A few weeks ago, my mum and I took our first trip together in eight years. Our last vacation was in 2006, and I had just completed the first year of my postsecondary schooling in Toronto, Ontario. That summer I moved back to Saskatoon to live with my parents and to finish my degree at the University of Saskatchewan. Picture an anal retentive daughter who felt a little unsure of her future, a mother who flew by the seat of her pants while holidaying, a bullmastiff puppy who chewed everything in site, and a group of cabins that weren’t fit to live in all dumped in the middle of the woods with a patch of grass for a beach. Yet, the somewhat disastrous nature of that trip has since turned into hilarious and subsequently happy memories. It is certainly one that I will never forget. 

Our destination for this vacation was Oliver, British Columbia. My mum recently put an offer on an acreage two provinces away from where we live and had yet to see it in person. A few days before the sale was to be finalized, she made the decision to fly out there. My brother and his family live only a few hours away from the property, so the trip doubled as an excuse to visit them. The original title of this post was going to be “Nev And Max Do Oliver.” Have any of you seen Catfish? Based on our personalities and my need to document everything, my mum was dubbed the carefree Nev and I was her more organized partner Max. I was hoping that our trip was going to be a much smoother ride than our previous one eight years ago. However, with Nev in charge of planning, Max was thrown into Nev’s world of where anything goes. As they say, “sh*t got cray,” and like the show nothing was as it appeared to be. Similar to the program’s victims, we witnessed firsthand that falling in love with something online is a hell of a lot different than loving it in person.

That is not to say that it wasn’t a great trip. The weather was perfect, the mountains and lakes were breathtakingly beautiful, and we laughed throughout it all. I really did have the best time with my mum. I just need to learn that traveling with her will always be an adventure. More importantly, in the end we accomplished what we set out to do. Oliver really is a beautiful place, but my mother has yet to determine if it’s her kind of beautiful. 

<3

Emory