I'm Back, But Still Waiting for the Punch....

We got back from our visit to western Canada for quick visits with our 3 children and their respective spouses/partners,  without getting sick from the rhinovirus hitting that province and the kids (1 just over it, 1 partly through, and 1 at the end of it) or catching Covid from airplanes, and wonder of wonders, no luggage was delayed or lost. We had a good time, and now that I've more or less adjusted to Atlantic time (3hrs earlier  than the mountain time we lived with on our vacation), I'm finally sleeping through the night again.

I achieved a goal from my bucket list; fifty years ago, I worked for the Western Regional Office of Parks Canada, and decided that I'd like to visit all the Rocky Mountain national parks. Well, I visited them many times, except for Waterton-Glacier Peace Park, which straddles the border between Canada and the United States. Usually, I don't post personal photos, but I finally, finally got there! We had traveled through the US portion years earlier, but never to the Canadian part.

It was cold and windy, so I'm huddled into my jacket. The park is within easy travelling distance of my youngest daughter's house, and she was kind enough to take us for a couple of walks there. Bear evidence was everywhere; the trail we'd intended to hike was closed due to a deer carcass

 - which means a very hungry bear is not far away - and there was a huge pile of bear scat full of berries on the sidewalk on the edge of the parking lot at Red Rock Canyon. This time of year, bears are bad-tempered and are everywhere, and we people have to give them space to fatten themselves up for winter. We passed a "bear jam"  - cars parked either side of a narrow access road to view a young black bear eating berries up the hill - and got the heck out of there before some silly stupid tourist got out to get up close for a photo.

As to the title of this post; we got a message via email that there had been an attempt to deliver the long-awaited punch "mid-month"  while we were away, of course, so we tried to track it. The Carpenter-in Chief headed to the post office to see if it was there, but they said the parcel had had a Montreal address. A message to the company with the tracking number informed us today that the package had been unsuccessfully delivered to an address in Montreal, Quebec (a day's drive away), so it seems we were given the wrong tracking number by the dealer. We have informed the dealer of their error, and are awaiting the response. Will I ever get that punch, I wonder?

Wednesday it's back to minis....