It Feels Different This Time...

Cows are my Dads passion. Really, they are, if you need proof, look in his high school yearbook, it’s printed right there under his senior picture, "Cows are my passion". Naturally with that much passion planted in a place like Castle Dale, it’s a sure fire bet he’s a farmer. When it comes to my Dad’s farm its all work and very little play and therefore family vacations consisted of trips to other rural locations to look at Dad’s passion, with the occasional drive through of Yellowstone or Zion’s National Park (and when I say drive through, I mean drive through, no food, no potty breaks, no photo ops, no stopping… period!)

Needless to say, as a family we never really had the “typical” family vacation. So with my mom near death, us sister decided to get her out to experience the “world” before she kicks the bucket. luckily our ship didn't sink and speed up the process...

Our best intentions of a “typical” vacation by cruise to Canada, quickly went south starting at the airport with Dana being propositioned at security to remove her bra, you know, because of the under wire… and quickly progressed to mom being searched while complete strangers chanted “take it off” and “cavity search”. Damn robotic knee!

The trip was fantastic! We had AMAZING macaroni and cheese at Steelheads in Seattle, incredible banana fosters ice cream in Victoria and the best fish and chips EVER at a little make shift “restaurant” on the water front in Nanaimo called Troller’s Fish and Chips, (alright, I like food… back off).

Mom succeeded in erupting the dinner table with laughter due to her confusion when lady at our dinner table commented that she “had been married to her husband for 7 ½ years before he passed a year ago,” which she followed with “it was wonderful”. Now, I understand the confusion. But come on mom, did you really think she was referring to his death being “wonderful” rather than their 7 ½ year marriage?

Unfortunately I was unable to get my groove on at the nightclub due to a knee injury which left me temporarily confined to a wheelchair.

Canada was beautiful! We saw some pretty amazing things. We were the only ones on deck when a pod of Dolphins decided to swim and jump by the ship. We were able watch them for about 5 minutes before they disappeared. We also spotted Michael Bolton! He tried to disguise himself by bleaching his hair blond, but he couldn’t fool us… who knew he was into cruising!

Mom, Dana and Stacey were able to watch the sunrise, I hear it was pretty magnificent. I’ll have to take their word for it seeing as how they didn’t wake me up for the life changing experience. Other beautiful/ amazing things: This little old lady who could barely walk on her arthritic legs and osteoporosis bones, but was very fashionable in her all white track suite and 4 inch black platform peep toes.

It really hit its climax at the end of the trip, en-route to the airport, as Dana gave our Taxi driver Adam my phone number! (He defaulted to me after finding out Dana was married with 3 kids) Don’t worry, he’s called 5 times already… I’ll be sending out wedding announcements soon!

I’m also expecting a call from about 3 other people she gave my number to. Looks I’ll be pretty busy the next couple months, so don’t bother trying to get a hold of me.

It was a whirlwind trip, but it was really fun. We got a lot in. A lot of walking, A lot of eating, a lot of people watching and a lot of illegal/ risky behavior (I didn’t know my mom could bend like that, especially with the knee, apparently she learned it from Stacey).