Travels with The Rayman

So, here we are in Vancouver, hemmed in by the gray smoke of summer.  Haven’t had a clear day yet.  Sad.

The picture of the golf course tells the story.  That was taken at Whistler last week.  The pic below it is Hollywood types filing a movie, Carribean Blue.  The star, can’t remember his name, waved at us.  I know he was the star because Ruthie told me!!

The most interesting thing that happened to us is after Jack and Sue (friends of the Donnollys, and now ours!) arrived, we went to dinner.  While seated, a couple came in and sat down across from us.  Jack noticed that something fell out of the man’s pocket.  It was a wad of money.  Jack-be-Nimble jumped up and retrieved it and gave it to the man.  The man sent over a bottle of wine.  Nice.   Tom later reciprocated by sharing some shrimp dumplings.  And everyone may have had too much wine.  We couldn’t be rude and not drink it, now could we?

I’m experimenting with my blog and it may not work.   Okay.  It did not work.

But I digress.

Between the time that Trump threatened Kim with nuclear war and restating his position to make it even worse, we were suffering from smoke gets in your eyes syndrome.  Here’s a pic.

Yesterday, we rode the SkyTrain.  A few observations.  It is much better than Portland’s system because it is almost all elevated so it goes much faster.  Doesn’t have to worry about car cross-traffic.  And much of it sits in the freeways’ meridian.  So you can sit, ride and feel really smart for taking the train.  That’s because the freeways are clogged, adding fumes to the smoke to create a delectable toxic cocktail.

Second observation is that they made the same mistake with their parking for rapid transit users.  Not enough parking.  So people use their cars too much in lieu of the train.

Other than that’s it a dream.

Yesterday we road the False Creek ferries from one side of False Creek to the other and back several times to several different docks…that was fun and cool.  Cooler on the water and the “ferries” had roofs.  All the better to shade you with, my dear.

We agreed to meet up with the others at 12:00 at the Dr. Who (or whatever’s) Chinese Garden.  Only while riding in Ruthie called to say the plan had changed to 12:30.  Then she called again and said the garden looked disappointing so they were headed to the water.  Okay, so while riding the rail, we were perched in our seat looking at two maps while carrying on a conversation on the phone.  We were so rude.  After much hemming and hawing and saying things like, “I don’t see THAT on the map”, Tom said he would just pick us up at the Stadium train station.  Okay, then.  When we arrived, Ray and I had a myriad of ways to exit the station.  We picked one and rode the escalator down and walked toward one of the exits.  And there he was.  In all in glory.  Holding his arms in the air as though a touchdown had just been scored.  Tom.  It was him.  What were the chances?  It was a miracle.  God, we’re good.  All of us.

 

But wait, there is more.  There were 6 of us.  So, we crammed ourselves into a 5-seater SUV and drove a block and half (didn’t know the casino was that close.  Honest.)  The short trip included us passing a cop in the street.  He was distracted.  None of us had seatbelt on.  How old are we?

So, those are the highlights.