Vacation Things
I turned 40 yesterday; thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes. I never know how to respond to these online, especially on Facebook. I usually post a generic "thank you" post - there are often too many individual messages to respond to them all. Sometimes I reply to a handful of them semi-randomly. I still need to do that.
I'm writing this from the hotel room as I sip bad hotel coffee (I'm going to get some Starbucks later, but I haven't got dressed yet and it's not even 8am yet). This is the first week-long vacation I've taken in a while. I think the last time was 2 years ago, for my wedding? Possibly? And the last week-long vacation before that was probably 2019 when we went to Fredericton, NB.
We're traveling a bit different this time. To save money, I didn't opt to use a checked bag; instead I'm using my backpack and a carry-on size suitcase. Luckily my wife has a checked bag included in her airfare (she's here for work - not vacation), so we used a larger sized suitcase to include some things such as a suit and shoes.1 But using carry-on luggage presented some new challenges for me I hadn't dealt with before.
For one it made me be more efficient with my packing. I have maybe one or two extra items as "just in case" things, but I've brought only what I intend to wear. For bathroom items, I've had to leave out liquids and my razor (although those are packed in my wife's bag). To make things fit we picked up some plastic packing bags that we can squish the air out of to make them fit in the smaller bag. For my backpack, I packed a LOT less than I normally would.
This allowed me to bring my camera, which I probably would not have otherwise because the camera bag is a bit bulky and doesn't fit too well in my backpack for travel. And bonus, I bought some books from a local bookstore so now I have room to bring those back with me. I still plan on visiting another bookstore in our next city on the trip; I figure I can fit maybe one or two more small books without feeling like I'm going overboard.
But enough about packing.
Because my wife is here for work, I've largely been on my own for this trip. We rented a car - most trips I do a lot of walking because things are in walking distance. When we went to Vancouver in 2018, I walked 110,833 steps or 75.28 kilometres. Our last trip to Toronto - I walked to work from the hotel every day, a 20-minute walk each direction. And we walked around downtown Toronto to get to restaurants, etc. because that's where we were staying.
For this trip, though, we are staying in a suburb. Everything is spread out. Where we are staying, there's not a lot within walking distance. Oh I am definitely walking for coffee after I finish this post and get dressed, but that's as far as the walking extends. Luckily I was able to drive to a very nice walking trail that resulted in an amazing view.
Mountains dominate the skyline in the distance above the Fraser River.
I've seen mountains like this before (in Vancouver) but it's always special since these simply don't exist where I live. Sure, we have some mountains, but they're not nearly as tall or majestic as these. I'm glad I sought out the walking trails to find these views.
As for today - I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to over-exert myself with walking. I'm sure there are some things I can get up to, I just haven't decided yet.
Reply by email
Or if you prefer, find me on Mastodon!
If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed
We're attending a gala Thursday night, there's no way I'm fitting a suit in my carry-on luggage.↩