The best part though, due to the timezone change, you actually land before you took off. Cool.

Some big news that most of the important people in my life know, although certainly not everyone just yet, but Lori and I are moving to Kelowna!

Last July we drove to Oliver BC for my grandmother’s 90th birthday, and the way luck would have it, Lori happened to have a job interview in Kelowna. One month later, she was starting the job, and we were starting to plan for the move.

We gave it a few weeks to let Lori get the feel for the company, make sure she would be happy committing to stay for a minimum of a couple of years, and once she was sure.

Last week I flew out and we started the house hunt, found an absolutely amazing condo, reasonable price, with pretty much all the upgrades. Air conditioning, two balconies, a nice view, stainless steel appliances, front loading in-suite washer and dryer, dishwasher, granite counter tops, pretty much the works. We formally took possession on September 1st, although we actually got the keys a couple days earlier.

Now I hate moving, but having lost track of how many times I’ve moved in the past six years, I’m somewhat familiar with the process. We’re taking a bit of a different approach, in that we’re trying to get rid of absolutely anything we can, cutting back both the amount of stuff we need to move, and the amount of junk to store on the receiving end, hopefully only keeping what we actually need and use.

We took care of some of the important stuff already, got internet service on day#1, and I’ve got electricity and insurance all arranged as well, mail redirected, now just working on all the other details, health care, address changes, mentioning the move to work, friends, family, trading in the polar bears for brown bears, etc. Did I mention the weather is beautiful?

Based on our current plans, I’ll be wandering back to Calgary every two or three months or so for several months. Why not, it’s a $49 flight ($105 or so with taxes. Yes, that’s over 100% taxes, fees, and other garbage, but still, $105 isn’t bad), and besides, the Calgary –> Kelowna trip is the closest you can get to time travel, you actually land about 8 minutes before you depart.

Anyway, things are looking good, just keeping me busy busy busy, so expect blog postings to be sparse. As time permits, Lori and I are working on another little blogging project, a collaborative effort with a bit of a different focus, but more on that once it’s closer to being ready for human consumption.

So who wants to help me pack?

So with that in mind, Lori has accepted a job offer in Kelowna! 36C (97F) today, not quite as hot as Texas, but close.

Still some details to arrange, but she’ll be starting in a week and a half, I won’t be moving for a couple months or so, with the goal being to let her decide if she likes the job, and take a bit of time to find a place before we uproot and move.

One of the big perks of working remotely is that I can move without having to do the find-a-new-job thing. When you’re already 2000 miles from your office, what’s another 250 miles?

One thing that is interesting about being in the National Parks, most of the campgrounds have hot showers and flush toilets rather then outhouses. I’m not sure if that justifies the higher price or not, but it is nice having a hot shower before popping online to get some work-work done. $8.80 for a fire permit does seem a little high too (although in fairness that includes wood)

Assuming I can get caught up on work in a reasonable amount of time we’re going to head over to Johnston Canyon next, where we don’t believe I will have connectivity, so expect posts to be delayed for a day.

Hit Smitty’s in Banff for breakfast, so-so food, I’ve had worse, but I’ve had better. Oh well.

Off to Two Jack Campground, the Lakeside version. We drove through Lakeside first, then over to Main to investigate both. Main wasn’t great, sparse trees, sites close to each other, and nothing for a 31′ motorhome, so back to Lakeside. Between the time we first entered and when we returned we lost the site we were eyeballing (although it sounds like it probably happened while we were driving the loop anyway, so the sidetrip to check out Main probably didn’t kill us)

We grabbed site #2, which I think it probably a better site then the other option anyway, just took a bit of a creative parking job to properly utilize it. A hotdog lunch later, and here we are.

For those curious, we’re right on the south-west end of the lake, and can see to the southern tip. It doesn’t sound like there is a hike around the lake available though, although we may go look and see how far we can go without too much pain.

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We managed to get a nicer spot (or at least I think so, I’m not sure about dad yet), one of the more private ones, anyway. Not so private that I’d recommend wandering around the site naked, but nor would you get a view of a neighbour doing so.

Not a lot to do right at this campground, although we can walk over to the bus and go into Banff if we want — Not much to do there either, but we might try it anyway. We’ll probably give Two Jack Main a shot tomorrow. On the plus side, a boring-ish campsite means I’ll get caught up on work without staying up all night, so that part works out well.

Bought socks and eggs (for pancakes) at Safeway, but otherwise winging it on the food that we’ve got.

That’s about it for now.

As if on cue my mom arrived just as we started unpacking at the new site, and Lori arrived a bit later, bringing our tent. Lori and I will be tenting across the road from my parents’ motorhome in Bow Valley Campground.

My mom isn’t as aggressive a hiker, and we tend to stop to admire nature a little more, so it will be a nice change from the previous hike, which was a bit more then I’d have planned for a first hike of the year for someone as out of shape as myself, but it was a ton of fun.

Being an out of shape bonehead, I managed to forget my shoes, however I have some “hiking sandals” (sandals with excellent grips, better then what is left on my hiking shoes/boots), so it worked out just as well I suppose.

The trail wasn’t bad for a first hike of the year, about 2.(mumble)KM with around 400ft of elevation, not your smooth gravel trail but not bad for someone of my experience and fitness level, the only downer being that you can’t actually see the waterfall at the end of the hike.

No photos of this one since also being a bonehead, I set my camera on the wrong mode and screwed them up. Ooops.

In the past I have gone to Vegas and continued to work part of the time, spent a month in Chicago while working, and even moved from Calgary to Winnipeg for a few months without mentioning it to my employer for over a month.

This is a new one for me though, as I write this post I’m sitting in Bow Valley Campgrounds, located in Kananaskis Country on the Alberta side of the Rockies, writing this blog post on my laptop with a EVDO card. Almost 1Mb/s, only 150ms to Texas, this is not far off of the earlier cable modem deployments in the area.

Life is good.