Not quite ready for the golden handcuffs ..........

......ahhhhhhh, nothing like a good ole wait for the ferry......(tbc)

 

Ritsue in her best art form at the Lyse Lemieux exhibit at the Burnaby Art Gallery......

...which is located at one of our favourite walking spots, Deer Lake.

One last little adventure before I have to put on the golden handcuffs until next May. (refers to the lure of the good money, but at the cost of long hours with no life, ahhhh, the film industry)

One day in July we had another excuse to go downtown for a beer......

....the mandatory selfie at the Olympic torch at Jack Poole Plaza.....(which they turned on for the Tokyo Olympics)......

My sister Judith was in town for one afternoon to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the convention centre. (clockwise from me, Ritsue, my brother's lady Doris, my two neices Megan and Erin, bro Skip, sis Judy and her hubby Les.)

....meanwhile back at the ranch, the word is out, we finally had our second hummingbird visit the feeder.....

.....while I continued on with my obsession of trapping all of the computer's checkers on online backgammon.....

Had a chance to try the octopus balls at the Nikkei Centre farmer's market. They were pretty tasty, although they could of used a little more octopus......

......okay, back to the ferry line-up. We were lucky, we only had to wait for one sailing at Horseshoe Bay. (It was busy, but not as busy as the following August long week-end)

It was almost a two sailing wait. Yay, last vehicle on the lower deck!

Leaving Horseshoe bay. It was a glorious day for a 40 minute ferry ride up the Sunshine Coast.

Nice view of the Tantalus Range.....

......the, landed at Langdale, spotted a heron at Gibsons, pic.

Our first venture was down to the water in Gibsons.......

I was already feeling more relaxed.....

For those of us that grew up watching the Beachcombers on t.v., it was cool to see this restaurant up close.

......and of course the Persephone! Relic, you grumpy old bas....!

...time to head to our home for 3 nights, just outside of Sechelt. This was the home beach.....

.....and the home deck, just lovely!

.....not too far to "our beach".......

......and a lovely evening.....

......the entire beach was small stones...

......tide is in....

....a great dinner (and beer) at the ...........

....Lighthouse Pub in Sechelt.

Not a got pic, but it was cool to see jellyfish.....

......Porpoise Bay....

.....beach night number 1.....

...our room was very quiet, facing into the woods....

.....going up the driveway.....

.....and going down......very steep..

.....day two was heading to the Skookumchuck Narrows.

....it's a fairly easy 1 hour hike in......

.....the dew on the fungus pic.......

.....and the web on the  web pic......

It was so worth it. The camera does not capture what our eyes did. The whirlpools and tide changes were spectacular....

That'd be a fun trip....

We spent over an hour taking it all in.

....don't see many starfish in our Burnaby suburb.....

The leaf sums up our mood after that day trip.

.....close by was the tiny village of Egmont.

.....spent the later afternoon enjoying a glass of wine on our deck.....

We ended up having to go to the grocery store for deli take-out. A very enjoyable evening on the beach in Sechelt. (A longer story for another time, but boooooooo to Lucky's Smokehouse, just sayin')

Another nice morning on the deck.....

.....should be a good day for exploring....

....the let's take a picture through the binoculars, shot.....

....and the stars at night! There is so much light pollution in the city, it's impossible to see what we saw in Sechelt. Truly magical.

.....a quick run up the hill to get a pic of our home sweet home.....

...we drove around the Sunshine Coast, seeing whatever we could see. First stop, the Halfmoon Bay General Store.....

.....a quick visit to Sargeant Bay.....

.....a bit of a dead-end.....

.....and the very quaint Pender Harbour.....

....when in Rome.......It was hard to find a place to eat in Pender Harbour. I'm so glad we settled on Mama's Japanese Kitchen, totemo oishii desu!

.....many bays to enjoy....

......Secret Cove......

Dinner time! If you are ever in Sechelt, you must try the smoked albacore carpaccio at El Segundo.......

.......and the blackened cod and grits.......what a feast!

.......last night on our beach......we'll be back.

......breakfast on the beach .....

......good-bye Sechelt....

.....a quick peek at Robert's Creek on the way to the ferry.....

.....mini vacay is almost over.....

......one more gaze.....

.....wont be long until we will be back in the city traffic, sigh.....

......actually it was right off the ferry that the crawl to the Iron Worker's bridge started......

.....well in preparation for the upcoming traffic jam, we stopped at the Persephone Brewery in Gibsons for some nourishment.....

....okay, fine, don't pose for me then......

....oh goody!....

..if I'm not mistaken, this could be my first hop sighting, ever..

....what do you expect when you dine and beer for 4 days, lol...

....Green Acres is the place to be.......

....at least the turtle posed, albeit the backside pose...

....gotta get that reverse image thing on the camera figured out......

.....yay, fixed it! What an old relic I am.......

.......Ritsue went shopping for sandals in Gibsons......

...back on the ferry, that was a nice little break......

....the Northshore mountains are back in sight.....

.....nice surprise back at the condo. Ritsue's radishes are really growing!

Got a couple of nice pics of the full moon in July.

Random hawk shot......

.....and the hummingbirds are getting more comfortable at our 11th floor feeder. I am also very comfortable, that's why I wasn't quite ready for the call......

....but the call did come and it was time to start getting ready for season 5 of the Good Doctor. Strap on those golden hand-cuffs.....

..... the start for me was all prep work. One of my first tasks was taking this set decoration drift wood piece to the carpenter's shop. Yikes, fragile!

...... season 5 and counting! First filming day is tomorrow, 4:15 a.m. wake up will be a shock. Here we go!