Packin & Waitin for the Elusive VISA

LOCATION: Kelowna, British Columbia
49 53' 27.58" N 119 29' 55.11" W
Elevation: 1122 ft

Guess who is a kindergarten graduate??? Heather, me AND William! You were thinking just William weren't you? He did so well we bought him a shirt that said "I Take the Really Long Bus!"

Well, on July 4th they came and picked up the truck (that was being picked up between July 7th and 9th) for the long sail across the Atlantic. First she goes to Ingersoll, Ontario then to Halifax, Nova Scotia then boards the ATLANTIC CONCERT for a 26 day journey across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea, through the Gulf of Aden (pirate capital of the world - I hope the truck doesn't arrive with a bumper sticker that says..."I made it around the Somalian coast, and all I got was this stupid bumper sticker!"), across the Arabian sea, through the Gulf of Oman and up the Persian Gulf to our sister port city of Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Hard to believe her ETA is August 20th! (2012! - just joking)

By July 7 we had sent 1 E Box from Calgary to Dhahran containing kitchen stuff and bedding along with the kids 2 bikes. We also realized that obtaining our visas by July 9th is not going to happen so we had to make the best of it by going to the wineries of the Okanagan for 4 days with the intent of exposing our flabby white flesh to the sun and our bellies to gallons of the soon-to-be unattainable "wine".

A lot of people in this country pooh-pooh Canadian table wines. This is a pity as many fine Canadian wines appeal not only to the Canadian palate but also to the cognoscenti of Great Britain. Black Stump Bordeaux is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy, whilst a good Kelowna Syrup can rank with any of the world's best sugary wines. Château Blue, too, has won many prizes; not least for its taste, and its lingering afterburn. Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Canadian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1971 Coq du Rich Baldry, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: eight bottles of this and you're really finished. At the opening of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour. Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Peachland Pink. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is 'beware'. This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding. Another good fighting wine is Okanagan Old-and-Yellow, which is particularly heavy and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat. Quite the reverse is true of Château Chunder, which is an appellation contrôlée, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation; a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends. Real emetic fans will also go for a Vernon Muddy, and a prize winning Cuivre Reserve Château Bottled Nuit San Ogopogo, which has a bouquet like an aborigine's armpit.

Upon arrival back to Calgary we jumped into organizing for 2 moves: 1) Calgary stuff to Ontario as cottage country will be our new North American base and; 2) Calgary to Denver with our on-hand items that need to go to Saudi Arabia. The Calgary stuff has now been shipped to Ontario and we are loading the U-Haul today with our Denver stuff while we wait for the arrival of our Saudi Visas. We don't really know when they will arrive, the only thing we are certain of right now is that Mr. Muggles can has sammich.