After 2 days of driving through B.C., I am totally bored...all those mountains, ho hum - NOT!! The drive through the Rockies, the Okanagan and the Cascade Mountains was, in a word, breathtaking. On Monday, we went to Lake Osoyoos, a beautiful resort town on Lake Osoyoos. The road down into the town itself was a challenge to my down-shifting skills, and was for us more fun than the town itself. We then made our way down to Point Roberts, Washington - a little spit of America in the midst of Vancouver (okay, maybe not in the midst, but it sounds better that way)! When we crossed the border, the U.S, border guard was friendly and welcoming, and knew exactly who we were visiting (right down to what kind of cars they drove). Both my aunt and uncle work in Vancouver, and commute most days from Point Roberts, so it is no surprise that they are familiar with the people who work at the crossing. They have the most incredibly idyllic place, and I could have stayed there forever. They have "adopted" a family of raccoons, and have been feeding them in their back yard for quite a few generations. In the front yard, they feed cats, lots of them! Apparently, Point Roberts has a large feral cat population, and they are working hard to end that problem. They trap the cats & take them to a vet (a friend of theirs), and have the cats spayed or neutered before returning them to the wild. They also feed any cats that come around. Just a few days before we got there, they rescued a kitten from the jaws of death - actually, a large German Shepherd, but close enough! The poor little thing was barely 3 weeks old & had a horrible eye infection. His eyes were swollen so badly that they nicknamed him Yoda. His eyes hadn't even opened yet. They have been feeding him, and giving him antibiotics, and he is thriving now.
We left Point Roberts well-fed and happy, and hopped the ferry to Vancouver Island, landing in Nanaimo. We stopped in Parksville for ice cream (a quasi-birthday celebration for Jordan), and headed across the island. Cathedral Grove is part of an old-growth forest in Macmillan Provincial Park, and was much like I remembered. It is like walking into a different world there. But I was surprised by how many trees had fallen down, & many of them in recent years.
We made our way down the road to Ucluelet and Tofino, just to say that we have been to the westernmost point of the TransCanada highway. But it took much longer than I thought it would - it is unusual for a trip of approximately 120 kilometers to take more than 2 hours, but when you are travelling mountain roads, you spend much more time going up and down than moving in a forward direction, it seems! We spent the night in Port Alberni, which is still a bit of a rough logging town.
We had originally planned on taking the ferry from Victoria to Anacortes, Washington, but it only runs twice a day (at noon and then not until 6:00 pm), so rather than get up early early early for the 3 hour drive down to Victoria, we decided just to head back to Tsawassen and drive across the border. So, here we are in Seattle for the night. I thought about heading downtown to Pike Place Market to catch the fish-throwing fishmongers in action, but I think I'll save my seafood cravings for Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. We are off to visit Jessica's friend for supper tonight, and then tomorrow we are headed south!
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