on the road again

gary comes into edmonton today and we're off to Red Deer for a weekend of music and beer/rye/gin/russian bombshells. maybe hitting the World of Wheels in calgary; although the bike area isn't as impressive as it could be, i missed the International Bike Show so this will do just fine.
made it home from Vancouver Island without a hitch; just a long layover in Calgary international. it gave me time to catch up on Cycle Canada's latest mag.
missing gramma already; i called her when i got in and had yet another good talk with her.... that's niiice....heh heh. i'm missing the wonderful weather there, the green grass, the crocuses blooming, the company, the atmosphere .... sigh. i have to make it back into the real world sometime soon i guess.
looking at finding a place to rent in Red Deer with a garage, only nothing has come up quite yet. i've got my fingers crossed, and so does my girl i'm moving in with.
mail. wow do i have mail to open. scads of it from the year i've been away. not to mention the filing and sorting to be done at the same time. all my belongings have to be moved because the girl storing them is moving. my bike has to be moved. i need my teeth cleaned. i need my contacts fitted. my negatives have to go back to the camera shop to be redone. they told me 400 exp. film would be best overseas, when in reality 200 exp. film would've been best. a lot of my pictures came out overexposed. i did get them all sorted into albums at gramma's, and i'm not sure i want to do that over again if i get them all developed a second time. such a time consuming process.
i think i'm packing an extra 5 lbs from eating at gramma's. it was to be expected though, with all that good food there! brownies and ginger ice cream ... m'mmmm! kalmata olives. tomato, avacado, and bacon sandwiches. spaghetti. oysters. red snapper. salmon. tuna. YUM!

well the weekend turned out to be a bit of a runaway ... any surprise there?! friday was victoria, saturday was nanaimo and sunday was a recooperation afternoon with the superbowl in the evening (thank god paul's clothes didn't come off). sunday's drive from nanaimo to qualicum was a bit messy; it was snowing and the roads were full of heavy slush. i guess the only road to victoria shut down a half hour after the gang headed back .... lucky them. monday was what gramma calls "an eraser day" .... made you forget altogether about the previous day. it was a bright sunny day and the snow was gone. we went to the brown property in qualicum; a 17 acre area of land that was saved from development and now holds trails throughout. we walked around for at least an hour beneath massive trees that blocked out all the sunlight. the fallen trees were decomposing and covered in lush moss; it was so beautiful there. i took a few pictures and hope that they turn out. my time with gramma is ever so precious to me ... tonight i went through the end of my laos journel, and into my northern thailand journel. i managed to get into dubai (just) before gramma said she needed to head to bed. i could see that though; i knew she was tired. she made a cake today for her sister's birthday bash this weekend. i went downtown and mailed klk's valentine's day care package and bought gold candles for the cake. i was going to make peanut brittle tonight but we forgot to get corn syrup at the supermarket yesterday. tomorrow i guess. i think i should be writing in my journel on a daily basis. or scratch the physical journel and just keep this. but then i guess all my personal thoughts wouldn't get out ... i dunno. about this book thing i dunno either. got to do some talking to gramma's sister when she comes back from tofino ..... she wrote a book about her father and i've been leafing through it. i think when i move in march i'll look into some more writing workshops. it's been a few years since i've done that and i want to.