It started with a rabbit, or is it a hare?

Photos

August 28, 2012 - Clay's first photo from this trip was actually out our bedroom window of a rabbit that has been hanging out around our yard. Our first wildlife sighting of the trip was walking back from dinner by the airport. I'm not sure I know the difference between a rabbit and a hare!

Thus began our Caravan Tour Canadian Rockies and Glacier Park 2012. This is our 2nd Caravan Tour. We did the Copper Canyon in 2009. Sadly, Caravan has discontinued that tour. Anyway, we went again with Caravan with Debbie's Mom, Margie and her friend, Judy.

We all flew on Delta and all flights were on time and we all flew with only carry on luggage, so no problems there. We all cleared customs and immigration into Canada without a hitch. We met up at the hotel in Calgary, Alberta in the afternoon of August 28th. Caravan had us at the Airport Hilton Garden Inn for one night. They provide a complimentary shuttle from the airport. You go outside from baggage claim and look across the street for a yellow column with a 10 on it. You go across and pick up the phone there to call the shuttle. The shuttle runs about every 45 minutes all day as best we could tell. The hotel is right next to the airport, but evidently because of the way the roads run or construction, it takes between 20 and 40 minutes to drive between the two. There is not much near the HGI. In walking distance to the left as you exit are Tim Hortons and the Aerospace Museum and to the right is Moxie's Bar & Grill. We were all pretty exhausted from the flights, jet lag and knowing we had an early morning tomorrow, so we did not go to the museum. Clay and I were in room 409, which had a view of a warehouse and parking lot. Mom and Judy were a couple of doors down and across the hall and they had a much nicer view of downtown Calgary's skyline.

At 7pm, we met our group of 46 (a sold out group!) and our tour director, Amy. It was about a 5 minute meeting. We learned to redeem our breakfast coupons in the hotel lobby between 6am and departure. To have our bags outside our doors at 7am. Bus loaded in front of the building and departure by 8am. We learned that we would learn about the rotation of seats on boarding the bus. I'll spare you the suspense. Amy hung an index card with our names on it above the seat we were assigned each day. We got to freely choose the first day and then she made up the cards and moved us 1 to 3 rows forward or back each day. So, for example, Clay and I lucked into the first row due to a misunderstanding the first day and by the last day we had worked our way all the way to the back of the bus, around to the other side of the aisle and were 6 to 8 rows from the front on that side.

Regarding our dining choice, we were to learn very soon, that Canada or at least Alberta, has strict controls on the sales of alcoholic beverages including wine and beer. Since that is all any of us drink, that is all that impacted us. But, there are very limited places to buy beer and wine. You can be served in bars, in some restaurants, and in state controlled specialty stores. Therefore, while we could have had about the same meal choices for late lunch/early dinner at Tim Hortons, we could not have gotten the beers. (Go to Tim Hortons and get a Canadian Maple! Yum!)

Photos



An Ethnic Dining Weekend

I know. You're probably wondering where are the Caravan Tour Canadian Rockies entries. Sorry! I promise I will get to it unforgivably late. I have been laboring away on Shutterfly to produce an 8x8 photobook of that trip since I had a deadline to get a free one with Coke Rewards.

In the meantime, though we've had some culinary adventures without leaving home. On Thursday, we walked down to the Brookside Deli for their new Indian food from 5 to 8pm on Thursdays. You can get a combo plate for $7.99 that would feed 2. It comes with 2 items plus Basmati rice and a naan. I had butter chicken and dal. For $1, you can add an extra item or naan. They gave us a punch card to earn a free meal. At the price and quality, you can hardly cook at home. We may doing this again on a takeout basis, since that is how they serve it whether you eat in or out.

This weekend was the 31st annual Greek Festival at the NC State Fairgrounds. Great as always. Crazy crowds today with NC State having a football game as well! They had NC artist, Bob Rankin design their t-shirt this year! Very nice. Clay bought one yesterday and the artist was on hand then to hand autograph purchases. So, we go for the food and the t-shirts! The shirts were the best since we've been attending in 1990 and the green beans the worst! Go figure.

Clay's 45th High School Reunion

Last night we drove to Kinston and back for Clay's 45th High School Reunion. I think this is the 3rd, or possibly, the 4th reunion we've attended for Grifton High's class of 1967 since we moved to NC. This was the 2nd one in a row held at The Baron and The Beef restaurant outside Kinston. It is nice. They have a good-sized private room and the food is good, plentiful and reasonably priced. They do separate bills, so there is no money to collect, everyone just pays at the end of the evening. My only observed downside is that it is a low-ceilinged, wood panelled room and it is very noisy! They had the largest attendance this year that we have seen, probably between 40 and 50 people attended. We aren't on Facebook, but that is evidently where the group is active. It was fun. The funniest was the guy that said he knew Clay's family had moved to Grifton for his Dad, Warner to work at Dupont when it opened. He wanted to know if it was from MD or Va, as he knew all the Burch kids were so smart because they were from up North somewhere. We cracked up laughing when Clay tried to convince him that his family had moved from Walstonburg to Grifton. It ended up that he wasn't the only one who had assumed that the Burchs had arrived in Grifton from the North! How funny! Clay spent from Grade 1 to Grade 12 all in one school! The other remarkable thing was that they had 1 teacher and 1 principal from their high school years in attendance last night and they both looked fitter/younger than many of the students. Even if they had both been very early in their education careers, I don't know how that was possible! Sorry no photos! Clay forgot his camera and even left his phone locked in the car last night! So, while there were plenty of photographers there last night, we have not a single photo. If I run into a link of someone else's photos from last night, I'll be sure to come back here and update this post with the link.

We didn't get home until around midnight, so we're not too energetic today. We had planned to drive to Chapel Hill to collect a prize I won last week from 100.7 The River radio station's website, but Clay is still sleeping in the living room so that may have to wait for another weekend. Every week they give away a prize pack from an NC craft brewery. I don't drink beer, but Clay does, so I entered for him. Clay woke up around 3pm, so we drove to Chapel Hill. We had lunch at Carolina Brewery. Clay had a Copperline Amber Ale and the Large fish & chips. He liked it but was glad he got the large one since it had one small piece of fish along with a much smaller broken off fraction of a small piece of fish. I had the pulled pork BBQ sandwich with homemade chips. Mine was good too and filling. Then we went back downstairs and submitted my printed email to claim my prize. They are giving away this same prize once a week for a month, but I must have been the first one in to claim one because they had no idea what was going on. In the end though, we walked out with a six-pack of cans of Sky Blue Golden Ale and Flagship IPA, 2 pint glasses with those beers' logos on them, a pair of blue plastic sunglasses and a sky blue croakie that won't fit the big legs of the sunglasses. It was a nice lunch and a nice prize.

We had a surprise visit this morning from Clay's brother Dew and his wife, Kim. They were in town for Cary's Lazy Daze yesterday. It was good to see them and have a little visit.

We are gearing up for our next big trip, but it probably qualifies for Road Trip as much as DCL's Hawaiian trip did! So, stay tuned for a link here if nothing else. We're taking another Caravan Tours trip with Mom and her friend, Judy.

ADF Week 7

So, this is the final week of American Dance Festival performances for 2012. The end of summer is officially in sight. Now if the heat and daily severe thunderstorms would just move on...

This week it was Mark Morris Dance Group. This has been one of my favorite choreographers for a long time. He is so musical and the dances frequently just seem so perfect with the music. That's the other thing! Live music. It makes such a difference and this was the only performance this summer with live music. So, I guess I was just too psyched for it and left a little disappointed. They were very good, but I just wasn't as impressed with the choreography this time out. A couple of the pieces seemed overly long to me. I suspect it was just me. I had a bad vertigo day and had taken extra meclizine and I think I was just not up for it and tired. There was a massive storm while we were inside the DPAC. It was still raining when we left the theater and it had really cooled off. We got soaked between the theater and the car and when we got home we got soaked again getting from the car to the house.

We had dinner at Mt. Fuji. It was good. We shared fried Japanese dumplings up front then Clay had Orange Chicken with broccoli which he did not like. I had Mongolian Beef, which we both liked. Clay had a Kirin beer and I had a glass of Vinho Verde. We skipped dessert to go to Amelia's for gelato. We were stunned when we walked in to see their empty display case with a handwritten sign saying their machine was broken and they had no gelato. Fortunately, the girl working there told us we could go down to Piazza Italia and get some. We did. I got white chocolate and zabaglione. Clay got tartuffo (chocolate and hazelnut) and peanut butter. They were very tiny $8 each bowls! Since we had the $8 each gelato for dessert here during ADF earlier, we thought we were prepared, but dessert-size and walk-up dessert only are evidently two very different things. Clay still hasn't gotten over that. I took an extra meclizine in DPAC and Clay offered to go buy me a bottle of water. I refused and said  I would go to the water fountain and drink free water. He said what was I worried about that we just ate $16 worth of gelato! I pointed out that the last time I checked gelato did not come out of a pipe in the wall for no extra money. Yeah, he hasn't gotten over it. I thought the servings were too small, but otherwise I was happy with my gelato experience.

Until next year on ADF, then!

ADF Week 6

This week it was Paul Taylor Dance Company. Paul Taylor is probably the oldest living Modern Dance choreographer as well as one of the best and most accessible. Everyone loves Taylor, like everyone loves Pilobolus but for different reasons. And that is why both are ADF staples! No disappointment, They were perfection with a long evening of 4 works. One was a 2012 creation, the others were much older. I had seen all 3 previously. Aureole 1962, we have both seen probably 10 - 12 times. Never gets old! Big Bertha 1970, I had seen in the 70's! It is a disturbing violent set piece, a bit dark-humorous. Disturbing content, but well done never the less. Gossamer Gallants 2012, about firefly sexual attraction, was brilliant and funny. Piazzolla Caldera 1997, about tango was another we had seen before and still loved this time. There were 2 intermissions and one pause so it was almost 11pm before we got out.

It was finally normal July weather this week. It was 92 degrees F when we went in, but there were dark clouds all around and no sun shining. After we got inside DPAC, it evidently started storming. It had moved east by the time we got out. It was 82 when we left and about halfway home we hit the storm and it lasted all the way home. It was 72 at the house we when arrived! It is too bad the rest of the country needs rain so badly and we have been inundated this summer.

We had dinner at Vin Rouge. It was delicious. I had Croque Madame which came with a decadent pile of frites. Clay had the hangar steak with bleu cheese butter and frites. We were both stuffed and left without dessert. Then we drove to Mad Hatter and I had a slice of black & white cake and Clay got 2 Chocolate Whoppers. He ate one and half my cake and took the other cookie home in a sack.

ADF Week 5

We're home early this evening. And it was only 82 degrees F at 9:30pm! However, as I sit upstairs at my computer in the study it is hotter than a fart up here! It is only 82 outdoors but it is 87 up here! The brand new AC stopped working on Thursday. I had a service guy out by that evening and he said he couldn't find anything wrong. I was like, you mean you can't find anything else wrong. He looked confused and I said because it isn't cooling, so that is wrong. He agreed and said all his tests showed it was working now, implying he had actually done somthing to make it work. He said we need Steve and Steve only works M-F 7-5. So, when it got hot up here again by Friday afternoon, I didn't even bother calling. But, wait til Monday morning! Anyway, that little rant over...

This week was Jerusalem-based Vertigo Dance Company. We had never seen them before. They were very good, and even though it was just one 50-some minute piece titled Mana, I left exhausted. I was very impressed. We had dinner somewhere new. L'Uva Enoteca near the DPAC. Clay ordered the black olive tapenade crostini to start, I could have done without it and they brought out very good bread with pesto olive oil dip anyway. Clay ordered the rigatoni special and I had the small buccatini with chicken in pesto. Everything was very salty, but I enjoyed mine and the small was the right size. Clay had a Peroni beer and I ordered a glass of Orvieto wine and it tasted bad (to Clay too) so I had to refuse it. The waiter was more appalled than I was and offered a glass of Pinot Grigio instead at no charge so I took it and it was fine, I drank it. Clay finished with pistachio gelato and I had chocolate budino, which was pudding. Yum. It was good food and reasonably priced and conveniently located. But, the coolest thing was as we had some time to kill, we checked out the Underground there at the American Tobacco complex. There was an Arcade down there. It had one pinball machine and a bunch of video game machines! And they were free! We played pinball for about an hour! I played Pac Man for a few games. Those video games always make me so edgy, I much prefer the action of pinball. Clay was the high scorer! So, all in all a good trip.

ADF Week 4

This week was everyone's favorite dance company, Pilobolus. They were great, amazing, incredible, all the usual words that cannot suffice. While neither of us really appreciate the change in their choreographic focus over the years, we do still appreciate their art. We liked the short pieces and one intermission. We very much enjoyed it. Only 3 weeks left, but we love 2 of those companies and only 1 is new to us. So, we still have almost a month to look forward to.

It was very hot, but at last a night with no severe and flash flooding thunderstorms. It was 106 degrees F when we went in and 97 when we came out and when we got home after 10:30pm it was still 90. It has been a crazy hot summer here with lots of lightening-started fires which is really scary, but I guess the good news is the drought was broken.

We ate at Piazza Italia. It is in Brightleaf Square. We used to love going there to browse the boutiques and eat. Lately, there has not been much to tempt us. In the heat, we didn't enjoy strolling much either! There aren't many shops left and only one was open. We did stroll through Morgan Imports across the street though and we purchased a couple of kitchen gadgets. Anyway, we liked the meal and there were a lot of gelatos to choose from between the food places that are now left in Brightleaf. They make good gelato at Roma prices! It really hit the spot though. For dinner, I had gnocchi pomodoro and Clay had lasagna. My gnocchi was melt in your mouth! Clay liked his lasagna. We shared an order of fried ravioli as an appetizer. Clay had chocolate and peanut butter gelatos. I had green apple and cinnamon. Chocolate was our favorite and cinnamon our least favorite. We would probably go back. We think Piazza Italia is new. We don't remember seeing it last year. And they validate parking and give a 20% discount if you show them your tickets for that evening's performance. So, a deal too!