WE VISIT GABRIOLA ISLAND

On Sunday before Richard and Georgia headed home to Victoria, we took a short walk along the Englishman River area known as Top Bridge Regional Park.  This was the location of the first vehicle bridge across the river many years ago.  The regional district has installed a pedestrian bridge as part of their regional park making the whole area more accessible.

Yesterday, Aileen and I went to Courtenay where I bought a 32 inch flat screen TV.  Why did I do that, when we don’t even watch TV, you ask.  I would like to be able to do photo presentations with a larger screen.  I had looked at this particular model last week and after researching, found it was the top rated by Consumer  Reports last year for Canadian models.  When I went there yesterday to actually buy it, the price was marked down $70!  Now comes the fun of trying to make it fit in the motor home.  The old TV was a much smaller screen and the quality was terrible.  Even DVDs didn’t play well.  There is lots of head scratching going on here now trying to come up with a solution that will enable access to the large area left empty from removing the old style TV as well as mounting this new one securely.  We enjoyed lunch at the Union Street Grill and Grotto where they are very good at doing gluten free meals.  Later we went over to Comox to visit my Aunt Isabelle.  She is 86 or 87, I think, and in good shape except for some memory issues.  She’s still very cheerful and living on her own.

Today we took a trip over to an adjoining island, Gabriola.  We were last there in September 2010 and wanted to more thoroughly explore it.  We took some real estate listings along to check out and most were rejected out of hand.  It seems pretty popular to bury your house in the trees over there which doesn’t work for someone like me who craves light.  I think there are quite strong regulations regarding tree removal on most of the gulf islands.  We had a fairly decent day weather wise and got to eat our picnic lunch outside.  We did bundle up well though.   We took the 9:30 sailing over from Nanaimo and the 3:25 return so we made it home in time for supper.  We had taken enough food to do for supper if we decided to stay til the 5:30 boat.

These two shots are along Englishman River

Our car this morning

There ferry to Gabriola in Nanaimo Harbour

Leaving Nanaimo

A lighthouse off Gabriola.  The mountains looming in the background are north of Vancouver

An Arbutus Tree with the lighthouse in the distance