Visiting George and a phone call ( plus Renewing my Driver's License & Eating in China)

Another reason for coming back to the Sunshine Coast this weekend was to renew my driver's license.  I realized only a week ago that my driver's license would expire right in the middle of the Hawaii trip and that consequently I would be driving without a valid license there.

So I renew my driver's license in the Townhall of Gibsons and have them exchange my trusty old care card (which I've had for 27 years now) for a new "Services Card". At least that's what I'll get in the mail when it is completed.  Renewing your driver's license in BC now costs you $75.  Something wrong with that !!!

When all this is done, I still have 20 minutes until the Chinese restaurant opens.  At first I start pedaling around slowly and then with a jolt I remember that I should be very close to some piece of street art, which I have seen 2 years ago on some transformer box.

  There is some development happening down at the shoreline and there is a moment of panic when I am already convinced that they tore down the transformer box for another apartment complex.  But not only is it still there, a neighbouring concrete pedestal (it wasn't a transformer box after all) now has a painting on it as well.

I'm glad I came here today; some 20 years ago I stood at the cover-plate of the urn grave of my father and just felt silly.  Somehow the place where his ashes had been buried had absolutely nothing to do with the life of my father.  And even though George's ashes are no-where near this paintings, it just felt absolutely and indubitably right to come here.

Das Fahrrad with its new saddle bag parked outside Bayview Chinese Restaurant in Gibsons

The scheduled 12:20 ferry still gives me enough time to have lunch at Bayview Chinese restaurant in Gibsons and it is Mongolian Chicken with white wine again, of course.  Blame it on the cold that I consume 2 glasses of wine.






It is on the ferry, where I charge my battery and do some computer work in one of those workstation cubicles, that I receive an e-mail from the son of my Spare-Mom in Germany advising me of 'worst imaginable news'.  He doesn't have my phone number and I don't have reception on the ferry to call him, so I have until my arrival in Horseshoe Bay to fear and accept the worst. 

What was that I used to constantly say about how many days we have left and what to do with them?