July 10th through 12th

It was really nice spending time with my sister, Suzanna, but it is time to move on.

Before sunrise on some lake on some road leaving Tofino, on my way to Victoria

Kayaking with Teah, Shea, Sheree and Dave

My older son Noah was born 21 years ago in the house my family shared with Sheree and Dave. Teah, only one year old at the time, was Noah's hero. As soon as he could crawl he was following her around. Now Teah is a beautiful young lady of 22, and Shea, who was not yet born when we all lived together, is a wonderful young man of almost 20. It has been so nice spending a couple of days with this family again, seeing how their beautiful little children have grown into beautiful young adults.

Last night we had a delicious meal of salmon, broccoli and Swiss chard on a bed of rice with feta cheese, along with strawberry mango chutney

July 12th:

Entering Horseshoe Bay, Vancouver

I woke at 3:30AM, and was on the road at 4:00 to drive the 1.5 hours to the Nanaimo ferry terminal to catch the 6:20 ferry back to the mainland. My original plan was to drive along the border to Banff, and then back down into the US through Montana. But Suzanna convinced me that I must go up to Jasper, which adds hours and hours of driving, so I had to start pretty early today.

just past Whistler, about an hour or two north of Vancouver

a log jam on a river

The drive today was so spectacular

A bit of a dry section in between the two mountain ranges, and still beautiful

I stopped at a rest stop here. I was thinking about how far Jasper was from where I was, and this voice pretty much shouted at me (from I don't know where), "Don't be in such a rush to get somewhere else. Where you are is prefect." I thought that was pretty good advice, so I thanked the voice.

I just entered the province of Alberta and Jasper National Park to this view

This guy was meandering on the side of the road, pretty much ignoring me while I was in my car, but I definitely drew his attention as I got out of my car to take his picture (I didn't get more than about a foot from my car door, cuz he didn't look too happy with my presence).