Sunny Vancouver

We got moved to Vancouver yesterday. We arrived at the WalMart in Surrey about 3 in the afternoon, found a quiet parking spot and set out to do some shopping and eat out at one of the Chinese restaurants we could see across the street. Before we did that we thought maybe we should read the one of the big signs we could see on the lamp posts in the parking lot. Sure enough, the signs told us our money wasn't welcome in Surrey. There's a few communities that have bowed to pressure from their local campgrounds and enacted anti-overnight parking regulations. Apparently Surrey is one of them. That was an expensive move on their part.


So far Marilyn has bought Kerri's wedding present in Vancouver and Capilano RV has received an extra night's rent from us. Surrey is out the wedding present and a restaurant meal and we'll make a point of avoiding the place in the future as well. These small minded councillors just don't get it. RVers don't want to wander around looking for a campground when they just plan to spend the night. We'll go where our money is welcome. Our house has wheels under it which makes it real easy to move on when we don't feel welcome.


We went through some PDP (pretty darn pretty) countryside along the way but I think it will be a long time before we come across on #3 highway again. Like long enough for me to forget some of the hairpin curves and 9% grades that go on forever. I couldn't help thinking "what is going to happen here if the Jake brake ever decides to quit?" Fortunately it never did. We've got a lot of weight to stop if we ever had to depend on just the service brakes to come down a mountain. I guess trucks did it before they invented compression brakes but that's also why they have those runaway lanes and I don't want to experience one of them either.

Yesterday after we arrived we went over to Granville Island to get some clams which I then cooked up in white wine with tomatos and onions to make a linguine sauce. It would have been a lot better if I had used 1/4 of the jalapeño instead of 1/2. It was pretty hot. We may not get a chance to do it again because it sounds like our every minute is planned going forward but I'm going to watch for a chance.

On the way back from the market we were stuck in traffic on Howe Street. I looked over at the car next to us and thought "that looks like Kerri-Lynne" (the wedding girl) but then I thought "don't be silly - you just think that because you are out here for the wedding." So I looked away and then looked back and it still looked like her so I said something to Marilyn. It was her. We visited for about 1/2 a block and then their lane moved ahead - it always works that way - whatever lane I'm in is never the one that moves ahead.

This week has been very relaxing. Even allowing for the times we were leading a 10 vehicle convoy down a 9% grade and wondering if the Jake was going to hold, it has been a good week. I was so busy for the last month that I had just closed out all my stock positions, which in hindsight was probably the best thing to do anyway. I spent Sunday and Monday catching up on my reading and then bought puts on five different companies. On Tuesday the market tanked and its got worse as the week goes on. Life is good. I've got until January to exercise my puts but it doesn't look like I will need anywhere near that long.


Time to go get shaved so we can go somewhere fancy for supper. I try to avoid shaving more than once a month - its one of the major perqs of our new lifestyle. However I am afraid that I will have to burn up a couple of month's worth of shaving over the next few days. The sacrifices I make!!!