Nanaimo to Victoria, then Sandpoint

It has been a busy September so far. My older brother Jim and his wife Bernie visited us the first weekend of the month. It was their first time here and it was fun showing them some of the sights. We even encountered a young bull moose on the drive up to Schweitzer. It was a good visit.

On September 9 we travelled by car and ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. We stayed at the Hammond Bay Oceanside Bed and Breakfast for the next 3 nights - quite the scenic and peaceful spot. We highly recommend it for the ambience (the breakfasts were more than we would normally eat or want). On Saturday, I visited the Computer Science Department at Malaspina University-College, getting a tour from Jim Uhl. If an invitation is forthcoming, I may return in Spring to give some presentations. Eli spent that time at the Nanaimo Art Gallery, also on the campus. That evening we met Tom and Karen, friends from Sandpoint, for 'cocktail hour' on their Cape Dory (moored at what they christened 'Windbag West') and then dinner at a Greek restaurant, Katerina's Place - nothing special at the eatery except for the view and, of course, the company.

Sunday we went biking in a nearby ocean shore park, where I was assaulted by some evil blackberry bushes lurking at a narrow spot in the trail. In the evening, we had dinner at the Dinghy Dock Pub on Protection Island, admittedly a required and well orchestrated tourist activity. Nanaimo is potentially a great tourist destination, but the Harmac Pacific pulp mill on Duke Point manages to sully that possibility as its smelly emissions waft over the city, driven by the relatively common southeast wind. Either one gets used to it or the locals are in denial. Or maybe we just hit a few bad hours.

Monday we drove south to Victoria. We had dinner at Rebar, a vegetarian-plus-fish restaurant. The food is quite good with wholesome/organic ingredients - perhaps just short of gourmet, but a bit spicy for my metabolism. At midnight, I retrieved Nik from the airport. Late Tuesday afternoon the IKEA furniture delivery arrived so we put some of the stuff together, making Nik's condo more homey. In the evening we had dinner at an Italian restaurant, Zambri. The food etc. reminded us of various meals in Italy. We highly recommend this restaurant.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, IKEA has some decent (neither fine nor elegant) furniture with clean lines available at a reasonable price. Nik probably interacted with a dozen IKEA employees during the purchase and subsequent organization of the delivery. They have a remarkably high percentage of ill trained, uninformed employees with a sprinkling of competent folks. I've never seen the like - maybe it's just the Richmond store.

Now we're back in Sandpoint getting ready for next week's start of school. No more vacations until Christmas, but we'll still find some joy.

Richard
2005.09.16