June 28, 2021
When I saw that there was a heat wave coming to Vancouver and that today would be the worst of it I texted my work manager and asked for tonight off.
I know what heat does to my sleep, my mood, and my overall will to live. This seemed like as good a time as any, then, for me to use some of the holiday pay that I've been banking since I started with this organization a year ago.
Then, on Friday night, I saw that the temperature forecasts were being adjusted upward to 40C/104F for Monday. I've never been more than mildly uncomfortable from the heat in Vancouver, even living in a fourteenth floor apartment without air conditioning, but those numbers were high enough to take seriously. I looked into a weekend getaway--places I might bring Rhonda that wouldn't be super expensive or difficult to get to and where we could stay in an air conditioned room.
And that's why we're presently in the town of Sechelt, on the Sunshine Coast of B.C. We took a quick ferry ride, sitting on the outside deck and watching the green islandss of the Straight of Georgia pass by. I told Rhonda that this is one of the things I really like about the Pacific Northwest, what it looks like from the waterways that cut through it from the Pacific. It just feels right to me.