#152 Nomad Diary. 16-22 September 2023. Fly Portland, Maine to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Rental Car in Vancouver. Airbnb in West Vancouver.
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| Darrell and Quinn with His Stuffie Green Dinosaur Named Chomp in a Freeport, Maine Shoe Store |
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| Sunset Over Lake at Portland, Maine Saturday. 16. We did a tough 40 minute exercise routine this morning. Had our normal morning breakfast and visited some before getting busy looking for stays in New Zealand for November and December. More in Nomad Notes below. It’s been overcast and cool and windy today. The hurricane weather seems to be farther out at sea and passing by Portland easily. Sunday. 17. We walked 2-plus miles to church this morning. We enjoyed the walk and stopped along the way for a pastry and coffee. At church we learned that Marsha had been in the hospital all week. She is getting better and is likely to go home today. Her husband Tom was there and preached an encouraging lesson on Psalms 3. After worship we went to lunch with Patrick and Gemma. We enjoyed hearing about their recent trip to the Philippines where Gemma emigrated from about 30 years ago to marry Patrick. After lunch they drove us back to our kid’s house and we said our good-byes. We likely will not be back to Portland, Maine since our kids are moving with Jeremy’s job. We have spent 6 weeks total here this year, and we are so thankful to have met with these christians and been encouraged by them! Later in the afternoon Andrea wanted to drive up to LLBean in Freeport and shop for shoes. We went mostly to watch Quinn. We also enjoyed visiting during our ride. |
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| View Near the Hospital in Portland, Maine |
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| Quinn Thinking While Playing Cars |
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| Grandson Quinn and My Dad Richard Greeson about 1938-39. Both age 3. |
Monday. 18. Today I got to take Quinn to his daycare school and pick him up too. Darrell and I shopped properties and stays for our New Zealand trip. We did this most of the day since it was a rainy day. Darrell adds each of our stays onto a spreadsheet where he keeps track of contract details, and costs. He has been looking at cars for sale in New Zealand and getting more familiar with the process of being a long term visitor to the island and buying and selling a car while there. By the end of our day, we planned out most of our November and December stays, except for a two night stay in Wellington and our ferry ticket from North Island to South Island. I did a grocery run today and I made dinner of salmon patties, broccoli, rice and cookies for dessert. Tate’s brand cookies for gluten free are the absolute best! They are on the regular cookie aisle, not the gluten free aisle! We have a plan for tacos on Tuesday night.
Tuesday. 19. I did the Quinn school run again! He loves to go to school, and he gives me sweet hugs! So it’s easy to love this job! It’s a sunny day and Darrell and I walk to the Holy Donut for a really great donut! We keep on walking on this beautiful day through town. We had lunch during our long walk at Bahn Appetite. They were very good Bahn Mi sandwiches. We stop by Trader Joe’s grocery and get a few items. We get some food for our long plane trip tomorrow. Crackers, sliced cheese and salami. We make tacos for dinner. On our last night here, I feel scared and unfamiliar with some things. It comes in waves. I pray. I focus and calm my breathing. I sleep. By morning I am feeling good.
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| Newark, New Jersey from the Airplane |
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| Apartment Stay in Vancouver Wednesday. 20. Today we have our morning routine of exercise and breakfast. We finish packing. We each have one large suitcase and one backpack. We visit a bit with Andrea and Quinn. Andrea takes Quinn to school and then comes back and takes us to the airport around 9:30 am. Our flight leaves by 11:30. |
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| Sunset at West Vancouver Beach |
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| Inside Our Airbnb |
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| Kitchen in Our Airbnb Thursday. 21. I had a moment while sleeping where I think I’m in Portland and then I remember that I am in Vancouver. We woke up around 5am local time. We get up and do our morning exercises. Then we go out to the 24 hour pastry restaurant a block from our apartment. We sit and have pastry and coffee. It’s a nice place! I buy a loaf of walnut cranberry sourdough to take with us. Back at our apartment we call Darrell’s mom and talk for almost an hour. Then we get our things together and take the elevator down to check out and walk a couple miles to the car rental place. It’s a pretty day and we feel like walking. We get there and get our car. Then we drive back to our apartment and get our luggage they are holding for us. Then we take off to West Vancouver over Lion’s Gate Bridge. It’s only 15 minutes over there with traffic. We find a cafe and have lunch before driving up the coast and enjoying the scenery for a few hours. We also did some grocery shopping so we are ready to arrive at our airbnb by 3pm. We get to our airbnb in West Vancouver high on a mountainside. It’s in a neighborhood called British Properties. It’s got a lot of very nice homes that love having the view of the ocean and Vancouver in the distance. We arrive and move in. Later we go out to a Thai place for lunch. In the same block with this Thai place there is a restaurant for Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean! They’ve all been here for generations. There were 3 generations working at the Thai place we ate at. The food was very good and the place was understated and homey. |
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| The Start of Our 8 Mile Plus Hike |
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| Looking at the River |
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| Refreshed at Nando's |
Friday. 22. We plotted a hike from our airbnb to the dam and then to a coffee shop and then to a free fish hatchery. We enjoyed the walk through beautiful woods and well maintained pathways. Most of our way was shaded and there were mountains and rivers to see. Once we accomplished getting to the salmon hatchery we decided to walk down the mountain to town and eat lunch by 1:30. We ate some peri-peri chicken at a nice chain called Nando’s. I had a side of turmeric cauliflower! After lunch we got a bus to ride back up the mountain to our neighborhood. At the bus stop we met a Ukranian refugee with his teen daughter. We talked some as they were quite nice and been reestablishing their life here with the war in their home country. We had a quiet evening at ‘home’ and slept well.
Nomad Notes. Many people ask us how far out we make plans and book stays. This answer has varied from a year, to 6 months, down to a month, a week and on the day. Our time line travel pre-purchases really depend on the length of our stay, where we are going, how popular it is and if it is in-season or not. For our upcoming New Zealand trip we booked our cruises to get there and back several months ago. For the last 3-6 months Darrell has been tracking house sits, and we have put 3 sits, including a month long one,onto our calendar during our 4 month stay in New Zealand. One of our house sits covers Christmas. To get there we have to take a ferry from the South Island to the North Island just a few days before Christmas. We discovered that this is a high traffic crossing time, and we booked our passage today. We have been considering and learning about the ferry crossing for the last week. Now we are six weeks from arriving into Auckland via cruise ship. We spent considerable time discussing our ideas about our arrival and selecting a place to stay when we get off the ship. Once we got that started, Darrell began to expand on his earlier ideas for where we are going when we leave Auckland. We want to go to the South Island and spend several weeks there until we bring the ferry back to the North Island the week of Christmas. He could focus on the South Island most of yesterday and today. He made a driving plan by looking at where we want to go to church on Sundays, looking at driving tour suggestions, and seeing how long the driving is between destinations. He came up with an extensive South Island road trip. Most of the time we will stay two nights in one place, and a few of stays are either one night or three nights. Then we began to look at stays along the driving route with just 3 hours or less per day of driving. I look at airbnb’s while Darrell looks at booking.com. We come up with our favorite places and then pick between what we have found. Today we have booked several stays one, two and three nights at a variety of places. It’s getting pretty exciting! Our stays are ranging from $70-90 USD per night and some include full kitchens and a washing machine.
This South Island road trip that Darrell is planning is on the go, seeing a lot as we drive with short stays. It’s busy but we both think that it will be doable. It is a go-go itinerary. Once we get to our month-long pet sit in January, I am curious if we can sit still or even if we will want to! lol!
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