Kurt and Megan have been our traveling companions for many, many trips over the years. We’ve known them well over two decades and have been all over the country together: Colorado, Utah, California, Hawai’i… and this time, we decided to go to British Columbia. They’re in Utah these days, so they flew to Seattle and we drove there to pick them up and start our road trip.
Along the way we stopped in to see Thom, of course.
We didn’t have a chance to see Katie or the kids, but we’d seen them a few months ago anyway.
We continued westward, picked up Kurt and Megan, and then turned north. After a fun evening in Vancouver, we went up to Garibaldi Provincial Park. They’re not very excited about hiking, so we ended up doing one of the shortest, easiest hikes in the park: a five-mile out-and-back to Cheakamus Lake.
It was a glorious day, and hiking in the shade of the forest was perfect.
The next day we took a ferry from mainland Canada over to Vancouver Island. The ferry was actually quite nice, and the load/unload process was impressively efficient. I suppose when you’re a company doing that multiple times a day every day, you get it down to a science.
On the island we went to a beach and wandered around for a while. Again, the weather was magnificent.
We visited a massive train trestle that’s now a rails-to-trails route. It was fun to walk along the trail and then down to the base of the trestle.
A couple of groups were taking romantic sunset photos on the train tracks, so I insisted that Pepper join me.
That night we found a lovely little hole-in-the-wall restaurant with amazing food. I had poutine for the first time. Probably the last time, too. Most restaurants in the area advertise their poutine:
On Sunday we visited the Butchart Gardens, which are probably the most well-known attraction in Victoria. I’m not usually into botanic gardens or flowers, but it was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. Still, there were so many flowers!
The evening ferry was another fun experience, and we watched the sun set over the water.
It was a ton of fun to see Kurt and Megan again, and to remember how much fun they are as traveling companions.