OK. In the face of mounting pressure, we’ve decided to head to NS this summer. We hope to visit lots of people including my ailing cousin Pat, meet up with Gwynedd, Andrew, Galen, and their newborn Tallis, of course see my parents and the rest of the family. And do some geocaching. The timing’s tight, so we can’t get any coins made up, but I’ve got some ideas and a design already set.

So, we’ll be in Halifax on the 31st of July.

I leave on the 14th of August, and Gwen and Aidan will be leaving on the 22nd. Hopefully Gwen survives the transcontinental trip with Aidan without too many emotional or physical scars.

Gwen put the flights together today and happened on a seat sale that saved us well over $1300! Good job dear!

If you want to meet up with us, drop me a line before we head; I think timing’s going to be tight for the whole trip.

Sunday was Canada Day. The past two years we have gone down to Granville Island and enjoyed the festivities. This year we did something different: we got up early and took the ferry to the Sunshine Coast. The ferry ride is only 40 minutes long and even with reservations, this was almost as long as we waited in the parking lot to get on the ferry. We met some friends on the ferry who were also going to Skookumchuck. After arriving in Langdale, we drove up to make the traditional stop at the only Tim Horton’s on the Sunshine Coast just outside of Gibsons. We fuelled up, and unfortunately Gwen ate a small piece of the apple cheese danish that was supposed to be a cherry cheese danish. Gwen’s allergic to apples, and didn’t have any medication on her, so this made for a bit of a tense time. We continued to drive to the north end of the Coast and headed inland to the Skookumchuck Narrows. Aidan normal travels quite well, but on this day we discovered that he gets car sick! I can’t really blame him — I get car sick too. Plus, the road north of Pender Harbour (highway 101, continuing the West Coast tradition) is mountainous: twisty, turny, and hilly. Add to that the tall trees and high mountain walls, and you get the effect of driving through a twisty tunnel. After puzzling out why he was crying something other than his “I’m not getting my way” cry, we pulled off the road and spent some time cleaning him up and cooling him down. Our destination was still another 15 km away, but we turning back wasn’t an option. Fortunately the bit of apple danish that Gwen had wasn’t a problem. Having two sick people in the truck would have been unpleasant.

The Skookumchuck Narrows are a tidal bore, where the flow going into the Sechelt Inlet rushes in and out a very narrow chokepoint. The current can hit up to 16 knots and you can often see large whirlpools being shed. There’s a 4 km hike (flat by BC standards, a little hilly by any other standard) to two points over looking an inlet. I’ve created a Google map that you can see here.

We hiked in (I had Aidan in the backpack) and were suitably impressed by the display. Check out the video and pictures below:

Note in the video you can hear Aidan singing the ABC’s. Also note that when Gwen turns the camera on him, he immediately clams up. This is why we’ve not been able to capture any audio of him singing. Yet.

Before heading back to the ferry, we stopped at the marina store in the nearby village of Egmont and Lorraine bought some Gravol. We broke up one of the pills into quarters and gave Aidan one in a fruit bar. The subsequent drive back was uneventful! The boy didn’t seem to get sick and stayed pretty happy for the whole trip. We stopped for a bit in Sechelt, and Aidan had a chance to play on a rock beach bordering on the Georgia Strait.

We stopped in Gibsons on the way back to have supper at Molly’s Reach. You know, that place from The Beachcombers? We didn’t get a photo because the boy was pretty cranky, but the one you see there is up on Flickr (click the photo to go to that person’s Flickr page). The fish and chips were good — as usual — but as I mentioned, the boy was pretty cranky so we were in and out of there pretty quickly. We raced to the ferry around 5:45 pm, hoping to catch the 6:50 pm ferry for which (1) we didn’t have reservations, and (2) had sold out all its reservations. We weren’t too sure that we’d make it on, but after arriving at the terminal it was pretty clear that we would.

We caught up with our friends on the ferry ride back, and Aidan spent pretty much the whole ride flirting with the women. He’s pretty shameless. I hope to get some video that Ali shot, and when I do I’ll post it.

Stop looking at your calendar. Maybe that should read “Victoria Day-trip”.

Gwen’s mother is still in town and on Thursday, we decided not to go to Creston (for a variety of reasons) as originally planned, and instead we decided on a (shorter!) day trip to Victoria.

So, we headed down to Tsawwasssen and grabbed the 9am ferry.

While waiting in line, I of course grabbed a micro cache hidden on the corner of the concession building, thus setting the scene for part of our time in Victoria.

Aidan was pretty, erm, active on the ferry. He wasn’t willing to stay in one place, and so the ride resulted in Gwen and I taking turns chasing the boy around the ferry. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Into the play area. Back outside. Good thing the ferry trip is only an hour and a half.

After landing in Sidney we drove down to Beacon Hill Park in Victoria and used it as our base of operations. We walked back into the Inner Harbour and saw some of the sites.

On our way back from the Inner Harbour, we went into geocaching mode. We picked up two relatively easy virtual caches after being stymied at a few others which were a) too heavily muggled, or b) apparently in a derelict building, or c) being watered by sprinklers that must have been running for hours judging by the puddles where the cache must have been. We also looked for a third virtual cache that was supposedly a statue in a park beside the Royal BC Museum — but we couldn’t find the statue. You read that right. We had coordinates, we had a description. And we couldn’t find the statue. I swear it must be missing, but we couldn’t even find a spot where the statue should have been! (Update: turns out we had the right coordinates for the wrong cache … that is, I was reading the description for the “Crows greet the Governor of Nootka” virtual cache instead of the “Crows in the Square” virtual cache).

We walked back up to Beacon Hill Park and attempted another cache there, but didn’t find that one either (the boy was starting to crank by this point).

Changing pace, we took Aidan into the petting zoo at Beacon Hill. Oh, what a good idea. This turned his mood right around. The only thing they had that were pettable were goats, but that was fine. They had lots of goats. The aviary was also a big hit, but of course, you couldn’t touch the birds.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

After leaving the petting zoo, we did a bit of a driving tour around Ogden Point, and then redeemed ourselves by picking up three caches in Holland Point Park. The caches themselves weren’t too hard to grab, but at least two of them were too near drunk (and, um, naked) vagrants for particular comfort. We picked up a neat travel bug (a fairy) whose 6 year old owner has already emailed me gratitude for mentioning I was going to use some magic glue to put her wings back on. We haven’t decided if we’ll leave her here in a TB hotel or send her east with Gwen’s mother (who isn’t really a geocacher).Ferry service being what it is, we had either the 7pm or the 9pm ferries to target (there’s no 8pm). Just outside of Sidney, the ferry status sign advised that it was only 28% full (at 6pm) so we decided that rather than deal with trying to grab supper on the ferry, we’d pop into Sidney and get something from a fine fast food establishment. Gwen chose KFC, and so we pulled into the parking lot. Time was somewhere around 6:05pm. Gwen returned from the store at 6:38pm with the meal. Yes, 33 minutes. “Fast food” west-coast style. Apparently training cooks. We got “free” pop and cake out of it, but I don’t think it was worth it. Anyway, we were a little more than concerned we weren’t going to make the ferry, but we pulled into the waiting area with reassurances from the ticketing agent that it wasn’t going to be a problem. And, it wasn’t.The ferry ride back was uneventful. We ate in the car, and went up to the passenger deck for the remainder of the trip. Aidan played with (well, ok, around) a bunch of older kids in the play area, and we also sedated him with a Backyardigans on the iPod (thanks again Nickelodeon and Apple).

In hindsight, it was a good thing we didn’t attempt the 9-18 hour drive to Creston (9 hours pushing, 18 if you obey the double-your-travel-time -with-a-toddler rule-of-thumb) because Aidan wouldn’t have been in a cooperative mood at all. And the weather’s been pretty awful on subsequent days. Maybe sometime later in the summer.

Today was our “Day Out With Thomas“. An early morning drive in threatening grey skies brought us to Squamish. There was periodic rain and blinding light; typical fare for unsettled weather in the Coastal Mountains. The excitement started with a shuttle bus ride from the parking lot to the West Coast Railway Heritage Park. Busses are typically a source of excitement, and we got to ride on this one! And, on arriving at the park, we turned it up another notch because there were Thomas and Friends posters and merchandise everywhere! It got even more exciting when the engine in question pulled up.

Whew. Good thing we had sporadic rain showers to keep us from getting over excited.

We got to ride on some old BC Rail coach cars that were pulled along behind Thomas. That part was a little disappointing. We didn’t really go anywhere, just up the rail line a little bit, onto a spur, into a rail yard, and then back again. I thought maybe they’d take us down to Porteau Cove, or maybe up towards Whistler a bit, but no dice. Aidan was strangely quiet inside the train. He seemed to like it, but the enthusiasm was a little muted. There were a few clowns wandering the aisles of the train (no not that type — real clowns: red noses, big shoes, fuzzy hair. No, it wasn’t Engineers out on a pub crawl!) and even these didn’t get much of a response. The one carrying the bird, or rather the bird itself, got some attention though.

After the big train ride, we rode on the miniature train that they have set up there. It was $2.50 per person, and even at many times that it would have been much better value and fun than the big train. It absolutely poured for the 20 minutes we tootled around on the mini-train, but Aidan seemed to enjoy that much more. The heavy rain meant that we didn’t take any photos, though. There was a little wooden train (stationary) that the kids could climb over and through and this was a hit too.

The place was quite a bit more crowded when we left, and the shuttle bus was full going back to the parking lot. It didn’t mute the renewed enthusiasm for being on the bus though!

All in all, I was impressed by the Railway Heritage Park. It was crawling with people, but I can see that we will definitely return there later this summer and take in more of the attractions. Squamish isn’t so far away, and that miniature train was pretty fun!