We've also added the final pics, for this trip, to our photo album.
Monday was a day for getting our Comox car (we have one in storage there in anticipation of when we move out to the coast) worked on. The passenger side front door latch decided to bust and did not work from the inside. Not safe! Took a couple of tries but the folks at the Ford dealer did get if fixed.
The rest of Monday was mostly driving around the Comox area checking out places currently for sale. The neatest thing though, recall photo from last week where we saw 3 bald eagles sitting in a tree, well this time we saw 7 (yup seven), in that same tree, but we didn't have the camera with us :-(.
After the masses cleared out from the campground at Comox lake it was much more peaceful. In the evenings we sat on the beach with a campfire beside our campsite. Much more peaceful.
All in all, a lovely spot, beach was nice and filled with young kids having a great time. Asked our neighbour camper if he survived the day and all kids were accounted for. He smiled, took a swig of his (well deserved) beer and said "yeah, all accounted for along with a few more grey hairs for me".
As we say, a lovely spot, but would we stay here again? Hard to say. Scenery great, beach great, camp spots small, washrooms get a very low score, a bit grimy but mostly because not enough of them. Two washrooms/showers for 50 overloaded campsites! Lineups on long weekend. Not too bad afterwards.
Tuesday we headed for the ferry at Nanaimo. Being midweek, we naively thought there would be no problem getting on the next ferry after we arrived. HAH! We arrived at about 11:40 to be told that the 12:50 ferry was full and we "might" make the 3:10 one. If not the 3:10 then the 5:20 one... yikes. So we had to sit and wait but luckily we made the 3:10 ferry...
We stayed with our friend Marian in Vancouver for a couple of days. We left the wee trailer at a RV park in Burnaby just off the Trans-Canada highway. Although it was a tad expensive just to leave it there, it was safe, secure and easy to get to when we left Vancouver.
Thursday we headed down to English Bay for a coffee and just to sit and take in the wonderful atmosphere of the morning looking across the bay at the downtown area and up to the mountains. A great place to sit and people watch, as well, with lots of young families with kids playing in the water and kids of all ages cycling and strolling the wide path along the bay.
We followed that up with a visit to Granville Island and a terrific lunch at "Go Fish" right at the marina. Perhaps the last fish taco of this trip, and most excellent it was, as usual, for Go Fish.
Friday we headed for Kamloops. There was much construction on the Trans-Canada around Abbotsford including two major interchanges one right after the other. Between the two, they managed to back traffic up for many miles. It took us over 2.5 hours to get from the Port Mann bridge past the chaos (Mapquest shows one hour from the Port Mann bridge to Chilliwack, well past Abbotsford)!
Since we decided to basically head home, but not too fast, we stayed one night in Kamloops, one night in Revelstoke and one night in Radium Hot Springs.
Early Sunday morning, at the KOA in Revelstoke, a RV pulled into the site beside us. The folks were clearly getting set to cheer for the Netherlands in the World Cup Final. Mom, Dad and Kids were all decked out in orange. They couldn't believe they planned their first ever trip to Canada at exactly the same time "their team" was going to play in the World Cup Final. Kris had the brilliant idea of the answer to the question "what are we going to do with the bright orange rally hair bands we got at the Giants game in San Franciscos?" (recall pic of our game, in San Francisco, where the Giants gave out the orange rally hair bands). One of the little boys put one on immediately but the other little guy was a bit shy so the totally bald Dad wore the other one....
We headed out from the KOA just as the final game got underway. We listened to the game on CBC radio, but it soon disappeared as we drove farther into the mountains. Soon... nada, no radio signal... we had to revert to listening to our ipod songs until we got close to Golden where CBC came to life again at which time the game was just ending regular time. We did get to listen to the overtime period to hear the Spanish team end up victorious. Not being able to listen to the whole thing appears to be a good ad for satellite radio.
Driving from Radium to Banff, the scenery is spectacular. Throughout our trip, we have often commented on how fabulous and beautiful scenery in other places has been. Sometimes we forget just how dramatic and spectacular the scenery can be here, so close to home.
About the time we neared the Alberta border, our great weather mojo totally went down the tubes. We ran into a torrent of rain with some hail for many miles along the way.
We had planned to stop at the Kootenay Park Lodge for lunch so when we entered the park we asked the ranger/ticket person..."We plan to stop only for lunch at the Kootenay Park Lodge. Is the lodge restaurant open?". Her reply... "Yes it's open"... so we gladly paid the $19.60 park entrance fee. Note...The fee is only required to be paid if you stop in the park otherwise you can drive straight through on the Trans-Canada highway, with no stops, fee free. Since we had paid the fee, we stopped at a viewpoint (as per pic above) but when we got to the lodge, the restaurant was closed for lunch. Only open for breakfast and dinner. RATS... so, since we had paid the park entrance fee, we stopped and used the restoom. Essentially, it comes down to likely being the most expensive pay toilets we've ever been in!
We stopped for lunch in Canmore. This turned out to be a good thing as it took a couple of hours. Later we ended up arriving in Calgary about an hour or so after a humongous hail storm swept through the city. Dodged a major bullet on that one.
Anyway, back home after 3 months and 7 days away.
Total distance covered from/to the storage lot where we keep our wee trailer was 19,950 kms. Factoring in the distance from our condo in Calgary to the storage lot to start the trip and back again, after the trip, we put in exactly 20,000 kms on this grand adventure.
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