Likalia’s Labyrinth

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Archive for category Travel

I’m Not Dead – Just Missing – Perhaps Found Now?

Aug 30

Posted by Likalia in My Life, Out & About, Photography, Travel | Comments off

Tomorrow is the last day of August, I’m a little shocked by  that fact. I don’t know what happened to the last two months. One minute I had them the next they fell behind the couch never to be seen again.

I feel like despite the fact that they went by so quickly I made good use of them. I went from June having a quiet life and nothing to blog about to having lots of blog about but no desire to sit down and do so. Funny how that works.

Here is the low down on the last two months:

In July I went to the wedding of my very good friends S&S. They were nice enough to let me tag along with them for the drive up and back to the Okanagan. Once there we enjoyed food, friends, drinks and laughs. Then we had the wedding which involved more of the same but we threw in a forest fire evacuation just to keep things interesting. In spite of the evacuation the wedding and whole trip was really great and a tonne of fun.  I ended up taking almost two full weeks off work, which was well worth it.

August had me going up and down the island a few times. Once to go pick up a futon from S&S, as they finally bought a grown up couch with the gift cards they received from the wedding, and once to go camping.

Camping was a lot of fun. It was the same crew from a couple years ago Indigo Eve, DC and myself, with the addition of Evil Monkey. (We tried to drag Bazette and Maggie too, but they couldn’t make it.) We headed down to the Lake Cowichan area and even though we couldn’t have a campfire due to the ban we had a great time. You can checkout my flickr set here (or in the widget to the right there possibly –>).

This weekend was another full weekend. Shopping in Nanaimo with Indigo Eve and Evil Monkey. Then a girls night at DC’s. Today Indigo Even, Maggie, Bazette and I hit the Fall Fair where we partook of the festivities: mini donuts, mocha frappes, zucchini races, photo booths (photos to come), Irish dancing, animals and tractors. Plus Indigo and I even got out for a bike ride, on trails with rather large logs across them. Since I am not quite that adept at mountain biking yet it required me to lift my bike over them, but it was fun and I didn’t crash into anything. :)

Basically it has been a busy and fun couple of months. September is shaping up to be just as busy and fun with more camping, a long weekend in Victoria, games night and more biking planned.

I might even try and blog about things as they happen, though I wouldn’t count on it. ;)

Hope everyone has been having as much fun as me. For now I must go to bed, because all this fun is great but I’m definitely not getting enough sleep lately.

Ciao

Let’s See

Dec 16

Posted by Likalia in My Life, Out & About, Travel | 2 Comments

Sunday night I finished driving S&S crazy (well mostly just 2nd S crazy – but he loves me anyway – I hope otherwise he’ll never let me visit S again) and Monday dawned without snow. After a nice sleep in I got up, packed up and hopped into my car for what sort of drive I had no idea.

I made it out of the driveway and to the highway with little trouble, there were a few fish tails, a couple reverses, spun tires and one diagonal crossing of a road, but in the end quite fine.

Heading out of Victoria the roads weren’t too bad, though they hadn’t been cleared really so it was kind of slow going. Had I known what the roads would be like later on, I would have savoured them.

Once I was over the Malahat and through Duncan the roads only got worse. Nanaimo up was a mixture of compacted snow and one lane tire tracks. Travelling no more than 60km an hour and being sped past by morons in trucks who figure just because the truck says 4X4 they can drive.

Finally 4 hours later I completed what is normally a 2.5 hour trip and was home.

Of course I came home to an ice box as I’d turned the heat down in my house, which I usually do when I leave for the weekend but normally am not expecting sub zero temperatures and a blizzard.

I had a good weekend though, despite the delay, I only wish I could have stayed away from work a few more days. When are holidays? Oh right, I don’t get any apart from the stats this year…*sigh* Those definitely won’t be enough, they never are.

Stuck

Dec 14

Posted by Likalia in My Life, Out & About, Travel | 1 Comment

It is Sunday night and I’m STILL in Victoria.

Why? I drove my car down here and due to snow can’t drive my car back home right now. I feel kind of stupid because there were snowfall warnings, but I assumed they would be the usual kind of warnings we have, where a few centimetres of snow falls, but it has disappeared by the time you turn around.

That was the case when I was driving down even, the flakes would hit the ground an melt, it was sticking a little to the road sides, but not enough to be concerned.

Friday night there was a light dusting of snow but again not enough to worry about and it was still raining. Saturday S and I went out to do a little shopping, the rain had stopped and most of the snow had melted. We finished up our shopping and headed home to relax, by the time the other S got back from work the snow had started falling again. Only this time – it didn’t stop. It kept going through the rest of the night, building up to a good 6 or 7 inches of snow. If you aren’t aware inches of snow on the West Coast is quite a bit. Usually our snow likes to stay up on the mountains where it is cold.

This morning I woke up to more snow and some very icy roads. Had I come down in a pick up truck, or maybe even a bigger car than mine I probably could have headed home today. As it stands though I am not about to endanger my life by trying to navigate my car back up the island over icy roads being driven by people who don’t have a clue when it comes to this type of weather.

Unfortunately this means that I will be using up another of my precious vacation days to sit around doing nothing when I should be at work. I don’t foresee work being upset that I didn’t try to kill myself and get home, but I hate missing work, I just don’t do that as much as I’d like to at times.

Of course S&S are great and don’t mind me being pathetic and deciding to stay rather than go. I’ve just watched too many people fish tailing around on the roads in the last 24 hours to really want to attempt it. Heck a couple who live up the street parked their truck on the side of the road because they couldn’t get it up the hill and walked home.

There is one of us that is really enjoying the snow though…

Snow Dog

Out Of Town

Dec 11

Posted by Likalia in My Life, Out & About, Travel | Comments off

Tomorrow I am heading to Victoria. I have a dentist appointment and plans to hang out with friends.

I’ve had it planned for a few weeks now, but suddenly I am feeling unprepared to go. Most of which is due to the fact that Christmas is looming on the horizon and I haven’t got gift organized to go with me. I’ve basically decided that this means I’ll have to make at least one more trip down before Christmas itself, though I don’t know when I’ll get the chance, unless I make it a day trip.

This weekend will be nice, getting away, hanging with friends, enjoying some wine and relaxing. Having clean teeth. :D

It also will mean a week of no running. It has just not worked out this week to get out and run, sadly I don’t see myself giving up wine and chatting to go for a jaunt around the neighbourhood. Stranger things have happened, but still…

Anyway I may or may not blog while I’m gone, so try to stay out of trouble if I don’t get back. Remember if you’re going to party you have to leave the place cleaner then when you arrived. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving

Oct 13

Posted by Likalia in Enter the Geekery, House & Home, My Life, Travel | Comments off

For those of us living here in Canada we celebrated Thanksgiving today, or in my case on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday morning Maggie picked me up and we travelled to Campbell River to load up on supplies (read= coke {to go with the rum}, chocolate and liquorice) then caught the ferry over to Quadra Island. A short jaunt across the island and we arrived at the Taku Resort. The usual suspects were waiting for us when we arrived, minus a few who sadly couldn’t be there.

After a brief stroll around the resort and marina we  began the exhausting process of relaxing. This included in no particular order: food (mostly junk – but also a great Thanksgiving type feast), alcohol, reading books, playing scrabble, trips to the hot tub, making fun of each other and general other merriment.

By Sunday afternoon Maggie and I had had far too much excitement for one weekend and departed the waterfront resort for more mundane things like family dinners. Yes that is a second turkey dinner – except this one came with a side of severe allergy attack including unstoppable sneezing and nose blowing – NOT so much fun. This had me in bed pretty early hoping that it would be gone by morning.

Sleeping in until 11am dealt with my allergy issues and I woke up capable of breathing again, a relief let me tell you. I lazed about, then at approximately 1pm I decided to check out the TV I’ve been coveting online, alas it was on sale for $200 off the regular price. An hour or so later, it was in the back of the car and on its way home.

All in all a pretty good weekend. Hope you all had a nice weekend, long or otherwise. Tomorrow it is back to the grind, but next weekend? Re-arranging my house, because it is driving me batty. :)