Vancouver Island - Day 16

It was a very long driving day, but we made it back home.  I am exhausted, which is normal for our holidays, and the driving really took a toll on my back and various muscles really hurt today.  Hopefully that clears up soon.

We started the day very early and got out of Great Falls around 8:00am.  We drove to the tiniest border crossing ever, near Climax, SK, which was still almost three hours of driving away.  There were virtually no cars on the highway to and from the crossing and we were the only car at the crossing, which was simple and quick.  After pulling away from the border crossing, I said we were back in Canada and all the kids cheered - I don't know why, as it wasn't like we had any problems in the US.  They claim that they were just happy to be going home.

Once back in Canada, I put my cell data back on so that Evan could watch the NASCAR race and we stopped in Shaunavon to eat lunch.  Then it was a long drive back to Regina, unpacking and remembering the wonderful smell of Regina water.

Thus ends our trip for this year.  Fun, but tiring.

Vancouver Island - Day 15

Another long travel day, as Crescent City was a 24 hour drive from Regina, and we basically split it up into four days of driving, though our last day is going to be way more than six hours.

After breakfast in the hotel, we left Spokane and drove an exceedingly busy interstate for ten minutes or so until we passed Coeur d'Alene, where the traffic calmed down and the highway became more drivable.  We drove down I-90 until Missoula, where we stopped to go on a carousel that Sandra wanted to see.  It was a nice diversion, even though it was extremely hot - Missoula was almost 38C, and everyone was in the river.

Then we left the mountains behind.  A bit of a windy road through Montana and out onto the almost plains.  Montana is wild.  80MPH speed limits on the divided highways, 70MPH on regular highways.  We made it to Great Falls, where we stopped for the night.  Sandra found a extremely good local burger joint that we went to supper at.  Locally sourced meat, which was fantastic, as was all the iced tea I could drink.

Tomorrow night we should be home. 

Vancouver Island - Day 14

I wasn't able to post this on time because the hotel we stayed at had absolutely horrible WiFi.  It worked in other parts of the building, but not where our room was, so I just went to bed early.

Late last night, after the kids were asleep, Sandra discovered that you needed to purchase a timed pass to the Multnomah Falls, and everything in the morning was already sold out.  You were allowed to park for free before 9:00am, so we surprised the kids by waking them up early and getting out of the hotel before 8:00am so that we would be at the falls around 8:30am.  That all worked out, though the kids weren't impressed.  The Multnomah Falls are the tallest falls in the US, though we argued about whether that was continental US or not, since the Rainbow Falls in Hawai'i are also really, really tall.

After leaving the falls, we drove to Hood River, where I took a picture of the Hood River tourist train.  We all wanted to go on it, but it didn't leave until 11:30am and get back until 2:30pm, which would put us in Spokane very late.  Then it was in to Kennewick, where we got stuck in an hour worth of traffic due to a lane closed on the bridge and ended up eating in a Taco Bell parking lot because I could not see anywhere to stop.  It was pretty miserable, especially as it was approaching 38C.

Then it was on to Spokane - a fairly easy drive through the Columbia Basin, which is an arid and empty area.  At Spokane, we had a room at a hotel at the airport, literally.  The long term parking lot was across the street.  It was an interesting hotel.  It had the aforementioned Internet problems, a pool and waterslide with so much chlorine in it that all the kids in the water were coughing, but a nice courtyard area between the hotel buildings with gas firepits and chairs for everyone to sit in and relax.

Tomorrow we drive into Montana and then we are one day from home.

Vancouver Island - Day 13

We left Crescent City and the ocean behind today and drove a very twisty road to Grants Pass, where we met up with a regular American Interstate highway.  The kids started watching Return of the Jedi as we drove through the redwoods, but after an hour of twists and turns, Bradley was huddled up on his seat and not watching the movie.  However, everyone survived the trip.

At Grants Pass, we stopped in at a local glass blowing shop, where we were able to see some glass blowing done.  However, they stopped for lunch right as the kids were getting interested.  It was then time for lunch at a California institution, In N Out Burger.  The restaurant was right at the entrance to I-5 and was quite busy, but we got our food quickly and were soon on our way.

The interstate was somewhat busy and by 4:00pm we were in Portland, which is a disaster of traffic.  I forgot to check the best route and made the quick decision to take I-205 around the city, which was the correct choice, as our hotel was on the east end of Portland.   We were still in stopped traffic for almost an hour and the exit to I-84 is really not signed well when you are stuck in three lanes of stopped traffic.  We managed to make it to the hotel, though, and then go out for supper.  After supper, Bradley played in the pool for an hour and then we called it a night.

Vancouver Island - Day 12

It may not seem like it, but this is basically our last day of the trip, as tomorrow we start a four day trip home.  With that in mind, we headed out to Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park to walk through the redwood forest - specifically, the same forest that the Endor scenes from Return of the Jedi were filmed in.  The actual filming location was in an area not near here and scheduled for cutting, so it no longer exists, but it was in the same forest and it really looks identical when you are walking in it.

Everyone greatly enjoyed the walk through the forest, especially Evan, who called it the second best part of the trip.  I was having a ton of fun until the kids realized they could run up and down the fallen tree limbs.  At one point, a tour guide was showing his group the bottom trunks of a fallen tree that my kids were climbing on.  There was a huge THUMP as Evan jumped off the tree and landed and he paused his talk to comment that he didn't know what that noise was.

Sandra and I had been in this forest before when Alex and Evan were little, but we had only done this walk, as we were travelling that day and hadn't even planned to stop in the forest.  This time we stopped in at the information center and found out there was another walk deeper in the park (down a scary grid road) called the Grove of Titans where a few of the biggest redwood trees in California exist.  We drove down the road, found a spot to park along the side of the scary and narrow grid road and then walked into the forest.

This walk was a bit scarier, as the first part was along a narrow path without a railing and there was a small cliff on one side.  Once you got to the grove area, the path changed to metal walkways above the forest floor, which felt a little bit safer.  Anyway, I don't think I can truly describe how big the trees were.  It's impossible to take a picture of one, and we were all impressed.

Walking back to the car, we took the scary road all the way to the other end of the park and back into town and then ended up having lunch on the beach.  Crescent Beach is very nice, with decent sized waves and it is right on the highway, so easy to get to.  After lunch, Bradley played in the water for awhile, before we headed to our next stop, which was a small local aquarium.

Given that this was our third aquarium this trip, there wasn't much new to see at this one.  However, it did have something new to do, which was at the end where they had a pool with two sharks in it, and you were allowed to pet the sharks.  They were leopard sharks, which are bottom feeders and have small mouths with small teeth under their bodies, so the risk to your limbs is tiny.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the chance to touch the sharks, and Bradley stayed after everyone else had left.  By that point, the larger shark was done with people touching it, and as he stuck his hand near it, it quickly reversed direction and sped away, splashing water everywhere.  It then refused to swim anywhere near Bradley, which I guess ended his time playing with the sharks.

Our final brief stop was the local lighthouse, which is only accessible by foot at low tide.  We got there two hours after low tide and were still able to get across to take some pictures, but had to get our feet wet leaving.  After some time sitting on the rocky beach and watching the waves hit the bigger rocks, we headed back to our house for supper, thus ending our brief time in the very northern edge of California.

Vancouver Island - Day 11

We have finally arrived at our final destination, Crescent City California, just across the border from Oregon and the start of the redwood forest.  Today was another day with a morning filled with seeing stuff and then a full afternoon of driving.

We left Yachats and drove a very short distance to Devil's Churn, a open split in the rocks that the waves crash over.  After a few minutes watching the waves, the bored children decided it was time to go.  Our next stop was the Heceta Head Lighthouse, which we had visited the last time we were out this way because Sandra loves lighthouses.  There is a fairly big parking lot and then a long walk up to the lighthouse, which I must have blocked from my memory, as last time I would have pushed a stroller up the hill.  Today it was a nice easy walk, especially as it continues to be very cold on the coast, with the temperature hovering around 15C.  The view from the hill over the beach was impressive.

Our second last stop was just over a bridge at the sea lion caves.  The elevator to the caves was broken, but you could still see the sea lions outside from a viewing platform and they weren't charging full price admission.  It was cool to see them playing in the water, though the kids weren't very impressed, as it was getting near lunch and every stop meant longer to wait for food.

Then it was a short drive to Florence, where we stopped at a park for lunch and then a quilting store for Sandra.  They had a table outside with hunting magazines for the men to sit at while the women shopped, but I ended up walking around the marina area a bit with the boys.  Once Sandra found some pretty fabric with nautical themes, we packed everyone into the van and then drove for the rest of the afternoon to Crescent City, where we are staying in an AirBnB house.  After heading to a local burger shop for supper, we went to Wal*Mart for supplies and then Sandra did laundry.

Tomorrow we will explore Endor and the redwoods in this area.

Vancouver Island - Day 10

Sorry that the name no longer matches the trip.  I gave it a name based on the start of the trip rather than the end.  Anyway, today we started out in Cannon Beach.  We did a little bit of shopping, checked out of the inn and then moved the van to a parking spot, which was difficult, as the town had a ton of visitors and not very many parking spots.  Then we walked down to the beach to see the rock and tide pools at low tide.  It was a lot of fun, but quite cold, with the wind blowing off the water.  We saw crabs, anemones and a few starfish.  However, it was difficult to see the puffins, as they were at the top of rock, which was still a long way away.  After a bunch of viewing and wandering around, we headed back to the van, which was surrounded by cars circling and looking for a parking spot.  We found a spot for lunch, ate and then left town.

Then it was driving down the beautiful highway 101 in Oregon.  Twisty at times, but lots of great views of the ocean, trees and rocks.  Near the end of the afternoon we arrived in Newport and the Oregon State Aquarium.  It was only open for a bit over an hour and a half, but it isn't a huge aquarium, so we still had time to go through.  It was a lot of fun, as they had a touch tank that Bradley loved, a fascinating giant Pacific octopus and an aviary that had puffins that you could view from fairly close up.  You could watch them dive into the water and swim and they are fantastic swimmers, which makes sense, because they are the most mediocre flying birds I've ever seen.  The final part of the aquarium is a walking tube where you can see fish, rays and sharks swimming over top of you.  Even I got a little bit excited watching the rays swim around the viewing area.

After leaving the aquarium, we headed a bit farther down the highway to Yachats and our hotel room.  Then it was out to find supper at a local seafood restaurant.  It didn't have any tables inside, just outside, and it was cold (around 15C, with a cold wind blowing).  We sat at an open table and froze a bit while we ate, though the kids only ate hamburgers.  It was near the end of our meal that I realized there was a large sheltered area where everyone else was sitting and we were the only silly people sitting out in the freezing wind trying to eat supper.  Oh well.

Tomorrow we will end up in Crescent City, which is our final destination before heading back to Regina.

Vancouver Island - Day 9

Today was a day of eating in parking lots.  We left the hotel in Port Angeles, which didn't have a free breakfast, and drove to a nearby Safeway for supplies, including breakfast supplies.  As Sandra organized all the food in the cooler, the boys ate their breakfast in the van in the parking lot.

Then we drove through the Olympic National Forest in Washington, taking a number of smaller side roads, as the main roads run southeast and we wanted to go southwest.  There aren't many stopping points on the side roads, so for lunch, I noticed a small state park and decided to pull in.  Unfortunately, it was a very, very small state park, with a single uncleaned portable toilet and no picnic tables.  So, we ate in the parking lot.

Then it was across a massively long bridge in Astoria and into Oregon and eventually our destination, Cannon Beach.  This is a small resort town with a massive beach and tons of little inns and rental houses.  We are here partially for the beach and partially for Haystack Rock, a massive rock offshore that is home to puffins and which you can walk out to at low tide.

After checking into our room and going out for supper, we walked along the beach and looked at the rock, even though it was high tide this evening.  The beach and ocean was very nice, but the water was ice cold, which did not deter Bradley at all.  We were walking by the water with some of us wading a bit and we were passed by people in full winter gear.

After a long walk down the beach and back, we retired for the night.  Tomorrow we will stick around until high tide, visit the rock and then head down the highway to our next stop.

Vancouver Island - Day 8

We spent the day wandering around Victoria, which was much busier than I wanted it to be, especially once you got downtown.  We first drove to Craigdarroch Castle and toured it.  Then we drove to Beacon Hill Park, ate lunch and walked across the park to the Mile 0 marker for the Trans Canada (Evan complained that both Victoria and St. John's have Mile 0), and the third Terry Fox statue (the other two being where he started in St. John's and where he stopped in Thunder Bay - we visited those two years ago).  We then briefly visited a nearby garage sale, where we were able to buy a new, unopened snowball thrower, since, as the homeowner pointed out, we'd have more use for it than her kids did.

Then it was in to downtown Victoria for the rest of the day.  It was pretty busy downtown, but we managed to find a parking spot in a lot by the marina.  We then went through a miniature showcase, which was a bit of a tourist thing, but we all really enjoyed the miniature scenes that had been created.  Alex would have loved the couple of World War 2 ones, I enjoyed the numerous trains, Sandra liked the intricate interiors to some of the miniature buildings, Evan liked the airplanes and the younger two loved that you could press buttons to make things move in the scenes.

At this point, we were all pretty tired and it was hot and we still had a few hours before we could get in line for the ferry.  We walked to the legislative buildings, but the kids were worn out, so we ended up deciding to go and find some supper.  Government Street in Victoria is like Scarth Street in Regina, in that it is open to people and not cars (at least on weekends) and is full of shops and shoppers (which I guess is unlike Regina).  The kids are getting tired of fast food and want different things, so I ended up taking Bradley to Subway while Sandra took Evan and Jonathan to A&W.  The Subway was far enough away from the main area of downtown that it was starting to get a little scary, but we made it there and back with only a couple of brief encounters with upset people.

After supper, we headed back to the van and drove the short distance to the ferry loading area.  As this is a ferry to the US, you have to wait in lines in your car for the customs officer to visit and check passports.  Then it was on to the ferry and the one and half hour sailing across the straight to Port Angeles.  It was a nice ride until we neared our destination, when the waves picked up and the ferry started swaying a lot and some of my family started to not look very good.  However, we managed to get off the ship and through a second customs and to our hotel.

I am always amazed at the culture shock I get when I first arrive in the United States.  They live in such an isolated bubble - the room charge wouldn't go through on my credit card because it has a PIN, which the attendant could not comprehend, despite what I would assume is a non-zero number of Canadians that come across and stay in this hotel.

Vancouver Island - Day 7

Another great start to the day, with a coffee and an ocean view.  After breakfast and packing up, our first stop was the nearby market and tourist attraction called Goats on the Roof.  It is a market in a building that has grass and goats on the roof (surprise!).  We spent some time shopping and wandering the area and buying some doughnuts from a local shop, as Sandra loves finding local doughnut shops.  I found the row of shops on the highway very interesting, as at one point they had a hippie shop beside an army surplus shop, with a red fire truck in front of it.  Straight out of Radiator Springs.

Once we were done shopping, we then drove down to Duncan to meet Mike and Sharlene and have lunch.  Duncan was having a street fair, so it was busy downtown, but there was live music as well as a lot of street sales.  We spent a couple of hours visiting over lunch in a nice outdoor deck before heading into Victoria and our final destination of the day, The Butchart Gardens.

Obviously, this stop was primarily for Sandra, and we must have seemed quite out of place wandering the flower gardens with three older boys.  There were some very pretty flowers, and Evan even liked the dragon fountain and Japanese garden.  Once we had walked through all the various gardens, we spent a bit of time shopping and then headed back to our hotel for the evening.

Tomorrow we plan on exploring Victoria a bit and then we'll take an evening ferry to Washington, leaving Vancouver Island (and Canada) behind. 

Vancouver Island - Day 6

Today started wonderfully, sitting outside in a chair in front of the ocean and enjoying a cup of coffee.  This truly is a very nice place to visit.  We took it easy in the morning, as we didn't have a ton of stuff planned for today.  We drove out to Little Qualicum Falls and spent a little over an hour walking around a series of beautiful water falls.  Sandra has always loved waterfalls - heck even the sound of running water is something she enjoys - so she had a great time and took a ton of pictures.  The boys enjoyed it for the first half, but then started to get tired.  Once we were done the walk, we stopped for lunch.

Our next stop was around an hour drive to the town of Comox, where we were going to briefly meet Steph and part of her family, whom we haven't seen for quite a few years.  We arrived early, so walked down to the marina park, where the BC Grey Cup festival was setting up an inflatable Grey Cup and had some games and music.  We watched for a bit and then Bradley, Sandra and I took turns throwing footballs into big garbage cans.  I chuckled at the state of the CFL, as in some small town on Vancouver Island, the turnout of people in full fan gear was one Rider fan, one Elks fan and one Lions fan.  And I guess you could include me, with my Rider hat.  Too many Rider fans for what was a BC event.

We then grabbed some ice cream and spent a couple of hours visiting with Steph and having the kids reconnect a bit, as they had spent time together years ago when everyone lived in Regina.  After the visit and the good-byes, we headed back to Parksville, though we stopped in Qualicum Falls to go to a burger place Steph recommended.  We enjoyed the burgers outside, and Sandra tried one of their specialties - a burger wrapped in a tortilla shell and baked.  It was interesting - not sure I'm convinced about it, but she liked it.

The town was having a night market on the street, so we took a brief walk down it and quickly discovered a man selling a hockey board game that he had designed and published.  There was no way I was walking away without that game, and Evan's "maybe" when I asked him if he wanted it sealed the deal.

Our final stop of the day was a nearby go-kart track that I had found online in the morning and then booked in the afternoon.  Evan loves to drive go-karts (as do I), and we really only get to do it on vacation.  This one sounded good on the website, though I don't think it was actually as busy as the booking availability made it sound.  Regardless, we got to run our laps and have some fun.

Then it was back to the hotel, where Evan and I golfed the second mini-golf course, before Sandra, Evan and Bradley ran out to the ocean until it got dark.

Vancouver Island - Day 5

We have made it to Vancouver Island.  As seems to be normal when we try to plan around ferries, we were not able to make reservations on the ferry to Nanaimo this morning, as the earliest ferry with reservations was at 6:30pm. However, they only reserve 80% of the boat, and the final 20% is filled with whomever shows up and waits in line.  Since we didn't have anything else we really wanted to do in Vancouver, and we did want to be in Nanaimo before dark, we figured we would just go down to the terminal and wait in line all morning.

I was a little sluggish this morning, but we still managed to get everyone out of the hotel and get on the road just after 8:00am, arriving at the ferry terminal shortly after that.  Sandra specifically picked this hotel because of how easy it was to get to the ferry.  The girl at the ticket office didn't think we'd get on the 9:30 ferry, but it sounded like we'd easily make the 11:25 ferry.  However, we ended up being one of the final cars loaded on the 9:30am ferry, though I had to park on a very steep incline.  Once on board, I cancelled our 6:30pm reservation, bought a coffee and enjoyed the short trip to Vancouver Island, though we found out we weren't going to be able to meet with Sandra's aunt and uncle, which had been our plan for the afternoon.

Upon arrival in Nanaimo we drove to a grocery store for supplies, and then Sandra remembered the Dinghy Dock pub that we went to on our honeymoon 22 years ago.  It's a floating pub on a small island in the harbour only accessible by boat.  The boat runs every hour and we were there at the perfect time to get on the ferry and arrive at the pub for a wonderful lunch outside in the harbour.  Everyone enjoyed their food and we then took the boat back to the city.  Our next stop was a local bakery, as Bradley was determined to eat a Nanaimo bar in Nanaimo, after which we went to a used book store that looked interesting.

By that time we were ready to head to our motel, which was in the nearby town of Parksville.  It's a small, quaint motel, with long narrow rooms, so that every room has a deck or balcony with a beach view.  The tide was out when we arrived, and the beach was huge.  Bradley ran out into the sand and the water, finding crabs and wading out wherever he wanted.  The tide was coming in, and we quickly found ourselves trapped on a sand bar and had to wade to safety.

It was then time for supper and a free round of mini-golf, courtesy of the motel.

Vancouver Island - Day 4

We spent the day exploring a couple of spots in Vancouver and it was both fun and annoying and baffling, all at the same time.  We started by going to Capilano River Regional Park, which is a very short drive straight north of where were staying.  It wasn't too difficult to find and was a really nice start to the day - a nice walk through a forest and river canyon, with waterfalls and lots of nice views.  It was also very quiet, with just a few locals around and no other tourists.  After finishing our walk, we decided to visit two other spots in the river area, a suspension bridge and the dam at the top of the canyon.  Due to the way the roads worked, it was easiest to head south to the suspension bridge first, which we did.  Unfortunately, the suspension bridge is a huge tourist attraction, which meant it was very busy.  The baffling part was the price - $75 per adult, $45 for Evan and Jonathan and $27 for Bradley, for a grand total of $267 for what we had planned as a short half hour visit.  Needless to say we left without going in and went up to the dam, where parking was free and you literally just walked out on to the dam and a viewing platform.

Then it was back to the hotel for a quick lunch before we headed down to Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium.  Sandra booked this hotel because it was an easy trip to Stanley Park, but as we were getting ready to leave, I realized that while the highway goes south into Stanley Park, the main and seemingly only driving entrance to the park is from the south, so Google Maps had us driving through the park into downtown Vancouver, then driving around a block to turn around and then driving back into the park.  There is a tiny little road that you can take off the main highway that goes around the entire park, so I decided to try and take that, which worked out.  We found a parking spot and headed into the zoo.

The aquarium was lots of fun and the kids really enjoyed it.  Jonathan saw some turtles, Evan saw jellyfish and a couple of random animals that are in Animal Crossing and Bradley got to touch jellyfish and starfish in a tank.  We spent the entire afternoon there and then walked to the totems and along the seawall so that Evan could see the standard Stanley Park photo.  Our original plan was to eat supper somewhere in the park, but literally everything in the park shuts down at 5:00pm, except for one restaurant we could find near the aquarium.  We walked over to it only to discover that it closed at 5:30pm today for a special event, so we were left with nowhere to eat.  We then tried to leave the park, only to realize that we could not, as the tiny little access road out of the park heading north was closed until 6:30pm, since it was just a simple stop sign on a main highway and they didn't want cars darting out during rush hour.

So, back into the park we went and after finding a place to park, we sat on a bench for half an hour and then drove around the park again (since the little road is one way) and then made our way out and to a very large mall where we could find something to eat.  Then it was back to the hotel after a successful day with small hiccups.

Tomorrow is going to be a fairly quiet day, as we are taking the ferry to Nanaimo.

Vancouver Island - Day 3

"slightly shorter driving day"

I should know better than to tempt fate.  As we were coming down from one of the last mountains, we encountered a row of stopped vehicles.  For the first few minutes, the line slowly moved forward, but I became a bit concerned that it appeared that we were only moving forward when cars ahead of us turned around and started heading the other way.  That was true, as we eventually got to a point where no one was moving and the majority of people were getting out of their cars and wandering around the highway.  Of course, we were in a location with no cell service, so there wasn't any opportunity to find out what was going on.  After about 30 minutes of waiting, we decided to eat lunch, so Sandra grabbed the cooler out of the back of the van.  At this point, a man walked by and said that a coal truck had tipped and spilled its load across the entire highway, and that it could be a 4-5 hour wait before they got the road opened again.

At that point, I decided to drive back to Princeton (about 40km), just to get cell service and figure out a plan of action.  We stopped at a sketchy picnic table at a sketchy gas station right at the entrance to town and ate lunch.  The BC highway website seemed to corroborate the information, stating that the highway was completely impassable and no more information would be available for another hour and half.

As this is the mountains, there are limited alternate routes.  The shortest one was north from Princeton to Merritt and then south from Merritt to Hope - an almost 2.5 hour detour.  As the quickest the road could open would be 1.5 hours, and then it was still an hour drive to Hope, I figured it was best to just take the detour, which we did.

They ended up opening the highway about two hours after we left, so we saved half an hour by driving, but it still took us all day to get to Hope, and we were almost 2 hours from North Vancouver at 4pm.  We had to cancel plans to meet with friends in the Vancouver area and just head straight to the hotel.

Once there, we had a quick supper and then managed to meet with some old friends who were able to find some time to drive out to us instead of us driving to them.  Tomorrow we will do something in the Vancouver area, as we aren't leaving until Wednesday.

Vancouver Island - Day 2

I'm not certain what to make of today.  It started off extremely well, but ended with an exceedingly long and tiring drive through the mountains, with only the promise of more of the same tomorrow.

We started with breakfast in the hotel, then packed up and left Lethbridge, where you rather quickly start seeing mountains in the distance.  We then drove into the mountains and stopped at the Frank slide interpretive center, exactly like the last time we took this route 12 years ago.  This time we actually walked the entire path through the rocks, since we weren't dealing with very small children.  However, we were dealing with the scrambling mountain goat that is Bradley, who had to be told to stop climbing on some of the rocks quite a few times.

Then there was a quick trip to Sparwood where we ate lunch in front of the giant dump truck and then did a little bit of grocery shopping.  This is where things turned a bit for me, as it was almost 12:30pm and we still had 5+ hours of driving to go.  And the drive was frustrating.  The first part of the drive is actually through a whole bunch of valleys, so it isn't hard driving, but there were a lot of vehicles on the road and far too many vehicles going 80 km/h and far too many vehicles making insanely dangerous passes.

South of Cranbrook, the highway actually starts crossing the mountains and the rest of the trip was high grades up and down.  This section of the highway had very few cars on it, but it was much more difficult to drive, and by that time in the day, I was exhausted.  We managed to make it to Grand Forks and our hotel, where we stopped for supper, but I was spent.

Tomorrow is a slightly shorter driving day, but we end up in Vancouver and its traffic, so we'll see how that goes.

Vancouver Island - Day 1

For the third time since we started this blog, we drove from Regina to Lethbridge.  600+km of pretty empty landscape, but it is the most logical spot to stop before heading into the mountains on the southern route.  We spent a lot of time yesterday and today remembering our previous trips to Lethbridge, including the one in 2009 where we went to a bunch of the same places we will visit on this trip, just with much younger children.  It's a bit jarring to read those older posts where every driving day was spent dealing with small kids who didn't want to be in the car all day, versus today, where all the kids have their own books and electronics and basically sit quietly in the back for six hours.

The day started fairly leisurely, as we slowly got everyone up and got the van packed and ready to go.  I think we were out of Regina shortly after 9:00am and drove all the way to the Saskatchewan border before stopping for a picnic lunch.  It was windy, but warm in the sun, so Bradley, in a repeat of our last trip, ate his lunch in the parking lot so he could be in the sun.

After lunch, we packed up and drove to Lethbridge.  There was a little bit of rain, and a couple of very questionable other drivers on the road, but other than that, the drive was uneventful.  Once we checked into our hotel, we walked to a nearby hobby store and did some shopping.  Lethbridge's hobby store was quite a bit better stocked and busier than any of the ones in Regina, despite only having half as many people.

Then it was off to supper.  As it was close by and pizza is a cheap supper for a group, we decided to go to the same pizza place we went to back in 2018 when we here for the start of a mini-Alberta trip.  It was a good supper, well loved by Jonathan and Evan and tolerated by Bradley.  Sandra and Evan devoured a chocolate calzone for dessert.  After that, the younger kids played in the pool for a bit before heading to bed.

Tomorrow we head into the mountains and plan to end our day in Grand Forks, BC, where the forecast high is 36C.  Our first actual hot weather of this very wet and cold spring and summer.

Vancouver Island - Day 0

It has been a long time since I wrote a blog post and I don't even know how to do it anymore.  Tomorrow we start a short (for us) vacation of two weeks out to Vancouver Island and the surrounding area (including Washington and Oregon).  It will be a bit of an odd trip, as Alex will not be coming with us, instead staying home to help out at Dallas Valley for a couple weeks.  For the other kids, it will be their first trip to British Columbia since they were very little (or the first trip ever, for Bradley), and they don't really remember anything from those trips.

As is usual when heading west, our first day will consist of driving to Lethbridge, followed by a relaxing evening in a hotel, before heading into the mountains.