Eric and Monique were moving into an unfurnished apartment in Kelowna from the furnished one that they started out with in the fall. The "new" apartment is bigger, cheaper and much closer to school and work for both of them. Altogether much better. But they needed their furniture, which was taking up space in our basement. Needless to say, we were quite happy to get it out of our basement, which meant we had to get it to Kelowna. We rented a cargo van from Budget, loaded up and took off for Kelowna.
Pix are sort of in reverse order. Here we are starting with pix I took when we left Peachland. The lake was like a mirror and the reflection was perfect.
We visited Joe's nephew Pat and his family in Kelowna. Pat and Monica have undertaken the very ambitious project of building their own home. This is year four - but it's getting there and will be very nice when it's all done. In this pix there is Christopher, Monique, and Pat in the back and Hillary and Mitchel (aka Mr. Know it All!) in the front.
My Mom is 80 and has played piano for most of her life. She has an ARCT, which is like a music degree, from the Toronto Conservatory. She taught piano for years, and years, and years and has some very interesting experiences to share about her early years travelling by bus and train in rural Alberta to teach music. She has played organ for church choirs, lead choirs and accompanied them - all at once. She has formed, lead, and accompanied community choirs for fun and with them has raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity. I think sometimes she feels that she hasn't accomplished much in her life, but I think she's actually quite remarkable.
I realized that even though it is something she has always done, I don't have a picture of her doing it. So on this trip I took some pix of her playing her baby grand. She's had this piano since Ottawa days - so probably 40+ years. It is her pride and joy. I asked her what she was playing - she said "Beethoven's Opus 13, named Sonate Pathetique." I hope Dad has some pix of Mom playing over the years.
Monique and Eric.
Jack and Elsie.
Joe and Mary.I took the up-coming pix on the way home. Same mountains we went through in the fall (see Sept road trip posts) but with spring weather. So still some snow. It was mostly overcast so there is some interesting fog and cloud. Mountains are always interesting because the weather is constantly changing. Driving can be quite treacherous so this is probably about the earliest we would ever venture driving in the mountains.
I took a number of pix of these tunnels in the fall, but wanted to show why they are built in the first place. The snow piles to the right are actually the avalanche snow that the tunnel protects the highway from. That snow has fallen down the mountain and landed on the top of the tunnel.
Here is an avalanche track.
More avalanche tracks.
There are springs/creeks in summer, ice falls in winter.
The white bald spots are clear cuts.
This is Golden, BC.
Edge of Golden.
Kicking Horse Pass.
They've done a lot of work on this road widening and straightening. As I pointed out in the Sept post, this stretch of road used to be extremely dangerous even in the best driving conditions.
Still working on the road - here is the construction equipment.
Interesting fog/cloud.
Near Field, BC. Note the train on the far side of the river.
The ice/snow on the river was still quite thick - even in late April.
Animal overpass.
Exshaw - mining for limestone is the cause of the bare rock face here.
Out of the mountains and close to home now.
Bow River near home.If you've seen the September road trip pix and these - you should have seen many mountain pix in many weather situations. We'll be leaving tomorrow for our next trip - but taking a different route this time so will be able to get some "new" mountain shots!
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