Blah, BLah, BLOG
I actually feel comfortable with the idea of having no home...for now, it is early days after all. How is this for a start, the freaking engine light goes on in our car - Chris and I both agreed that we needed to have that dealt with before heading out on the road, luckily Canadian Tire had an opening at 8am that morning (July 31). Six hundred dollars later, it is fixed creeping into late afternoon. No such thing as a perfect plan, so without a plan, we head south, towards Victoria, as we had an appointment to go to the following day in a beautiful seaside town. Without thinking, we did not make any reservations at any campsite or hotel. It is a real challenge when you have to look for a place to stay and is pet freindly at the last minute. Hungry and irritable we were. Desperately looking for something healthy to eat is like....forget it! A & W it is. We always regret those choices, and yet we never learn. After a few phone calls at the restaurant we found a place to stay for the night. Let's just say it was an expensive day, but hey, its all good! Because of this day, I made sure we had a campsite for Saturna Island - 5 days was booked. Chris and I had to go to the southern tip of Vancouver Island (keeping you all in suspense, not revealing location as of yet) to talk to the architect/project planner of our possible new home. We want to spend the rest of our days looking at the ocean on the deck, reading good books, painting, writing, sipping wine and making new friends, this place may have all of this for us. We had our meeting and time was ticking on, I check the ferry schedule once more and in a panic, I said to Chris that our ferry was for 3:20, it was already 2:40 and we were not going to make the ferry, it was at least an hours drive.. So in a scramble, we gathered all our papers and left in a haste. We will just have to settle for the next sailing time. We drove into the paying booth and the BC Ferries cashier said the next ferry was for 8:10 pm. We have 4 hours wait before we get on the ferry, just as well, we had to get some food to feed us for the next few days. We drove into Sidney and got groceries and wine. We are all set. Just minutes after boarding the ferry, the sun was sinking into the horizon. You can see the affects from the fires, (Southern BC) turning the skies into a smokey haze leaving the sun shining like a bright garnet stone. Even in disaster, there was beauty. After 2 hours of sailing past 2 islands (Pender and Mayne) we finally docked at Lyall Point, Saturna Island. It was pitch black! Chris turned his head to me and in a voice nicest way possible, said, "Rose, it is going to be dark, and we will have to set up camp in this so we have to be patient, and not to get frustrated, and get angry, we just have to do the best we can." I nodded my head in agreement, "yes, we will do our best". We drove off to the ferry and miss the campsite right away...GPS gives us a little drive around some country roads for about 2 kms. - apparently, our GPS garmin does not do U turns. We found the campsite...unfortunately we can't drive out this time because it was the only campsite on the island and everything else is shut down for the night (10:30pm) OH WHY DID I BOOK FOR 5 DAYS!?! Well, whether we like it or not, we had to set up camp. Remembering what Chris said earlier, reminding myself to be patient and not get frustrated, this assembly under the midnight moon will put us to the test. Chris set up the tent while I set up the air mattress, with our car parked right in front of our site and left the headlights on so Chris could see while putting together our tent, me, with my super bright flashlight I searched for extension cord, adapter, pump and air mattress...so far so good, no cursing or falling over. As the air pump whirs into action, some zombie woman dragged herself to our site and mumbled something, "Pardon?' I said, she mumbled again, "Sorry, I didn't hear what you said." She then waved her arms like she was swatting flies and trudged on back into her tent. Oh, this place is like something out of the movie, Hills Have Eyes. Good news! We set up camp without any choice words, and by 12:30am we were lying in our lilo (the Brit lying next to me calls it that, we Canadians call it air mattress 🤣) We woke up to brilliant sunshine, slinked out of our bed into the warm pacific breeze and had a good look around the campsite. First thing Chris said was, "it looked a lot better in the dark." I totally agreed. The site was tiny! Our view coming out of tent was the fence showing the back of some dilapidated trailer, grounds were littered with tinder dried leaves as if the grounds were never kept, lined with boulders as markers for the tent sites. What a visual nightmare! To our right, there were two one man tents side by side and just steps from there, a shower shack and a pit toilet. Lovely, it looks like we are camping in some one's back yard. We decided to use this day to explore the island and get the heck out of here tomorrow. We hit some beautiful spots on the island, East Point, Thompson Park, Shell Beach and Winters Cove. We walked a lot; it was a hot, slow meandering kind of walk. The smoke was coming in from all directions and it got worst as the day wore on. As we walk through the old Salish trails of Winters Cove, the salal showed off their emerald green leaves bordering the 2nd growth firs, while the wind softly whispering stories of the past (okay, we read the signs in the self-guided tour). Running again is proving to be difficult with this heat wave and poor air quality from the BC fires - and it will get worst as we head East tomorrow. Our plans of eating heathily and exercising regiment basically went out the window. This is going to be a real challenge. Especially now that the poor air quality index is rising at a rapid rate. We decided that we seen the main attractions on the island and 2 days of camping here was fine and we will move onto the mainland. So 2 ferry sailings later, we landed in Tswassen and drove on to Hope (orginal plan was to go North, at this time there were road closures due to fires). What do you do when your tired? You book into a motel - really nothing to write about here. We had an unexpected visit with our friends whom just moved to Kamloops (and within 48 hours, they hosted 6 evacuees from Williams Lake fire), and we ended up staying the night. We had lots of laughs and enjoyed the quails gather in the nearby sagebushes and mountain sheep grazing lazily up the hills past their front yard. We bade our farewells to our friends, packed up our car and drove off onto the ribbons of asphalt, heading East. Next stop, Grand Forks. We really liked this town the first time we visited, 2nd time? No. We left Grand Forks and spent the most part of the day drving, by this time it was nearly 5pm and we stopped in Fernie, BC. What a beautiful town, we drove through it and stopped at the Information center and cooked our dinner in the park. Realizing that now is the time to look for a place to stay...called the holels, motels and campgrounds from Creston to Sparwood, NOTHING was available, all booked! What the heck?! What is happening in these small sleepy towns? Finally, we found a place to stay for the night in Pincher Creek, Alberta. This week is now officially done. Still, have not ran, it has been 35+ degrees outside, to dang hot to do anything but drive on in an air conditioned car. Perhaps our next destination will be a relaxing few days in a beautiful campsite not too far away.
5 Comments
Denise Lange
8/6/2017 11:28:15 pm
I love reading your blog! So much has happened already! Happy Trails to you both <3
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Andrea
8/7/2017 07:55:17 am
"even in disaster there is beauty" - this should be embroidered on a sampler or at least used on a digital image. Deep thoughts, there.
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Chris
8/7/2017 09:01:04 am
It certainly has been an interesting, people are becoming more friendly as we head East. Must be something in the water.
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Carolina in Florida
8/7/2017 10:58:53 am
Wow guys , amazing journeys , and those photos !!!! Makes me want to do the same .I look up to you guys !
Reply
Leslie
8/7/2017 12:50:03 pm
You two certainly keep life interesting. Safe travels.
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