Saturday, May 30, 2009

Finally our first posting!!!

Sunday May 17, 2009
First day of our vacation. Leo decided to leave Calgary that afternoon as the weather forecast called for snow in Calgary and Banff and he wanted to avoid driving through the slush and snow over the Kicking Horse Pass in the Rocky Mountains. We left Calgary at around 5 pm and got as far as Golden, B.C. that evening. No snow was seen falling from the skies as we drove but the mountains were covered with fresh snow all around us.It was a very nice drive out as there was not a lot of traffic on the roads and no stopping for road construction at all. I guess driving on a Sunday on a long weekend has advantages.We were treated to some wildlife as well like a black bear running along the ditch (behind the fence) and lots of elk and some deer. We left Calgary with some trees coming into leaf to no leaf at all on the trees around Banff, to trees with partial leaf again around Golden. So we went from early spring to winter and to a late spring again on our first day of vacation.

Monday May 18, 2009
We left Golden around 10 in the morning and took our time getting to our next destination - Goldpan campground - Leo’s favourite campground along the Thompson river where there are train tracks on both sides of the river and the campground in between. The North side is the CN tracks and the South side the CP tracks, but the tracks are shared by both companies and one is used for all westbound trains and the other one for all eastbounds. We stayed here for 4 nights and to Leo’s delight we arrived to a ‘rail grinder train’ waiting to do some work the next evening. This meant of course that Leo was gone for the evening and early night taking pictures of this spectacular spark-spewing train in action. Wednesday we spend the day in Ashcroft, shopping and reminiscing of the good times we had there a couple of years ago. This time it rained, hailed and snowed while we were there so it was quite different from the 40 degrees Celsius we had there before. Thursday evening Leo went out again to take some more night pictures of trains and did not get back until late again.

Friday May 22, 2009
Today our plan was to get to the Island and depending on the time we arrived decide how far we would go. After a very hectic drive through traffic around Vancouver we arrived at the ferry terminal around 2:30 pm. We were lucky to get onto the 3 pm sailing. The weather was perfect for the crossing and we were treated to a sighting of 3 seals. We arrived at Schwarz Bay around 4:40 pm and went on our way again to our next destination - French Beach campground. Traffic again was pretty hectic from the ferry to Victoria with all the weekend travellers on the road.Lucille (our TomTom) guided us to the campground without any problems but unfortunately the campground was booked full for the weekend. Back we drove to Sooke in the hope we could find a campground for us to stay the weekend. We found a very nice campground in the centre of town with power, water and hot showers (Joanne!).

Saturday May 23, 2009
Another sunny day, although the nights and mornings are pretty cold (5 to 6 degrees). Once the sun starts shining on our trailer it warms up pretty fast inside. We took our time getting started and decided to take a walking tour of Sooke. Things have changed since we were here last, 20 years ago at least we figure. But the bike shop, which was for sale at that time, is still there and Leo was able to buy a mirror for his bike.The Government wharf is now off-limits for fishing of any kind but they built a beautiful walkway and ‘fishing’ area over the “Lagoon” where you can now fish for crab. It certainly brought back old memories seeing people throw out their nets and pulling them in with the hope of a good crab catch. And so they did, big ones and little ones. We also went to a couple of garage sales and I purchased a small cooking pot for $1. (Leo did not buy a single thing!!!) We visited a quilt show and admired many quilts made by local artists. Afterwards we went to the Sooke Potholes, swimming spots in the Sooke River, and back to our trailer for supper. We built a nice fire and enjoyed our evening sitting around the fire reading a book.