Kimberley

 ....or "the big cry day". LOL 

After a somewhat OK night at the Days Inn in Cranbrook we got up and had the free breakfast !! Pancakes, oh boy!! Freshly made pancakes for me and bacon,eggs and potato gems for Caro. Truly wonderful in my books!

We gassed up and we paid $2.19.4 for gas. The most we have ever paid, ever!!

The trip to Kimberley was nice and we were soon with Mike, Michelle and Rachel at the hotel at the base of Kimberley ski area. 

While Rach had her nap Caro and I went downtown for an hour to see the town and give time for Mike and Michelle to prep for the wedding.

We walked around the small downtown which is pedestrian only and while we were there we listened to musicians playing for those enjoying the beautiful day we were having.

Back at the hotel we got last minute instructions from M+M re: Rachel and soon they were gone on the 1:15 shuttle out into the country side to the wedding venue.

It was obvious Rachel was not having her normal happy day and no matter what we fed her, entertained her, or where we walked her she was not happy.

By 5 PM it was time for us to get Rachel ready for the 30 minute trip out to the wedding venue location for feeding time with Michelle. Rachel was certainly upset on the way out but she calmed down once she saw Mom and Dad!

One feeding, a showing off of the baby to the wedding guests, and we were homeward bound with a contented baby..... for the first 3 kms!!

Then unhappy baby returned LOUDLY. LOL. Not much we could do for her at this point but grin and bear it!! Maybe one day she will read this post. Ha ha. 

Caro managed to get Rach to sleep by 7:45. I had a drink prepared for Caro soon after.

Addendum-Sunday morning. 

Happy,wonderful Rachel is back with us!! Yay!!

Fairmont Hot Springs Resort

 After a decent night's sleep last night in Radium we went out for breakfast in a recommended takeout place. It was busy and the food was good. 

We hiked Sinclair Creek ( we also did this hike some years ago). It is a flat walk of about two kms. total so it was a good way to start the day.

Mike phoned us from Fairmont suggesting we could meet in Invermere however the backup of cars on the highway attempting to get into Invermere for Canada Day was loooong so we cancelled that idea and drove straight to the resort.

It turned out to be a fantastic day. We started off with everybody going for lunch. Afterwards most of the group went back to their cabins to relax and  Caro and I walked around the resort to see the outflow of water from the hot springs pool. Pretty neat!

Zooming in shows people swimming in the natural ponds.

Later Hannah and Will participated in some Canada Day activities put on by the resort,getting candies and cotton candy as rewards.

Then it was off to the pool with all except Barry and Lois. I must have been out in the sun alot the last couple of days as I have a sunburned head ( yes, I know the reason why my head burns so easy LOL)

We said our "good byes" about 7:15 and were on the road to Cranbrook. The vehicle still "shudders" with hard acceleration but otherwise is OK. 

Tomorrow we will meet Mike and Michelle in Kimberley. While they attend a wedding and reception etc we are looking after Rachel (with anticipated two drives out to the wedding location for feedings). Hannah and Will are staying behind in Fairmont with Barry,Lois and Aunt Ray. We will be spending the night in the same suite as M+M tomorrow night.

Radium

 We are on a trip to BC to help out Mike and Michelle with some babysitting.

We left town about eight this morning,  first stopping at the Costco in Red Deer ( a zoo!). Caro had been doing the first shift driving today and by  Airdrie she had had enough so I took over. 

Lunch was at Canmore at Timmies. MmmMmm, love their chili!

The Escape has a funny vibration which is extremely  noticable when accelerating hard around 2000 rpm. It is worrisome however most of the time there is no problem so we will just take it easy as best we can. I believe we will end up coming back via the CrowsNest pass so as not to have to climb much in the mountains and potentially do some damage.

We were originally planning to meet Michelle and the kids at Radium Hot springs. They are on a vacation at Fairmont with Michelle's parents and sister and Michelle was planning to give her family some quiet time (while Barry and Mike were golfing) however the end result was that it was more convenient for us to meet Michelle and kids at Fairmont

They are staying right at the hot springs so we all went swimming ( and "thanks" Barry and Lois for the pool entry passes).

Once everybody was back together we had supper courtesy of Michelle's family, played with the kids for a bit and about 7:30 we headed back to Radium to our hotel. The hotel prices in Radium are much more economical than the Fairmont Resort (which only makes sense).

Mike and family are staying in two cabins at the resort here is a photo 

M and M's is the front one and the D'Angelo's is in the background.

Back Home Again

 Breakfast was at Mimo's again and we enjoyed it as always.

We walked back to the hotel, cleaned up and did our final room checks before leaving for the tube station. From Paddington station we went to Oxford Circus where we switched lines to go to Victoria train station. With the final use of our Oyster cards we were on our way via regular train to Gatwick Airport.

Our arrival time was three hours ahead of departure (as requested by Westjet) and while  Caro used her free time purchasing duty free items I used the free wi-fi to watch Utube videos etc.

We left 30 minutes late as Westjet had to remove the luggage of some checked-in people who somehow didn't make it to the plane. The flight itself was smooth and Westjet had wonderful service. I was very impressed.

Upon arrival at Toronto the Canada Customs people requested that only connecting passengers  get off immediately (due to insufficient staffing in Customs and Immigration) and the others would have to wait. Great for us!

We  cleared immigration quickly and because we had carry-on baggage only there was no waiting at the carousel so customs was the last remaining thing to do....except we had to go through security again.😒

We made it to our gate about 10 minutes before boarding started. I wonder how many people got stranded because of the delay in London?

The flight home was smooth and Vanessa picked us up at the airport and we were asleep not long afterwards.

A visit to the home of Henry and Anne

 We had a slightly later start than normal as we recovered from our walking yesterday however after a breakfast at Mimo's (our "go to" restaurant) we headed in the tube to Waterloo station. Here we got a train to Hampton Court.

In the center of the photo is the Palace of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn as seen from across the river Thames at the nearby town.

We spent four hours seeing  Tudor,William and Mary, and Georgian styles all in one palace. I was there particularly to see the Tudor things but all of it was super interesting.

Below are photo's of Henry VIII's Great Hall building and ceiling.

The workmanship is amazing.

The stained glass windows in the chapel were stunning.

The grounds are wonderful too as befitting a palace used for over 250 years.

We decided to walk a bit in the nearby town and chose to stop at a pub for a beer and cider. It was a beautiful hot day so it was nice to sit outside and enjoy our drinks while the world drove by.

We took the train back to Waterloo ( ten stops on the way!) And then got our tube from Waterloo to Paddington. It was rush hour so the train was packed with many unmasked people (including us). Time will tell if we made an error in judgement or not in regards to covid.

We have checked in for tomorrow afternoon's flight and tonight we are going out for one last supper and that will be that!

Only 14,500 steps (9.2km) today

Tubeless Tuesday

 All of our sightseeing was relatively close to us so we decided to walk everywhere, however 26,893 steps and 18.3 kms walked did tire us out a bit! The upshot is that we didn't use the tube today and wouldn't you know it, but Queen Elizabeth made a visit to "our" station this morning. Oh well we would have already used it earlier in the day anyway to head off somewhere.

We started by walking directly south through Hyde Park/Kensington Park. We stopped half way through the park at the Princess Diana Memorial fountain park. It was actually pretty neat and is not a fountain in the traditional sense.

At the far end of the park is the Prince Albert Memorial. It is beautiful.

Straight across the street is the Royal Albert Hall and we lucked out and got a tour. It lasted one hour and was really interesting to hear all about its history and to see photos of the performances ( including the Beatles).

From there we walked to Harrods Department store. Holy Batman but it is big,and HUGELY expensive!

Below is a photo of Caro at a piano worth $128,000 Canadian.

The store employee said there was no problem if Caro wanted to play it, so she did!

We walked the streets of the Chelsea district on our way to the next stop. It is a beautiful area and is very expensive going by the cars parked outside!

We got to the Victoria and Albert Museum about 4 and spent an hour there. It is a tremendous museum (and is huge) but truth be told, museum burnout is starting to occur.

Next stop was across the street at the Natural History Museum. It has some really interesting displays but time and ambition were in short supply so we saw  just saw a bit.

That is a blue whale in the photo. 

It was about 5 PM by now and Caro wanted to head back to the previous museum (the V and A) to soak her feet in the courtyard pool so that is where we headed next. The photo below is a panorama shot. That courtyard is a little bit of heaven! Wonderful!

Caro wanted to walk to the west side of Kensington Palace and we ended up walking down a street full of Embassies. We noted initially that there were signs saying No Photos Allowed which we thought was odd but it soon became apparent with all the Embassies. Of the numerous Embassies there only the Israeli and the Russian had protection (there was a cop car outside the Russian one).

We were getting pretty warn out at this point but we were soon back in our neighbourhood where we ate Italian again!

As I was about to upload this blogpost a helicopter came in very low and looked to be going to the Palace. I imagine Will and/or Kate are home now!

Great use of our Visitors Pass today

 Today was a "full" day of wonderful activities.

We started with buying breakfast at "our" breakfast restaurant and were soon on the tube to the Tower of London. Now that was a great visit. There was no line ups anywhere!

The first thing we did was get a tour with a Beefeater. He was really great and made the 45 minute tour fly by.

After the tour was completed we spent another 2 hours seeing the Crown jewels,and military equipment.

I would have taken photos of the Crown jewels but that is a BIG NO-NO.

We checked out the prison cells, torture chambers, the Ravens, and anything else that caught our attention.

After that it was the Tower Bridge which we toured as well. Below is a photo of me laying on plexi-glass with the bridge and river WAY DOWN below. I am actually taking the photograph while looking into a mirror above me.Caro was too freaked out to walk on the plexi-glass.

From there we starting walking to St.Pauls cathedral

It was getting to be mid afternoon so we sat down for a coke just to catch our breath.

About 30 minutes later we were at St.Paul's Cathedral and WOW it is pretty cool. We each had our own audio guide (free with entry ticket) so wandered around for half an hour. Once we had that completed  we decided to walk to the top of the dome. It was 528 steps to get there but it was worth it for the view of the city.

In the center of the photo above you can see the London Eye ferris wheel. That was near our next stop, so naturally we walked over!

At 6 PM we used our hop-on hop-off pass again for another 60 minutes of sightseeing ( we had pretty much seen everything by then anyway but it was a pleasant way to spend an hour).

We caught the tube up to Paddington station then went to a local restaurant for fish and chips. Yummy!

My cell shows we did 24,000 steps,walked 17.3 kilometres, and climbed the equivalent of 66 flights of stairs! Caro's Garmin says we actually climbed 77 flights if stairs- anyway it was a lot!!