎.