Last day at the beach

Day 4 -- Penticton, BC

Google Earth measurements (straight line between locations)
Distance from Vancouver: 255 km
Distance from Kingston: 3285 km

Today was our last day in our favourite vacation place (excluding the Spanish Villa). We decided to collect magnets from every province to have our on fridge in Kingston, but we could not find a BC magnet at all. We found lots of Okanagan, Penticton, or Canada ones though. We also tried to find a cupcake store (Big City Cupcakes) that we enjoyed last year but they seem to have closed! Perhaps Penticton is not big enough city! They have opened up a lot of stores in the lower mainland, though.

Later, we visited the giant peach concession stand by the beach. We were not hungry so we didn't get anything but Eigensaur was a bit peckish so he tried a bite of the peach.

"Crunchy!"

We spent one last afternoon at the beach and had dinner at our favourite Penticton restaurant, Villa Rosa. They had really good and really big pasta portions. We saved our leftovers for breakfast the next day. Laura has managed to survive all four days without being sunburnt! Congratulations Laura!

We finally found time to edit together a video of us packing our car for the trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji9giQtlqL8. Also, we have a page devoted to our videos on this blog (see tab above).

Tomorrow, we are leaving British Columbia and will be in Canmore, Alberta!

DRAO, Osoyoos, Mini Golf

Day 3 -- Penticton, BC

Google Earth measurements (straight line between locations)
Distance from Vancouver: 255 km
Distance from Kingston: 3285 km

Today we visited the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, which is about 20 km south of Penticton. We parked outside and walked in because the telescopes are very sensitive to radio interference. Only self-guided tours were available on weekdays -- at each telescope there was a button that we could press to hear a recording. Unfortunately, the recordings were really boring even for me!

 We did not encounter any wild rattlesnakes (or Ekans*) in the tall grass.
*a pokemon

Eigensaur considers the 26-m telescope puny!

Since we were already south of Penticton to visit DRAO and we already had a packed lunch, we decided to keep on driving to see the Southern Okanagan region. We drove all the way to Osoyoos, near the US border, and had a picnic by the beach. On the way back, we visited two big wineries: Inniskillin and Jackson-Triggs, and brought our total wine count to 7 bottles (3 of which are dessert wines).

A view along Highway 97S between Penticton and Osoyoos.

We also played a round of mini golf. The weather has been really warm here, reaching the mid-30s! We heard it is pretty hot in Vancouver too. Tomorrow is our last day in Penticton and we hope to get to the beach since it will be the hottest day yet, but there is a chance of thundershowers!

The Mini-Golf is run out of a boat at "Loco Landing". We did not
go into the "Fun Zone" though we still had lots of fun.

Wines and Pies

Day 2 -- Penticton, BC

Google Earth measurements (straight line between locations)
Distance from Vancouver: 255 km
Distance from Kingston: 3285 km

Fruit and wines are two things that Penticton and the Okanagan are known for. We visited three wineries today and sampled some very good wines. We bought wines both to save for later as we won't be able to get some of this stuff in Ontario but also some wines to enjoy during our trip.

In between wineries, we found some time to swim in the lake, visit a fruit stand, and a bakery where we got a delicious cherry-blueberry pie. Yum!

O

Our loot!

Vacation mode

Day 1 -- Penticton, BC

Google Earth measurements (straight line between locations)
Distance from Vancouver: 255 km
Distance from Kingston: 3285 km

Eigensaur gets ready for the drive!

A wind tunnel on Highway 5 (Coquihalla). Bears are on the highway!

Clouds in the distance driving down Highway 97C from Merritt to Westbank.

We are in Penticton, BC today after a relatively short drive. We meant to take a vacation to Penticton one more time before moving but once we decided to drive across Canada, we figured it was best to make the vacation part of the trip. After arriving, we took a dip in the cold but very refreshing lake, got groceries, and cooked dinner (the place we are staying at has a kitchen).

Time to enjoy the wineries and beaches of Penticton!

A Packing and Random Walk Problem

Day 0 -- Home

Google Earth Measurements (straight line between locations)
Distance from Vancouver: 0 km
Distance from Kingston: 3540 km

My house to our new apartment

 
Introduction

Laura and I are moving from our homes in Richmond, BC to Kingston, ON for me to do my MSc in Astronomy at Queen's University. Our move-in date is 1 August 2010, and we are going to move by car. It will be a vacation to see most of Canada as well as moving!

We plan to take video and make a video blog (link available soon) but putting together video could take awhile so I thought a text and pictures blog would let our friends and family get updates in a much more timely fashion.

Being a physics student, there will be some math/physics (e.g. see below) in this blog. We apologize in advance for our non-physics readers :)

We hope you will join us in our adventure!

A Packing Problem

We've packed all the stuff we want to take in many boxes of various sizes, all numbered from 1 to 19, one number per category. There are even multiple boxes for some categories (e.g. Kitchen). We have a master spreadsheet that allows us to translate numbers to list of contents. We hope we don't lose it (it's backed up in several location and we have several print copies). Yeah organization!

Our boxes. Only the items on and in front of the coffee
table will be packed into our car.

Boxes packed into trunk! Our suitcases, duffel bags, and
backpacks go in the back seat and are the only items visible.

We will be driving some of our boxes over in the next 3 weeks. My parents thought driving across Canada is a cool idea so they will be copying us -- they will drive out in early August as well with the rest of our stuff. They will visit us and other family out in Ontario.

A Random Walk Problem

Our total driving distance is estimated at around 5200km including all the detours we will be making, but not including driving within cities. But, "as the bird flies", it's only 3540km. For fun, if we were traveling by random walk (assuming our vehicle can float), we would have to travel a total distance of 12 531 600 km to end up 3540km from home. With a standard highway speed of 120km/hr, this is 104 430 hours, or 11.91 years. However, that does not determine the direction! The urban area of Kingston (from Lake Ontario to the 401) is about 8km at the largest separation. A circle centred at home with a radius of 3540km would have a circumference of 22 242 km. So the probability of ending up in urban Kingston is 0.04%, which means we need to make 2500 trips, on average, to end up in urban Kingston. Assuming we magically teleport back home every time we end up in the wrong location, it could take up to 29 775 years to make this trip by random walk! Good thing we have our GPS device!

What's Next

Penticton, BC is our next stop! Estimated Arrival Date: 6 July 2010.