Victoria to Salmon Arm, Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Issac

Our daughter purchased this darling Cavalier King Charles spaniel three weeks previously that we had picked up in Rocky Mountain House and then brought to Victoria where she's presently residing. Unfortunately, Sir Isaac turned out to be very needy and our daughter didn't want to leave him in the apartment for long periods of time when she had to go to work and meet her prof at the university. So, we returned with Isaac to Slave Lake for a couple of weeks until he could get his 12 week shots and thereby be eligible for doggy daycare.

Two and a half weeks later, we get into the car on Friday at 5:30 after Nicola has substituted for the week and I'd been substituting the previous three days. We hook up the trailer and drive until about 1:00 a.m. by which time we've reached Valemount. We find a campsite next to a local golf course, eat dinner, sleep and are on our way by 7:30 a.m. B.C. time so we've been given an extra hour.

We spend the weekend delivering the puppy, visiting with our daughter, walking the local dog-friendly beaches and barely missing the Canada Day fireworks. Oh well. We're up early on Wednesday and returning to Slave Lake via Invermere and Calgary. Our first destination will be Salmon Arm, As I'm driving the stretch from Kamloops to Salmon Arm, Nicola emails the the assistant principal at the school where she was subbing the previous week, she's making suggestions about ways that he can improve policies at the school.

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Then she discovers that she's had 8000 views on Google Maps which inspires her to write more. She tells me that most of her ratings are either 5 or 1 star. Her most popular is a review of the Pearson Airport in Toronto which she said was an embarrassment to Canada for those arriving in the country at the international terminal. It was terrible. Everyone was on edge, even the security guards who were yelling at the passengers like they were children.

We found a campsite at Herald Provincial Park on the shores of Shuswap Lake not far out of Salmon Arm. Number 8 campsite is on the edge of a ravine. We sat in our chairs and drank Nicola's most recent cocktail concoction plus snacked on cheese and crackers plus smoked salmon before dinner. Thirty or forty metres below, on the trail through the ravine, march fifteen or twenty kids singing camp songs  they've must have learned together at some point.

"I'm glad I didn't have to go to summer camp," Nicola remarks. "We're lucky, both our dads were teachers and so we didn't have to."

"I don't know if it would have been that bad," I say.

"I'd have hated it," she says.

Nicola talks on the phone with our daughter about how the day's gone with Isaac and then responds to a question from her friend Jamie who wondered if we'd cried after leaving Isaac in Victoria. She said no. We'd miss the little puppy but we didn't cry. He seems to be doing well. A pampered dog to say the least. Elizabeth will wonder if she's doing enough which will probably be too much.

Drinks and hor d'oeuvres