The Cup of Cheer

Years ago, decades actually, I stumbled across a collection of slow cooker recipes in a Cerlox-bound book at Costco (or maybe even Price Club from when we lived in Etobicoke). It was curated by Good Housekeeping and because I am an intrinsically lazy person who loves hot meals, it seemed like a good investment. 20+ years later, it still gets regular looks in, particularly for the Hot Buttered Apple Rum on page 23.

Now, I am not a particularly ambitious person in the kitchen, especially if you go back a decade or two, but this warm punch recipe had very few ingredients in it and all of them were easy to find. Honestly, the toughest part was the cheesecloth, which I think I found at either Safeway or possibly The Bay, so, yeah - not too difficult.

We have a coffee butler kind of thing that holds an entire batch (nearly 2 L) and keeps it hot for hours and have kept this recipe on hand for potlucks, sledding parties, winter open houses and sometimes just 'cause.

You can make it with or without adding rum, and most times we do, although either way I recommend maybe using a bit less brown sugar than they suggest, and most people who have had it really, really express a lot of appreciation for it.

My favourite way to serve it is in the Irish coffee glasses Audrey got me as an anniversary present many years ago, with a wee pat of butter floated on top (seriously, it adds tremendous taste and texture to the whole thing). I put some in the crock pot this morning before leaving for church and shared a glass with my sister when she came for supper. And for me, sharing that drink with her? That is when it really, really started to feel like Christmas is coming.

I don't know what it is about hot boozy beverages that put me in mind of the holidays, and family gatherings and suchlike. Dad always loved finishing up meals out with a cup of coffee and a wee glass of Drambuie or something similar. and both Tara and I inherited our mother's love of Irish coffees and the infinite copycats and similar drinks. But I remember serving a glass to someone who was a little unsure what to expect, and having taken a big sip once it had cooled, beamed at me while bringing their shoulders closer to their ears and proclaiming, "it's like drinking a hug."

There are more of you reading this that I would like to hug than I am reasonably going to encounter in the next little while, so, if you are so inclined, I invite you to make a batch of Hot Buttered Apple Rum, and think warmly of our household when you drink, preferably on a frosty day.

Away Goes a Manger

I hold a significant amount of fondness for Audrey's nativity set, which is a bit surprising to me. It's a highly traditional, old-fashioned, Euro-centric depiction of the birth of Christ that doesn't have an ounce of verve to it, and yet, I love to see it come out at Christmas. 

With my Mum passing a year ago this Wednesday, we had pretty limited decorations last December and so the nativity set never made it out. This year, it is within sight of my computer desk, nestled beneath a tree decorated by nothing but stars and angels.

Thinking about it, there are three reasons that this particular set appeals to me so much.

Gratitude - the set itself was a gift from Audrey's parents, but Opa went a step further and built a stable for it out of scrap wood. He even added a light so the interior is more visible. He's busy building another stable for a different set of Fenya's right now as well.

Attitude - my wife and I have a real problem with so many characters from the Bible being depicted as white people in art. In particular, the idea of Jesus, a man native to first-century Palestine, looking like a community college student from Nebraska in 1953 is just galling to us. Audrey's mother was understanding about this, despite coming from a generation where this was obviously no big deal, and was willing to repaint all the skin tones and make them just a bit earthier and more appropriate to the setting.

Fortitude - You wouldn't know it to look at it, but this little nativity set has seen some stuff, man. It was sitting in a box on Audrey's Mum's work desk in the basement in their lovely home on an acreage in High River.

In 2013.

The year of the High River flood, that is.

On June 21, a wet slurry of river mud and water built pressure up against the double doors leading out of the basement until they finally gave way, flooding the basement to the four-foot mark before receding by about a foot and a half. The force of its entry threw a full-size treadmill all the way across the basement and turned it upside down.

Oma assumed the nativity set had been washed away, but when they returned home, it turned out the floodwaters had somehow lifted the cardboard box off the desk, carried it outdoors and set it on the picnic table on the basement patio. The cardboard box was a write-off, but there was not a scratch on the figures inside.

My belief system doesn't contain a God so vain that he couldn't bear to have images of his relatives desecrated by a flood, so I am not going to say this was a miracle or the result of divine interaction or anything like that.

But despite all that, it doesn't seem too out of place to call it miraculous either, and it makes me smile to recall it almost every time I look at the Nativity set.

Reunited On the Island - Qualicum Beach, Coombs and Ucluelet

Family vacations are becoming more and more challenging to arrange; last year Fenya went off to China on a school trip while Audrey, Glory and I travelled to Drumheller, and she will be working full-time at the UAlberta ombuds office for the next year, with no real vacation time to speak of. 

Thankfully she had banked up enough hours in May and June to entitle her to a couple of days away from the office, so we split the cost of airplane ticket with her and flew her from Edmonton to Comox on Thursday night. It was a bit late when we got back to our campsite at Whiskey Creek, but it was grand having everyone together and our first full family night in Bride of Frankentrailer. 

The next day we lazily explored Qualicum Beach and caught up with Island Mike and his wife Kelly, who Audrey and I've chummed around with on and off for a quarter-century or so. We took a stroll in the amazing heritage forest not far from their house and enjoyed a wonderful supper with them. 

On Saturday, our laziness almost prevented us from visiting the Qualicum Beach farmer's market, but we got there in time to get some fresh salad greens for that night's supper and some blueberries for snacking. I also found a delightful honey liqueur called krupnik brewed right on the island in Courtenay, and the girls found some jewelry as well. We also made a trip out to the Coombs Country Market, home of the (in)famous Goats on the Roof.

Here we found a brilliant peach vanilla vinaigrette for our salad and some buns for the bratwursts we had brought for supper. Grilled over an open fire at the campground, and served with mixed greens and a fancy dressing, it felt like a true feast.

The following morning we arose on time for once and piled into the Flex. We headed out to Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, stopping in Port Alberni for some breakfast sandwiches. It took about two-and-a-half hours with the construction stoppages, but we still got in before 11:00. We drove through the town to get the lay of the land and ended up at an entrance to the Wild Pacific Trail. With adequate time and decent weather, we decided to check it out, despite the grim warnings contained in the signage.

Right from the start of the trail there are things to check out, including the Amphitrite Lighthouse.

And even on an overcast day like this, some of the seaside vistas were a sight to behold.

The trail itself took us through some of the gnarliest rainforest, with moss-covered stumps and wildly twisted roots exposed by high winds and tidal actions.

 

We returned to the Flex for some pepperoni sticks and cheese curds before heading back to town, stopping at a scenic former church that now contained a coffee shop and will eventually be home to a microbrewery. From there we made our way to the Ucluelet Aquarium, a catch-and-release enterprise staffed by enthusiastic and knowledgeable young people.

Sadly, they had just released the only octopus they had managed to capture so far this season, as she had doubled in size in under a month and had become far too big for her tank. Thankfully there was still much to see, including a wolf eel and a number of young jellyfish.

We toodled about Ucluelet a little more that afternoon before supping at the Raven Lady food truck. A group from Calgary had set her up, specializing in oyster dishes and offering free shucking lessons to passersby. Full of seafood and marvellous chips, we headed home.

Monday was Fenya's last day on the island, and we would need to leave the area by 3:00 in order to get her to her flight in Comox on time. Surely that would be enough time to visit the beach to she could get some surfside action in?

Well, yes, but since it never got warmer than 16 degrees, it wasn't exactly sunbathing weather. Thankfully, Glory was not about to let a little thing like cool weather prevent her from having her bathing beauty moment, which the rest of us enjoyed from closer to the shore.

I was disappointed at not being able to swim (and from watching a crow fly off with a zip-loc bag full of Jelly Bellies that had been stashed in the cupholder of my chair), but we still had a good time beachcombing and collecting driftwood. We even managed to get the beans back, although only one of us was willing to eat what the girls termed "crowbeans" and it wasn't me, surprisingly. 

We headed back to camp with enough time for Fenya to change and shower, then got an order to go from Bigfoot Burgers, a restaurant close to our campsite with amazing french fries. Wolfing them down on our way to Comx, we reflected on what a gift it was to able to spend some time together in such a wonderful environment, so different from where we live. 

Even though they are sure to become rarer as the girls leave school and enter (and re-enter) the workforce, I am confident there are more excursions like this in our collective futures - I just hope we don't have to wait too long until the next one!

Frankentrailer's Final Trip

A late-season excursion to Jasper turned out to be one trip too many for our 1974 Sportcraft tent trailer. Salvaged from a Lethbridge backyard, structurally reinforced and rewired by Audrey's brother Garrett, then cleaned, patched and waterproofed by our household, Frankentrailer's voyage came to an end in the Wapiti campground, although we still managed to get him home.

Almost a year after Glory and I had enjoyed a successful and frigid expedition to Jasper, we decided to try it again, booking a campsite in mid-August, with Audrey joining us this time. As temperatures plummeted leading up to Friday's departure, we became apprehensive and fearful. But our resolve remained, and so we struck out westward right after work on the last day of summer.

So of course, it would snow.

It had snowed in Edmonton that morning too, to be fair, but it had stopped around noon, and the forecast for Jasper had actually been warmer (5 degrees instead of 2!). Rain in Edson turned to sleet in Hinton and to snow shortly after that.

We arrived at the campsite a little after ten, muscling the trailer into position (because I still have no skill for backing it up), then reversing the Flex so we could see by its headlights. As I cranked the jack, snow falling all around us, the posts slowly emerged from their housing in the trailer, crawling inexorably skyward with each turn of the handle. It's never been easy going (I'm actually the only one in the household capable of elevating the roof), but this time it felt even more arduous. The resistance increased as we neared the top, and I mentioned it just before there was a sharp TWANG followed by a thud as the portside supports gave out completely and the roof on the left side of the trailer collapsed.

There were many exclamatory shouts, some cursing, and then some frantic brainstorming as to how to proceed. When pushing the roof up on the lowered corners had no effect, and reversing the jack handle and cranking anti-clockwise did nothing to lower the other side, we decided, screw it, nothing to lose, and tried cranking it back up again. This actually put a handful of inches back into play, before stopping and then collapsing again.

So there we were: staring at an uninhabitable tent trailer that we were also unable to repack and drive away in, as summer snowflakes continued to dampen everything.

My exhaustion at this point was such that I thought our best strategy would be to improvise a shelter inside the dilapidated trailer, plug in the space heater and my CPAP machine for a night's sleep and then sort things out in the morning. I suggested as much but it was clear that no one else thought very highly of that plan.

So instead we lifted up the corners enough to pull back the extension ends, which allowed us to crawl into the trailer and lift it with our backs so that there was enough clearance to flip the sink/stove over and use that to prop up the roof. "We'll laugh about this one day," Glory assured us.

Pulling the benches open to see the cables themselves, there didn't appear to be anything we could do with the post that refused to lower. Looking at the jack assembly however, was a revelation. Dangling from one of the cables was some sort of housing with protruding bolts that had obviously broken loose from somewhere out of sight. Another bolt, completely sheared in mid-shank, was found in the vicinity as well. It was quite clear that the gearing and cables were no longer going to be a factor in either raising the trailer. But what about lowering it so we could at least leave?

Returning to the right rear post housing, I was able to move the cable sleeve a little bit with an ungloved finger, the incremental movements accompanied by a slightly satisfying clicking noise. Once outside, this enabled us to lower the stubborn posts in a combination of frantic reverse-cranking and straight-up beat-down on the corners of the trailer.

The roof stopped cooperating about 4 inches from the body of the trailer, so we took a break to warm up. It was already after midnight, and he prospect of navigating home with this derelict behind me in a snowstorm as part of a four-hour drive did nothing for my sense of well-being. So I got on my phone and managed to find and book a hotel room that night for a reasonable price, in Jasper.

Jasper, Alabama.

After calling the desk and speaking to Chrissie and getting her assurance that we wouldn't be charged as a no-show, I got us into the EconoLodge in Hinton, equidistant to Jasper in relation to the Miette Hot Springs. I was determined to salvage something positive from this shattered junket!

It took us almost another hour to secure the roof so it was safe to travel, then hook up Frankentrailer and make our way to Hinton. The roads, only slightly slick three hours before, had become slushy and treacherous as Jasper was inundated with heavy snowfall (I saw the Environment Canada advisory once we got to the hotel). Visibility was terrible, and from time to time the wheels took on a mind of their own as the Slurpee-like roads played hobb with my piloting.

It was just before 2:00 am when we pulled up to the EconoLodge. Glory took a shower to warm up while I pushed the trailer in to an out of the way parking lot. Soon enough we were all secure in bed, though my sleep was fitful as the stress of the drive (and manually maneuvering Frankentrailer) refused to drain from my shoulders and back.

The next day, we enjoyed the complimentary breakfast, then headed off to Miette to experience a well-deserved and relaxing soak in one of our favourite spots in the mountains. At last, I could feel movement return to my shoulders and my toes slowly unclenching.

Even though the snow had knocked out some of the power lines to the pool, leaving it a little cooler than usual, there was no denying how much it beautified the landscape we drove through on our way out.

Once home, Fenya and Austin helped us push Frankentrailer's remains back onto the patio and to unload the Flex. As we recounted the story of his final trip, I could feel Glory's prediction coming true. Now that we had successfully returned home, the stress and uncertainty had been replaced by laughter at the absurdity of it all.

Frankentrailer's reputation as the unlikely salvage project that became the hub of a number of great weekends a a couple of stellar vacations in Radium and Drumheller has clearly resonated with many people, a couple of whom commented "RIP Frankentrailer" as the story unfolded on my Instagram account. As frustrating as he may have been to deal with at times, I too will miss Frankentrailer (especially all the stickers we'd affixed to him over the years!). He took our camping trips up off the ground, sheltered us from the wind and rain, and even had a working fridge which insured cold beers on the hottest of days. But after 40 years, it is fair to say that the old Sportcraft has had its day.

You will be missed, faithful old steed!