A blog to chronicle our trip to the West Coast and more.
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Happy Canada Day! We are winging it west in the morning, bright (well dark) and early. We have an early flight and the girls are excited to be finally on our way. This is what our plane should look like, an Airbus 320, originally when I booked the flight it was a Boeing 763 (767-300), but somewhere along the way they changed the plane and our seats. I had to call twice to redo our seat selection.
It was an early start this morning, we were at the airport by 6:00 AM for our 7:30 AM flight. The flight before and after our flight to Vancouver were both cancelled. Here are the girls in the airport.
Claudia did pretty good for a five hour flight.
Claudia took a picture of the mountains.
We landed on time and after we got our rental car we headed for Horseshoe Bay to catch the ferry over to the island. We went up to the sundeck and boy was it windy.
It was crazy windy.
Below deck.
Once we got settled in our hotel we headed down to the beach in Parksville.
It was high tide, the girls waded in up to their knees.
Angela with a couple of rocks she found. There will be a lot of photos of stuff taken on this trip since they can't bring as much back with them.
A little crab they found.
There was a park at the beach. The last time we were here we only spent a few hours in Parksville, so we didn't get down to the beach.
After the beach it was over to Uncle Tak's place.
Angela and Claudia out back looking for frogs.
Uncle Tak's house and pond.
There were alot of black slugs in the grass.
We only found the one frog this time.
The girls enjoyed looking around his studio.
Here are his tools.
All of his certificates and honourary degrees hung on the walls.
Check out his bike hanging from the ceiling.
I liked the corner painting.
The girls with Uncle Tak.
On Friday morning we headed out to Pacific Rim National Park and Long Beach. The drive was from Parksville along Highway 4 to Port Alberni and then on to Long Beach. Before Port Alberni we stopped at Cathedral Grove. It is a stand of Douglas Fir that range in age from 300-800 years old.
Looking up, looking waaay up.
This tree had fallen and it managed to fall between two trees at the far end.
Here are the girls walking along the tree.
Some of the sunlight still finds it way to the floor of the forest.
Here is a picture of our rental car. It is a 2009 Toyota Camry Hybrid. We managed to squeeze everything into the trunk. The trunk is a liitle tighter due to the extra space taken up by the batteries for the car. The girls like the fact that it is a hybrid and considering gas is about $1.10/litre, I'm liking it as well. It took awhile to get use to starting it, just push the button. When we got to the ferry terminal I had some time to read the manual.
After Cathedral Grove it was on to Long Beach. The road out to Tofino/Ucluelet is a winding, narrow and hilly road. Some of the scenery along the way.
We stopped at the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve Visitor Centre and paid our fee. The day pass was $19.60 for the family and it was good until 4:00 PM the next day.
Our first stop was the Wickaninnish Beach. This is part of Long Beach which is 16 km long. The weather was perfect.
There was alot of dead crabs on the beach.
There were quite a few surfers in the water trying to catch a wave.
The water was a little cold. The only ones in the ocean were the ones with wet suits. The girls enjoying the beach.
Angela with one of the crabs she found.
Gillian with jelly remains.
Angela and Claudia heading to wash off.
After a couple of hours on the beach we headed over to the Interpretive Centre.
Angela and Claudia found a tide pool with some sea anemone.
One more shot before heading inside.
We took the trail out to South Beach, the trails are short, good for the kids. The description of this trail is "South Beach offers spectacular, but potentially dangerous, wave watching. Very large waves and strong currents form at this pebble beach." Along the trail there was a totem pole, it is the first totem pole the Ucluelet First Nation raised in over one hundred years.
There were notices up about bears and wolves in the area.
Angela checking to see if there were any bears home.
The girls had climbed up on the huge rocks at South Beach.
Some of the rocks they were climbing on, they were on the one to the left in the previous photo.
The waves weren't that large today.
We found a dead starfish washed up on the beach.
More climbing and exploring.
Angela and Claudia holding on for dear life.
One last look back to the beach.
We certainly lucked out with the weather today. We really enjoyed this spot, the girls even spotted to live starfish clinging to some of the rocks in the water. The pebbles and rocks were smooth and lots of shells that were intact.
After Second Beach it was off to Radar Hill, it was a Pinetree Line Radar installation back during the Cold War.
We saw a pair of bald eagles while we were there. If you look closely you can see them, they came right over top of us and kept going.
In case of Tsunami go this way.
Our last stop for the day was at Combers Beach, we hit it at low tide. This is the view as we came out of the trail.
Way out on the rocks you can see the outline of sea lions.
Even though it was kind of a long weekend, the beaches certainly were not busy, although all the campgrounds had no vancancy signs up.
That's the amazing thing about tides, it can make the same beach look so different. Gillian had scratched her name in the sand, only to have the incoming tides wash it away.
Today we are heading to Victoria for a few days. Our day started with a stop at the Parksville Beach. It was low tide compared to Thursday when it was high tide.
There is a whole different world of creatures with low tide.
The girls were in 7th heaven catching the little crabs.
A little hermit crab.
Claudia's crab.
A live sand dollar in the sand.
Claudia with a dead sand dollar.
Looking back towards the beach.
Finally we hit the water.
Sand dollars.
The girls really enjoyed low tide and couldn't believe this was the same place they waded in on Thursday.
After the beach we headed over to the Coombs Old Country Market. First we stopped at the Thrifty Foods to take a picture with the giant shopping cart.
The cart next to our car.
This is the place where they have the goats on the roof.
Claudia and Angela watching our for goat poop.
A green roof.
There are a lot of little shops as well as the main market store.
We went next door to the market where there were more shops.
Claudia bought a new hat.
It's always a fun place to visit.
There have been issues on the host servers that have limited my ability to post all the pictures. It has been going on for most of Sunday, hoping it gets resolved sooner rather than later.
Sunday was spent in downtown Victoria, we headed in from Kay's place for the day. The Empress Hotel in the background.
Last time we were here there were painted colour orcas, this time there are eagles.
The Victoria harbour.
We walked around the BC Legislature building.
The guy on the dome.
We didn't do the museum, maybe next time.
Hiding in the bracnches outside the Empress Hotel.
The girls making a call.
When we asked the girls what they wanted to do or see in Victoria, it was an unanimous "Bug Zoo"!
Some of the bugs in the zoo.
They all held as many bugs as they could.
Even I held a couple of bugs this time. The first was a tarantula, only big kids 19 and over were allowed to hold them.
The other was a scorpion. Angela declared that she was coming back when she turns 19 so she can hold the tarantula.
Next up was the millipedes, this is what the girls remember most about our last visit.
Angela opting for the millipede moustache.
Claudia trying the same thing.
Gillian decided she would go for the millipede unibrow.
Claudia and a cockroach.
Another fun visit to the Victoria Bug Zoo.
After the Bug Zoo we walked around downtown Victoria. We came across more of the eagles.
There was a guy playing guitar on one of the street corners, he seemed to like watching himself perform in front of the glass doors.
Looking down Government Street, further down they close it off every Sunday and have a bunch of artisans selling their wares.
A couple of university students trying to raise money.
Entrance to Chinatown.
Susan doing some shopping.
Not sure if the rubber duckies are to increase visibility.
All the electrical panels and boxes are painted, a lot nicer than the standard green we get in downtown Toronto.
The girls needed a break from the walking.
We enjoyed reading the plaques of the old buildings.
It was time to call it a day and head back to base camp.
Monday morning we headed out to Port Renfrew from Victoria. We were returning to Botanical Beach, one of our favourite places from our last trip. This time we were taking Grandma and Grandpa with us.
The weather didn't co-operate as much, it was raining on our drive out, but it was only spitting when we ventured out onto the beach. It was damp, but that wasn't going to stop us.
Grandpa was way ahead of us, finding the good stuff in the tide pools.
There were lots of sea anemones.
Gillian with a banana slug.
Claudia showed Grandma where to go and stuck close to her to make sure she didn't fall in a tide pool.
The last time we came the fog was so thick you couldn't see the ocean, on the drive up I thought it would be the same, but it was clear.
A little crab.
We found this huge starfish.
Then we found some little starfishes.
Everybody smile!
Grandpa out at sea.
This Great Blue Heron was standing about 20 feet from Grandpa and I. It was determined to catch lunch.
While everyone was watching the bird, a deer wandered out to the beach.
Finally the heron caught his lunch.
The deer was watching us.
The forest is a lush green.
This banana slug was trying to get up one of the stairs.
The sloth tree, last time I could lift Angela and Claudia up on the branch, but not Gillian, so she hanged from it like a sloth. This time none of them could even hang from it.
One last look at the beach.
Angela was determined to find a new walking stick, I found this one off the path and she carried it back to the parking lot.
Gillian helped Angela carry her walking stick.
Today we were leaving the island and heading back to the mainland to meet up with Shanna and Jesse. The girls enjoyed their stay at Kay and Eden's. Here is Gillian with an idea.
Gillian on the shoe chair.
We caught the noon ferry from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen.
The girls are doing fine in the back of the Camry.
The weather was cloudy and cool today, but it didn't rain until we got off the ferry.
The ferry wasn't full and most people stayed below deck.
That included Claudia and Susan.
Angela catching a breeze.
Our first outing in Vancouver was the Aquarium in Stanley Park.
We came here in 2005 and really enjoyed it.
The harbour seal while he was breathing with his nostrils flared.
There was a new baby beluga born in June, so the access at the beluga exhibit was restricted. We had to line up and they allowed 25 people at a time down to the underwater viewing, but we couldn't go right up to the glass like last time.
Angela and Gillian in one of the bubbles.
I liked the sea nettles the best. You could stand there and watch them for hours.
The moon jellyfish were pretty cool as well.
Jesse and Claudia watching the jellyfish.
The giant octopus.
Jesse.
A Vancouver Island Marmoset.
A crocodile claw.
The seahorses are really neat.
The girls and Jesse watching the giant sea turtle.
Nemo.
We got a good seat for the dolphin show.
It was one last visit to the outdoor viewing of the Belugas.
We didn't have enough room for stuffed animals, so we took pictures instead.
Angela caught a salmon.
It was another fun visit to the Aquarium.
Shanna and Jesse have met up with us in Vancouver and we will spend the next week or so travelling around.
The Tanabe's at the Aquarium.
Today we headed down to Steveston Village.
Steveston is on the southwestern shore of Richmond, it was a once-boisterous frontier seaport and principal port on the Fraser River, founded in 1880 by William Herbert Steves.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Steveston was the busiest fishing port in the world, with fifteen salmon canneries, six hotels, numerous saloons and gambling dens, and up to fourteen windjammers simultaneously loading canned salmon for world markets. On a Saturday night, 10,000 people thronged the boardwalks, including Native Indians, Japanese, Chinese, European immigrants, and sailors from the seven seas.
We watched some fishermen selling fish off their boat. Here he is with some Lingcod.
Cutting the heads off.
A halibut. There was a lady there who bought over $500 worth of fish. This halibut was $130.
There were all kinds of fishing boats.
Today's prices written in chalk on the side of the boat.
Lots of fish for sale.
We had fish and chips for lunch. We ordered from PaJo's, the food is served in newsprint shaped like a cone. The fries were at the bottom and the fish on top. We managed to get a picnic table and it has holes cut out so you can put your cone in.
We watched a number of big boats go by.
After lunch we walked further down towards the Britannia Heritage Shipyard.
Britannia is one of the few surviving examples from Steveston's rich past, when a mix of canneries, net lofts, boatyards, residences, and stores defined the neighbourhood. Restoration of the site is in the development stage, and over the coming years much of its former glory is slated to be restored.
A memorial statue dedicated to the Japanese.
Low tide?
This guy's dogs were living the easy life. His wheel barrow reminded me of the kind Jiichan had.
There were a couple of swans. They were both sleeping on the shore, but one swam away.
Another eagle outside the Starbuck's in Steveston.
We found a toy shop before we headed back to base camp.
Today we were off to Lynn Canyon to do some exploring. There is a suspension bridge that crosses the canyon and it's free.
The first stop is the Twin Falls.
The trail had a lot of stairs.
We got to the bridge only to find that the work they were doing on it was a day longer then it said on the website. There were workers working on it.
Our guide was Carol, my cousin Mike's wife.
If we have time we may try and get back to the bridge before we leave.
First one up!
We stopped at the river and the kids had a blast climbing on the rocks.
This is the 30ft pool.
Some of the stairs we had to climb.
It was a nice area to hike around, it certainly tired the kids and us out.
On Friday night we went to Mike and Carol's for dinner. We got a chance to see some west coast and east coast relatives (Auntie Terrie). This little girl is Madison, she is Tara and Jay's daughter. That would make her my first cousin twice removed.
This is Madison's big brother Liam, he is the girls second cousin once removed. Confused?
Madison and Liam's Mom, my first cousin once removed.
Tara is married to Jay.
Alex brought a 15lb salmon for dinner. He and my cousin Colleen had caught a bunch the week before out near Campbell River.
My cousin Mike checking the salmon on the bbq.
The kids: Joey, Gillian, Madison, Angela, Claudia, Liam and Jesse.
All the other kids had cleared out, but Liam stayed for more pictures.
My cousin Mike and his wife Carol.
We headed downtown today to walk around Granville Market and near the waterfront. We parked at Lonsdale Quay and took the seabus over and then the bus to Granville Island.
Coming into the seabus port. There were two cruise ships in port at Canada Place.
Waiting for the bus at Howe and Robson. It took us awhile to figure out which bus we should take and where to catch it. Granville street was all ripped up for construction.
Walking onto Granville Island.
We walked around the market.
There is a lot of colour in the market wherever you go.
We enjoyed our trip down to the market.
After the market we headed back down to the waterfront to walk around Canada Place.
This was the Sapphire Princess which had come from Whittier, Alaska.
This cruise ship was a Holland America Line Zuiderdam, it was leaving from Vancouver and heading to Alaska.
Maybe one day?
We walked through the skytrain station to get back to the Seabus terminal.
Claudia and Angela on the floor surrounded by coins.
The tugboats at the Lonsdale Quay.
Saturday night we headed over to my cousin Rodney's mother-in-law for some good food and a good time. Every year they host a golf tournament and auction to raise money for the BC Cancer society. This was the 16th year. The food is amazing, here is Claudia trying a raw oyster.
Gillisn trying her oyster.
Here is Kay, she came over from Victoria for the golf. We stayed at her house while we were in Victoria.
The girls and Jesse waiting for dinner.
Some of the delicious food.
A half of pig.
After dinner they hold a live auction, silent auction and raffle prize draws. Here is my cousin Rodney starting the auction.
They auctioned off donated items like a box of toilet paper (over $100), a pair of tickets to a Canada/Norway Mens hockey game (over $300), and this item a box of Twizzlers. It sold for $110.
There was a bag of rice up for auction, it got up to $125 when Dad stepped in and bid $1000 for the bag of rice.
Dad was actually only the messenger or proxy bidder. My cousin Mo had left Dad a cheque to bid on the bag of rice. Mo and Pat were unable to make it this year so they asked Dad to place the bid. Apparently this is something he has been doing for a number years.
The cheque!
These golf club covers were raffle prizes, the first were given away, but the third one was auctioned off. Half way through the bidding someone added one of the original ones to the auction, so it was a pair of covers, eventually the third one was added. In the end they went for $75.
Mom and Kay.
The second bag of rice was the last item and it went for $300.
The girls with Kay.
Here is Shanna and I with Rod. I haven't seen him since 1981, I would have been 15 years old.
Second cousins, here are the girls and Jesse with Ryan and Tyler. They are Rod and Sharon's boys. They are the next to carry on the Tanabe name.
Here were 3 of the 13th place team in the golf tournament.
The girls enjoyed the evening so much that they said they wanted to come back next year. Angela told Rod and he said sure, of course Angela asks if he is going to pay for their airfare. Rod pulled out his lottery ticket for that nights draw and said it his numbers come in he would fly them out. (Note: When we saw Rod the next week, he told Angela his numbers didn't come in this time)
There is our dog golf club cover that we bid on and won.
It is on to Washington State today, our first stop is in Blaine, WA. Pat, Mo and Jodi and Sally and their families are staying at a cottage in Birch Bay. It is just across the border. Pat invited us to stop by for lunch on our way to Seattle. Here is Claudia outside the Lion's Den, this was our base camp while we were in the Vancouver area.
The border wait was only about 20 minutes.
The girls with Nicholas, he followed Claudia around like her shadow.
After lunch we headed down to the beach.
Here is Jodi and Justin. Jodi is my first cousin once removed.
Mo had purchased a clamming licence.
The kids enjoyed all the creatures on the beach and under the rocks.
This is Jodi and Justin's oldest son, Jeremy, he is the girls second cousin once removed.
Dad with the boys.
Claudia holding a big crab they found.
Clamming wasn't going so well at first. Note the empty frisbee.
But things got better, Shanna discovered that the key was to dig shallow and dig out, rather than dig down. Sally holding the clams.
Mo with his grandson Nicholas.
As the official licence holder, Mo had to carry the tools and the catch.
Everyone washing the sand off their feet.
A few pictures before we left. The girls with Grandpa and Pat.
Mo with the kids and Tucker.
Shanna, Mo and I (first cousins).
Us with Mo and his girls, Jodi and Sally.
Claudia with Tucker.
On the way down to Seattle we stopped in Tulalip to do some shopping at the Premium Outlets.
Some happy shoppers.
We are spending a couple of days in Seattle at our friends Nikki and Richard's place in Woodinville. We plan to head downtown tomorrow and then we are going to San Juan Island for a few days.
We went to the Bellvue Square for some shopping, in particular was the Lego store.
We had fun trying to pack as much lego as we could into the little container for $7.
In the mall there was an display of paper creations. This snake and other things were all made from paper.
This is Sarah and Faye.
They have two dogs and the girls were enjoying them.
Here is Claudia palying fetch with Sophie and Faye.
We took the bus downtown from Woodinville, it was the express bus, but it was still a long ride. It was a bendy bus, whenever the bus turned a corner the kids would swivel around.
The space needle from the I-5.
A parking enforcement vehicle.
There were a bunch of these vehicles driving through the downtown area.
A walking clam.
Our first stop was the Pike Place Market.
The girls and Jesse posing on the pig.
Some of the sights from the market.
We found the very first Starbucks.
Gillian and Angela all excited about ordering from the first Startbucks.
It was crowded.
Waiting for their order to be called out.
Angela carried her empty cup around the whole day because she wanted to save it.
Angela outside a bookstore
Pike Place and Pike Street.
The gum wall down one of the alleys near Pike Place Market.
Close-up gum shot.
This wall is just covered with ABC (already been chewed) gum. And people just keep adding to the collection.
We marked ours with some Canadian gum.
It was back up to the fish market to watch them throw around some salmon (just under the sign).
They were trying to find a 14-15 lb fish, so they would throw one up and weigh it, but it was too small so it was thrown back.
Big tongue sticking out
Shanna bought some crab for dinner, in the middle of the picture is the crab being tossed.
Another pig towards the waterfront.
We walked along the waterfront for awhile and then we took the bus up to Chinatown.
Angela and Claudia with Christopher Columbus.
A pirate in one of the stores.
How big of fish could you catch with this lure?
A giant stuffed penguin, good thing it wasn't for sale.
The dragons wrapped around the light poles in Chinatown.
Our last stop was Uwajimaya.
We headed from Seattle to Anacortes to catch the ferry over to San Juan Island. We are spending a few days at Nikki and Richard's cottage. We stopped for some groceries. This is the entrance to the store, wide open no doors. Not sure what they do in the winter.
The morning sailings were delayed due to fog, so our 3:10 ferry was delayed about 30 minutes.
Approaching the ferry terminal.
On board the ferry waiting for it to leave.
Mount Baker.
Angela on the outside looking in.
It was good weather for sailing as we passed many sailboats with their full sails up.
The ferry arrives in Friday Harbor, here is the movie theatre. It was playing Harry Potter, the girls are going to see it with their cousin Melissa when they get back.
It was about a 15 minute drive to the cottage, we unloaded and headed down to the shore to explore. It was high tide so there weren't many sea creature things to look at. But the kids enjoyed it just the same.
Claudia fishing with some bull kelp.
The view is to the north and east.
The cottage.
This is the ferry that goes to Sidney, BC, it goes by at 7:00 PM every night.
The morning started with Shanna spotting some sea otters down in the water. We all headed down to get a closer look.
There were a couple of deer lying in the bush that we woke up.
There was still some fog rolling through.
The first of our many sea stars we would see.
Of course there were lots of crabs.
Shanna found a sea star stuck to a rock, so the girls could hold it by the rock.
The girls like to stand on the rocks waiting for the boat waves to come in.
We even saw a jelly fish, not sure if it was dead or alive.
We headed into Roche Harbor on our way to Lime Kiln State Park.
We saw a Humdinger.
One of the guests of this hotel was John Wayne.
The yellow brick road in front on the hotel is made from the fire bricks which lined kilns one thru eight.
As there was no local source of brick when the kilns were built, bricks were purchased in Canada from Vancouver Island and shipped to Roche Harbor.
Many of the boats docked were ginormous.
We came across the Humdinger, modelled after the Hummer, a quick search of the internet shows that these things retail for $15,900 USD.
At one time the largest Lime works west of the Mississippi.
Not too many people take crap for a living.
There are still a couple of Lime kilns standing.
We were hoping to see some of these in the water, the dorsel fins, not the girls.
The Lime Kiln State Park light house, they use this as a research station to monitor the Orca pods.
Scanning the water for Orcas.
This is Haro Straight.
We had our eyes scanning the distant waters for Orcas, but all we saw were some harbor porpoises.
While we were all looking way out, a harbor seal came swimming by really close.
There were alot of kayakers out in the water.
Along the trail to the light house.
The girls barely hanging on.
Angela lending a helping hand to Claudia.
Even though we didn't see any whales, the scenery was still beautiful and well worth the time spent there.
Another (or the same) seal.
The girls were learning how to skip stones across the water.
While we were down at the water a pair of Bald Eagles were in the area.
Susan and I were up bright and early to watch the sunrise. We were down on the beach around 5:30 AM.
Here it comes...
The tide was going out, so we were able to look for some sea creatures. There were lots of Ochre Sea Stars
Under this rock was a Sea Star and a Sunflower Star.
The Sunflower Star has more than 20 legs.
It seemed everywhere you looked or stepped there was a purple sea star.
This is where we are staying while we are on San Juan Island.
Once the kids woke up they were down on the beach to explore low tide, after breakfast they were back down there. Claudia and Jesse collecting some kelp.
I pretty sure that Jesse wasn't to keen on picking this stuff up, but Claudia made him help her, because they were going to make seafood wraps.
Gillian and Angela fishing for some seaweed.
We found an eel like thing under a rock.
As well as lots of crabs.
The morning ferry going from Sidney BC to Friday Harbour.
Jesse relaxing on the beach.
The girls rock people.
I think they were only about 2ft from the shore.
We headed back into Roche Harbor this afternoon to buy some crabs and prawns for dinner.
The prawns were live when we bought them and the kids were making friends with them.
Claudia practising for dinner.
Gillian and Pepe the Prawn.
Even Jesse held one.
After Roche Harbor we went to English Camp. During the mid-1800's there was almost a war over a dead pig, for close to 12 years there was both an English and American camp on the island ready to go to war. It was known as the Pig War.
We didn't get a chance to go down to the American camp.
It was time to clean up before leaving San Juan Island and heading back to Seattle.
The faster we cleaned up the sooner we could get down to the beach to explore.
It was the lowest tide yet.
We saw some new creatures that we hadn't seen earlier in the week.
We tried to go out to the end of the rocks, but it was slippery with all the seaweed covering the rocks.
A Sea Cucumber.
I think this is a Sunflower Star on its back.
Our first orange Ochre Sea Star
The girls discovered that if you squeezed the Sea Sacs they sprayed water through their tiny pores.
We also saw a Sea Urchin.
This is a Hairy Chiton.
A closer look at the Purple Sea Urchin.
We couldn't figure out what this was, we couldn't get close enough to get a closer look.
We were trying to reach those rocks, but couldn't make it safely.
A purple Sea Star eating his veggies.
I think these are Blood Stars.
A big Red Crab (Cancer Productus). They don't have to worry about ending up on the dinner plate, their shells are too thick.
A Flat Porcelin Crab.
That is a quarter next to the Orche Sea Star.
Susan and Gillian relaxing before we leave.
We headed into Friday HArbor to catch the ferry back to Anacortes. We got there early for the 1:00 PM ferry and parked in line. We had to be back by 12:40PM for loading.
We headed into town for the artisans market. We stopped along the way to see this fire truck.
Angela and I were behind the others and this fireman asked Angela if she wanted to get in the big fire truck.
Angela in front of some rock art.
Friday Harbor was celebrating 100 years this year.
Part of the harbor.
The ferry is on time.
On the weekends there is a lot of foot passengers who come over for the day.
We ended up in the front row in the very middle, it meant we were the first ones who would be off the ferry.
I think he was trying to avoid getting run over by the ferry.
This would be the end of our travels with Shanna and Jesse. After we left the ferry they were heading for home and we were heading back to Nikki and Rich's.
We had a fun time and enjoyed getting to spend time with Shanna and Jesse.
We were getting close to Anacortes. When we arrived it was like a busy airport, we had to wait before we could dock due to there being three ferries at the terminal when we arrived.
After the cottage we headed back to the Reynold's for another night before heading back to Vancouver.
Sarah and the girls got along well.
Gillian, Angela, Claudia, Sarah and David.
Claudia with her god-parents.
The Reynold's.
We came back along Highway 539 through Aldergrove.
The wait was about 15 minutes.
After 18 days the girls still have smiles on their faces in the backseat. For the most part while we were with Shanna and Jesse, Claudia rode with them.
When we got back to Vancouver we were invited to Yosh's (my cousin Rodney's mother-in-law) for dinner. This was where the auction was the week before. Again it was some great food.
We went swimming today at the West Vancouver Aquatic Centre. It was a pretty neat place, it had a little tube river as well as a big water slide. The three doors in the picture were like garage doors, it was like parts of the pool were outdoors.
It was a pretty impressive building.
You can see the open air concept behind the girls, the doors on both sides slide open.
When we got back we went out for dinner at a Chinese food restaurant with Grandma, Grandpa, Mo and Auntie (Grandpa's sister/Mo's Mom). We have filled ourselves on this trip with delicious food, including lots of salmon, seafood and Chinese food.
Our flight today was at 4:00 PM, so we had some time in the morning. We saw Grandma and Grandpa off around 11:00 and then the girls and I decided to go and see the Lynn Canyon suspension bridge. We tried earlier on our trip but it was still closed for maintenance.
We drove to the parking lot and the bridge was only about a two minute walk to the bridge.
It was crowded as you can see from this photo. There is also no one telling you not to swing or jump on the bridge, not that we were.
The bridge was built in 1912. The bridge is shorter and not as high as the Capilano Suspension Bridge, but it is narrower and moves around more when people walk on it. It also does not cost money to cross, but at one time visitors were charged a toll of ten cents.
The bridge is 50 metres high and spans 166 ft.
It was time to fly home, we all had a great time. We were a little more relaxed than this guy when we got to the airport.
They are still doing renovations to the airport in preparation for the Olympics and wouldn't our gate be in an area where the air conditioning didn't work.
Gillian and Angela were sitting in the row ahead of us.
Claudia settling in to her seat.
So long to the mountains and the ocean.I'll be back at the end of August for work, I'll be in Vancouver for a couple of days and then I'm heading to Saturna Island for the rest of the week.
Number of days on our trip: 20
Number of digital photos taken: 2009
Number of Kilometres flown: 6,710
Number of kilometres driven: 2307
Price of most expensive gas: $1.08/litre in Victoria, BC
Price of gasoline for trip: $136.60
Number of relatives visited: 28
Number of days with precipitation: 3
Number of Tropical Storms: 0
Number of ferries taken: 4
Number of provinces visited: 1
Number of states visited: 1
Flying the girls to the West Coast and spending 20 days with them exploring and finding sea creatures under every rock: Priceless