5C's Que Pasa

In Toronto’s lounge Sunday PM doing the last post.  That is only luggage we are carrying with us.

No idea where Colin wandered off to to catch this sunset.

Our seats on Turkish Airlines.  No danger of not having enough leg room.  One of the reasons I chose to fly with TK was because of the low cost of the additional taxes that one has to pay on a free ticket.  For instance Lufthansa charges up to $3000.00 each in taxes for the same flights.  I paid a total of $202.50 for both of us.

It didn’t take long for us to spread out 🙂

First thing is to sort out how to make the seat work. Next one is expected to fill out the menu for what we would like for breakfast.

We were given a bag with a pair of slippers in it.  We we put them on and put our shoes in the bag.  Then we got a bag with all kinds of amenities in it from lip balm to a comb/hairbrush.  At the foot of our seats are benches that you can lift  the lid and put things into.

This is the wine we chose to drink.  Lovely.

I had to add this photo as this was the best port I have ever had.  So smooth and that chocolate finish…perfect end to the meal.

Relaxing before said meal.  Notice, not even a glass of vino but it came shortly thereafter.

Ahh here it comes. The warmed nut dish was mostly filled with pistachio nuts and a lot of macadamia nuts.

I only had the seafood appetizer but Colin also had the best ever in the world tomato soup. I had one bite and got a bowl for myself.  Yes that really is a gold color on the inside of the soup bowl.

The main consisted of baked salmon which was a tad dry but still tasty.

There were two chefs onboard and this fellow was serving the desserts.

We both settled for the chocolate mousse ( even better that my last best ever which was in Paris years ago ) and some of that wonderful porto. That wee bag held an electronic candle so that we could eat by candle light.  A nice touch.

Then it was lights out to sleep on our totally flat bed. First they put a nice mattress pad on and we got a blanket and a quilt to cover ourselves with. This fellow slept until 15 minutes before landing this morning.  Colin slept off and on most of the night but I only manged to sleep for 3.5 hours even though we had a good five hours of quiet time before breakfast.  I have never slept well on planes.  Oh well I got to use the bathroom before everyone else and got cleaned up and changed my clothes.

Somewhere around Prague.   Love the colors and layout of the fields.

Who was hungry for breakfast?  Every bite of fruit was perfectly ripe and sweet.

I ate half the fruit and merely nibbled at the omelet.  Along with the fruit course they served warmed breads including mini fresh croissants that melted in your mouth.

This is the new gigantic Istanbul airport still under construction.  Scheduled to open in October of 2018, at least phase one.

I had no idea that Istanbul was so large. As far as the eye can see are hundreds upon hundreds of mostly modern high rise buildings.

The much smaller current airport.

Getting off the plane and before proceeding to the  in transit international flight area of the airport we were subjected to a carry on bag search and a pat down, then we were good to go.  Thank goodness for my research or we would have had no idea where to turn to get to the business class lounge.  The gate numbers go from the 200 hundreds to the 500 hundreds.  This is the business class lounge spied from a window along the walk.  Yes all two stories of it.  The lounge covers 3oo square meters and is one of the top ten lounges in the world.  The new lounge is supposed to be much bigger 🙂

Taken at 5:45 AM PST. You can see from the last post how much the lake has risen.

Adios dear house, see you in four weeks.

The spelling of my surname on the ticket did not match the spelling of my name on my passport!  You can’t  travel if they do not match.  We booked these tickets last July.

How can I have missed this?  Most importantly how can the check in agent have not noticed?  Had she, we would have had a lot less stress.  Instead at 6AM she kept mentioning how tired she was.  I am not saying it is her fault but we were the only ones checking in versus the gate agent who was checking matching names for a full plane.

Kelowna to Calgary was a short one hour flight on a prop job, a DH4.

The plane turned towards the mountains across from our home. It did not appear to be too much snow up there. But we don’t really know if this is the exact area melting and draining into our lake.

The Rockies never disappoint.

The second leg of the flight to Toronto was when the business part of the trip kicked in.  We were on a 767-300 and each seat was a mini pod that actually does lie totally flat.  It was a short 3 hour and 45 minute trip.  For once I was the person sitting in business class as everyone passed by my on the way to their economy seats.

The menu for our trip.

The seat is very complicated but ever so comfy. There is of course a leg rest that comes up.  You can move the section behind your neck and head, forward or back, of course you can recline to the perfect position and then there is the lumbar support which really works well.

I found it cool on the flight so I cuddled under my duvet ( semi reclined ) complete with feathers.  Here I am with my noise cancelling headset provided for the flight watching the movie Three Billboards.  Somehow photos of the meal and delicious New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc never got taken.  Oh as well as the homemade chocolate chip cookie and ice creme 🙂  Colin was sitting to my left.

Can you see the other plane also coming in for a landing in Toronto?

Very busy airport.

Despite being on planes all day I have 6000 plus steps on my Fitbit.

The lake at 7AM. The rise is a bit slower now ( it was faster because of all the rain we had for over 24 hours a few days ago) but we still have to wait for the snow pack to melt which will start in the next few days with extraordinary highs for May.

We are about 7 inches away from the lake covering our patio and yard.  The slabs at the bottom of the photo with the crack is our patio level.

Colin went around and measured most of the electrical posts in our immediate area. The lowest is 7 inches off the ground.  I guess last year we were just under that.  However if the lake rises higher the electricity will be shut off for the entire street.  That means that we will loose everything we have in our small freezer that we keep in the shed as well as what is in the house freezer.  It amounts to between $350.00 – $400.00 dollars.  As we don’t eat meat we tend to collect special vegan items and we would hate to lose those.

So late in the afternoon we transported our freezer as well as our frozen items in the coolers above.  A friend took it all in and even cleared out a large shelf in his freezer for us.  Mucho gracias W.  I only wish that I had thought to transport all the cheese that we have in the upper fridge.  Oh well.  Other than the various cheeses the only thing we will loose will be condiments should the power go out.

We also had to weed our garden before we left. Lots of things growing.

Including weeds. The grasses are also pushing through again.  Perhaps we should have put down landscape cloth once the garden was dug out and before we added the top soil.  Next year I guess.

It took both of us working 1.5 hours to clear the weeds.  Everything is coming up except the peas.  We only have 6 or 7 peas poking through.  Perhaps I should have not have soaked the pea seeds first?  All along the right of our plot are flowers seeds coming up.  I can’t even imagine what we will see when we return mid June.

We took a quick ride in the golf cart before heading home. Just beyond the dock you see the bird island which is already partially submerged in the lake.

Near the golf course owners were staring to make sand bags.  A back breaking task.  It would do us no good to sand bag as the people on both sides of us won’t so the water will  just come around from the side into our property.

The stream coming through the golf course has widened and is fast moving. This stream comes from the snow pack melt and flows directly into our lake.

So many dead trees left from last year’s flood. You can see that the lake is slowly creeping up onto the golf course.

This was taken at 4PM. Still rising.  We think we have done all that we could have.  Perhaps moving the contents of the freezer was over the top but at least we don’t have to worry about anything once we leave our home in the morning.

These are the only babies we have seen this spring. They do addle the eggs around here when a nest is found.

The lake continues to rise.  This was taken yesterday and many of those rocks are already covered. This is in front of your place Karen!

So the third step shown in my last post is now well covered and rising up ( 6 – 10 inches in between steps ).  Only the 4th and 5th left to go and and then another 5 inches to be level with the patio and lawn.

Taken last evening.

Taken this morning.

Colin decided that he was not happy with leaving certain plastic containers under the house.  So he went through them all and brought the most important ones into the house.

Lots of sunshine out there today and more to come.  We have yet to see the worst of the snow melt.  I read today that they are calling it a once in 200 year event.  Last year they called it a once in 100 year event.  Don’t even want to think about next year.

Looks like we are living in a hoarders house 🙂

We did get some packing done which was important.  We are checking our luggage right through to our final destination.  We have four different flights and just did not want to cart it with us and it is costing us nothing to check it so why not.  So I am traveling with a small purse and personal item and Colin is traveling with a small camera bag and a personal item.