Rifugio’s: ‘Country Italian’ Dining on the Mt. Baker Highway in Deming

It’s great to stumble on an independent restaurant such as this. Richard, the owner, is not only charming but obviously knows his way around the kitchen. He’s from Cleveland but counts Italians as grandparents.

We hope to return.

Mount Baker Highway - Route 542

Spectacular, and the last couple of miles of switchbacks are only open in the summer months...

Sehome Sky

Dinner Chez Nous

Sehome Road Skies

Over majestic Thunderbird Lake...

Home Sweet Sehome

Our first June evening sitting out in the back yard after returning from Australia...

Landing at YVR

We've arrived - about an hour early.

Aboard AC 36: BNE-YVR

 

Brisbane Airport (BNE) Air New Zealand Lounge

We left our hotel on a paid shuttle bus (AUS $5 each) a bit after 7:30 AM, and we're now comfortably seated in a very pleasant Air New Zealand lounge.

Security this morning was metal detectors, and the automated exit passport control was a breeze.

We were denied entry to the adjacent Singapore lounge, even though the sign reads "Star Gold." The woman told us we had to go where we were invited, and seemed to have no concept of the significance of that sign. Oh well... this lounge is perfectly pleasant.

We have nearly 90 minutes before boarding Air Canada #36. It's due to depart today - Tuesday - at 10:40 AM (5:40 PM yesterday at home), and our landing at YVR (Vancouver) is scheduled for 7:10 AM PDT Tuesday morning, 7351 air miles later.

We've completed most of a circumnavigation of the world since flying out of YVR a couple of weeks ago, something over 22,000 miles in four different business class offerings.

We suspect AC will stack up pretty well, but we'll have a better idea 16 hours from now.

Brisbane Airport (BNE) Ibis

We drove back to Brisbane from Noosa this morning, giving two Flyertalk friends a ride. The traffic wasn't bad, and we were happy to drop off our SIXT rental car, which was a heavily dented 2012 Corolla with 110,000 km. on the odometer.

The rental shuttle driver kindly dropped us off at the nearly-new Ibis before taking Glynnis and Saibal to the terminal.

The hotel only opened last October, and still has that brand-new shine throughout. It's a budget hotel but pleasant nonetheless.

They had a room for us at 11:30 AM, and there's a nice little restaurant on site. We'll hang out before taking a 7:30 AM (paid) shuttle to the airport in anticipation of Air Canada #36 to Vancouver at 10:30 AM, as another Oz Fest concludes.