Erin's Journals

I hope you’ve had a good weekend and thank you for coming back after our short hiatus from this journal. I had a lot of things to do from a writing perspective (including hitting a book deadline this coming Wednesday) and I just decided to reorganize my head a little bit. So, thank you for understanding.
 
We’re home safe and sound after our Washington/BC road trip and it ended much more uneventfully than the one day in the middle of it, around which we’d planned the entire trip to begin with!
 
It was a week ago Thursday, on May 17th. I was to begin the day’s speeches/panels etc. at the BC Association of Broadcasters’ gathering in beautiful Kelowna, where I’d also had some great visiting time with my sisters and dad. Just perfect, right? Well…it should have been. Today’s journal is a story you’ll want to take in, in its entirety, but it would make for a doubly long audio and written blog. So I’m going to break it into two parts. 
 
After tweaking my “Transformation: When You’re Strong Because You Have No Choice” speech, rehearsing it twice with its 90-some photos and making sure that everything was just so, we went to bed Wednesday, tired but confident. Neither of us could get to sleep right away with so many details going through our heads and a 6:45 am alarm looming, even though we knew what we were doing! The 30-to-45-minute address was all going to go perfectly, just as it had for the Canadian Real Estate Association in Ottawa last month.
 
At 8:00 am, Rob left the room to set up for the technical end of things. I put on my dress, having gotten up early to put in contacts, glue on some lashes and shimmy into my Spanx. 
 
I was to join him at 8:15. But as I left the room I had a quick thought: Gee, it’s weird not carrying my purse or my clipboard or binder, but how nice to have a speech in the hotel we’re staying in!
 
I got to the elevator and just then noticed Rob had texted: “Bring your laptop.” Oh, I thought, that’s strange: he never forgets anything. I went back to the room, retrieved my trusty MacBook Air and got to the solo elevator before it had even arrived. It was that slow.
 
Rob met me in the ballroom and thanked me; he couldn’t believe he didn’t have the computer he needed to follow my speech so he could hit the slides at the right times! Huh. So not like him.
 
As the woman introducing me took to the podium, I walked over to the sound board at the side of the room and said to Rob, “I’m going to need my iPad.” You see, I hold the iPad, use a clip-on lav mic or a headset microphone and, that way, can walk the stage and gesticulate freely. I thought that moving away from the podium was a big step into my public speaking life and I had already done it once with some success.
 
As I asked for the iPad, Rob looked at me like my hair was on fire. (If it had been, I’d have had an excuse to run…) “You don’t have it?” I shook my head. He dashed to his backpack to check; it wasn’t there. A look of panic appeared on his face and quickly spread to mine.
 
“I’ve got to go to the room!” he said, and he was gone. Suddenly, a wave of calm swept over me. Well, this isn’t good, but it will be a challenge.
 

 
At just about the moment he disappeared through the ballroom door, the introduction wrapped up and I heard my name. I made my way to the stage and what happened? I’ll tell you here tomorrow. There are just too many layers to this story to rush through, so – as they used to say – stay tuned! 
 

First of all, I want to wish you a very happy Victoria Day Weekend and a welcome to the unofficial kickoff of summer! Here in the Okanagan, where it’s been in the upper 20s and low 30s, we’ve already had more than our share, so, fill your boots!
 
How appropriate that so many are going to be watching the wedding of a descendant of Queen Victoria herself, adding yet another branch to the family tree. I hope that all goes well tomorrow; we’ll be watching, but out here in BC it’ll be stupid-o’clock, so my sister Cindy will tape it and we’ll sip English Breakfast tea and perhaps enjoy a few crumpets. Sounds good, yes? And please, no spoilers! LOL Fun to hear that CHFI and a few other Rogers joints have gone to the UK to take in the celebrations. Shades of what we did with Will and Kate and that was SO much fun!
 
Funnily enough, tomorrow marks a bit of a Victorian anniversary in our lives, too: it was 40 years ago that, as a teen, I first set eyes on the provincial capital that has become our home! My eldest sister Heather was in the Canadian Armed Forces, posted in Esquimalt, a part of the greater Victoria area. She held her wedding there; my Dad gave the first of a total of eight Father of the Bride speeches he would go on to make for his four daughters over his lifetime. Of course, he’s still with us, but I think we’re all done marching down any aisles!
 
Here we are on a walk of a different kind near his home in Kelowna on Wednesday.
 

 
Anyway, Heather would joke that Victoria was for the “newlywed and nearly dead” but we’re told that “flower beds” has joined that quaint saying. We are familiar with none of those three, but we are so grateful to live in what we consider to be the most beautiful place we’ve ever had our mail delivered.
 
Despite my sisters’ seven weddings (I had just the one – slacker!), I was never a bridesmaid. But I did get to sing at Heather’s first: it was John Denver’s “You Fill Up My Senses” (or as Heather calls it, “You Filled Out My Census”). Sisters Heather, Cindy and Leslie now live in the Kelowna area and so does Dad. Funny how we all ended up in this province when none of us was born here, but having spent so much time in Alberta as kids, and having been born in Edmonton, any place with mountains has always called me to come home. And here we are.
 
It’s impossible to believe that those nuptials happened 40 years ago tomorrow, but let’s hope that Harry and Meghan manage to stay together and, in four decades’ time, mark this anniversary. I doubt I’ll be around to see it, especially if what happened to us yesterday ever goes down again. 
 
I hope you’ve enjoyed the pictures and journals this week; I’m going to take the short week off from writing next week, so I can concentrate on family and give Rob a break from the technical end of things. But be sure to return on the 28th: I have one heck of a story to share with you. It’s that “professional nightmare” theme I’ve talked about; it happened to us yesterday and it was entirely our doing. Talk to you then – you won’t want to miss it. And enjoy the Victoria Day weekend!
 

Sometimes you make it into your forties, fifties, sixties, even beyond, and you see something that makes you wonder: now, why the heck didn’t I think of that? I’m not talking the internet or virtual currency or even a pop machine that gives you about a hundred different drink choices with the push of a button. No, what I mean is much simpler. So obvious that you wonder how on earth it never occurred to you. In a moment, I’ll share a few examples with you.
 
I’ve stayed in more hotels and motels than I can count and two things they almost all share: the bathroom sink plunger doesn’t work properly and the sink drains and there’s never, ever ice in the fridge’s ice cube tray, whether it’s a full-size in a rental condo or a little dorm-sized one. Never. Those two things I know for sure.
 
Now here’s something I have never seen. Can you tell what this is?
 

 
It’s a dark face cloth with eyes embroidered into it. What for? I bet if you’re a woman you know: for taking off makeup without staining or possibly even ruining a hotel’s light-coloured cloths and towels. Brilliant!
 
A motel we stayed at a night later had a plain brown washcloth, I’m guessing – or, um hoping – for the same reason, but come on, those embroidered eyes? That is above and beyond. Yes, I’m talking to YOU, Harrison House in Friday Harbor! (Special kudos to any other place that stocks packaged makeup removal wipes. I’ve seen about four of those and, no, I do not flush them.)
 
Then we noticed something in the delightful lakeside town of Chelan, Washington that I have never seen before: crossing flags.
 

 
On poles on opposite sides of a busy street, sticking out like branches on a really cheap Christmas tree, are flags. You take one out, you hold or wave it aloft and you cross that busy four-lane street – a highway really – that links two towns. And, hopefully, you do it safely.
 
The only downside to the flag system is once everyone has crossed one direction – say, to the beach in Chelan’s case – then all of the flags are on that side of the road. That needs a Good Samaritan to take a few extras when she or he crosses in the other direction. What a great idea! There’s no way of knowing how many lives have been saved, but I’d have to guess there have been a few, wouldn’t you think?
 
Anyway – a couple of little bits of brilliance I thought you might find as fascinating as I did. Join me here tomorrow and we’ll wrap up this week together!
 

For some folks, there’s no place like home. Mike Cooper, my former radio partner, says that even as a kid, he’d be on vacation with his folks and the moment they arrived he wanted to know “when are we going home?” Not me. I love hotels, motels, the adventure of booking them and, of course, checking reviews (and having my say as roberin on Trip Advisor).
 
As glad as we are to have done it, having Molly with us this time has had its challenges: they charge $15-$25 a night for a pet and, as we learned last year in Tacoma, Washington, some places won’t let you leave them in the room. But this trip has been great so far. “Pet friendly” isn’t merely “pet tolerant.” They’re welcome and as long as everyone plays by the rules, it all works out.
 

 
If you’re like me, you have a sense of feeling at “home” in different places you’ve visited, even if they only know your name because it’s on your Visa card. Maybe it’s in a cabin near a lake or at a beach somewhere that palm trees sway in the breeze. One of the places that has always felt like home for us is a little town just minutes from the US border called Osoyoos, BC.
 
I’ve mentioned this place before (having last visited in July 2015). It’s Canada’s warmest town and, as such, attracts snowbirds from the rest of the country during the cold months. Pronounced (oh-SOY-yoos), it has a mild dry winter climate with only five centimetres’ accumulation of snow. At this time of year it’s quiet, although the place is busy and vibrant after the upcoming May long weekend. We were lucky to get into our favourite spot, the Watermark Beach Resort, with Molly for two nights. Not a bad sight as you wake up, is it?
 

 
The hotel’s name, however, has taken on a whole new meaning, as waters have risen to 916′ above sea level to the point where ducks have been spotted swimming in streets where children usually play; high waters due to warm temperatures and a fast melt are due to peak this Friday.
 
While our place was fine, at the nearby Holiday Inn, the volleyball nets were in water up to their bottom hems. Just down the way, the Coast Hotel was evacuated and plenty of places, whose aged signs boast of beach, are lamenting their proximity today, I’m betting.
 
Water from Osoyoos Lake rose high enough to cause a need for people to fill sand bags. And it looks like they had an audience: see the pair in the forefront, with a bird’s – or duck’s – eye view of the whole thing. 
 

 
But that may not help these homeowners who – at least for now – have a water feature they didn’t plan on.
 

 
Hard as it was to drive away from this homey spot, we had to leave our pretty little desert town and hope for the best for its residents and visitors. BC flood watches have intensified with the heat this week (it was 32C on our dog walk yesterday) – exactly the same bad news residents faced here last year at this time. Once again, welcome to the “new normal.” 
 
Today, we’ll catch up with Dad and his gal pal in Kelowna and continue catching up with my three sisters, all of whom live within about an hour’s drive. I hope you’re enjoying this week of travel with us and we’ll share more pictures tomorrow. I saw a couple of pretty neat ideas I wanted to run by you…take care.
 

 
I hope this day finds you in good spirits. Come on along as we continue our road trip, won’t you? 
 
Rob and I are on our way to the beautiful Okanagan in central BC, coming up from Osoyoos today to check in to a Kelowna hotel. It’s here that on Thursday morning I’ll give my Transformation speech to the BC Association of Broadcasters. I’m so lucky to have a chance to share our stories, and that includes here, too! Because I experienced two things that we’ve never had happen before and I couldn’t wait to share them with you.
 
First of all, this: click the photo below and see an amazing video of more deer than we could count on a quiet country road. And then watch how close one came to Rob. Had it been me, I don’t know if I could have resisted the temptation to reach out and touch its forehead, but Rob, being smarter and a little fonder of his fingers than I am, obviously, decided not to. Just watch and see.
 

 
But the most heartwarming moment came (appropriately on the Mother’s Day weekend) with a mother and baby. As we passed a yard that was clearly fenced to keep deer out, we saw on the lawn, inside that fencing, two deer: a mama doe and a fawn that was so young it was smaller than our little dog. I have never seen a baby deer so tiny; it had to have been born that day or the few days preceding. Anyway, we pulled over and I tried to get close to the fence so that I could take a picture without scaring the beautiful duo. 
 

 
Having spotted us, the mother nudged her fawn away from its efforts to get some nourishment and made it lie down in the tall grass. We could only see two big ears, both almost fixed horizontally, as the fawn did what Lauren would say was “acting small.” (At about age four she was curled up in a chair one day and we asked what she was doing…that was her response.)
 
What happened next truly surprised us. As the fawn hid in the tall grass, its mother slowly walked away towards the stand of trees – and other deer – about forty feet away. Exactly what you would not expect: she didn’t stay with her baby, but instead she tried to lead us – possible predators – away from her hidden treasure. We quietly hurried back to the car and hoped she returned to her little one equally quickly. 
 

 
But imagine: she walked away to save her offspring. She was ready to sacrifice herself for that little sweetie who knew just to stay there like he or she was told until it was safe and mama returned. Isn’t nature miraculous? We will be back with you here tomorrow.