Road Trip 2018

Well, we've been home for a month so I guess it's time to finally write about our amazing trip.

Our trip was 5 weeks, with roughly one week to travel from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island, 3 weeks on Vancouver Island, and then a little less than a week to get back home.

Things We Saw:

1. So many great people! We very conveniently have friends and family approximately every 400-700kms between here and Vancouver Island and seeing them all was wonderful. Everyone loved on Rudi hard and for the most part he handled all the new people really well. My Uncle Rob in Kelowna did scare him pretty good, but we'll blame that outsized reaction on a lack of sleep :)

Visiting Uncle Rob, Aunt Cheryl and cousin Elan in Kelowna! We visited lots of other people too, but I cna't put pictures of them all - it's too many!

2. Salt Spring Island was our first stop. I'm sure this place would be a madhouse with tourists in the summer but in the off-season it was just a delightfully whimsical pocket of the world. Interesting: almost everyone we talked to had lived in Winnipeg. Also interesting: Everyone seems to sell eggs! Every 100meters along the road there was a cooler or farm stand with eggs. What I want to know is: who BUYS the eggs if everyone SELLS eggs? But all in all, Salt Spring Island is worth the extra ferry ride. It's a bit kooky, and that's what makes it fun.

The Harbour near our place in Ganges

At the Cidery in Ganges. Best afternoon of our stay!

3. Campbell River was the location that surprised me the most. We picked it rather out of the blue, needing to fill a gap between Salt Spring and Tofino/Ucluelet and it turned out that it was great. Elk Falls Provincial Spark and Strathcona Provincial Park were awesome and while the town of Campbell River itself doesn't have a lot going on, it was still nice. The place we rented was amazing, with a great view of the harbour and a fish-n-chips place next door that had gluten free batter for Jake! Plus, the brewery there had delicious beer and delicious food AND high chairs and toys for babies.

View from our apartment!

In Strathcona Provincial Park

At Elk Falls Provincial Park

4. Ucluelet and Tofino is the area I wish we had more time. We were there for 5 days. We could have stayed 10 (although we couldn't have afforded the place we stayed for 10. It was too nice). The town of Ucluelet is just adorable, although expensive. The crashing waves and wild west coast staring out into the Pacific is something I could watch for hours. We went whale watching, my first and probably last time doing so, and saw humpback and grey whales as well as tons of sea lions and bald eagles. Seeing all that life out in the water is just mind blowing.

Jake, taking his bull kelp for a walk on Long Beach

Checking out the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet

Having a fire on the beach outside our little cottage

Doesn't look real, does it? That's the view from our place!

5. While I wouldn't go to Nanaimo again, I sure did enjoy their bars and walking around Saysatshun Provincial Park, which is a small island next to the city, is a delightful way to spend a day.

Playing in the rocks after lunch

Heading back to the little tiny ferry

6. The stretch of coast between Sooke and Port Renfrew was also a nice surprise. We rented a little cottage on the water, which somehow managed to face east. It was nice, but we lost the afternoon sun pretty early. Our best day there was our last day when we went to Point No Point for lunch and then sat and watched the waves roll in to a west-facing beach for the rest of the afternoon.

Botanical Beach new Port Renfrew

Playing with more rocks on the beach outside our place

Wave watching at Point No Point

Things We Learned:

1. Road trips in the winter are very different than in the summer for what should have been obvious reasons but nevertheless, they were a surprise. First, you have to bring things in for fear of them freezing rather than that they will get too hot. Second, you can't just pull over to the side of the road for a nice little picnic of the food you worked hard to prepare in -20. You have to eat it in the car or not at all. Consequently, Jake ate quinoa salad while driving standard. We played 'what foods would be harder to eat while driving?'. Soup and ribs were high on the list.

2. Any anxiety or stress over Rudi's schedule is about us, not him. Rudi was a total champ on the trip. He adapted quickly and easily to new places, new people, and new timezones. I was worried about how things would go without being able to do our daily routine, but it was fine and I'm so glad to know how adaptable Rudi is. He even coped with being waaaayyyyy over tired from not napping well in the car by finding everything hilarious! What an adorable trait. Related: he can go a lot longer without a nap than we thought he could as long as there are interesting things to watch.

3. Liking where you're staying takes on a whole new level of importance when traveling with a baby. It was still February when we arrived on Salt Spring Island and it was even snowing. So although it was 25 degrees warmer there than it had been at home, we still couldn't be outside ALL day without breaks. Our first place was cute but not comfy and that was a bummer. Thankfully, all the other places we stayed were awesome.

4. More than on any other trip, I felt like where ever we were was home. Often on a roadtrip by the third week I'm ready to get back to my bed, my house, my world. This time, though, I didn't feel like that, although I obviously still missed my bed. It felt very much like wherever the three of us were WAS home. That was a nice feeling.

5. There are some serious advantages to taking the drive out west at a slower pace. Usually when we are driving somewhere far away we like to do it relatively quickly so we have more time at our destination. This trip we took the opportunity to go slower and made it count by visiting people all along the way. We got to see so many cousins and aunts and uncles and friends and more. Rudi met his great grandma Braul, his only great-grandparent, and it was so amazing to see how she loved him. He is her 17th great grandchild, but she was just as thrilled over him as the first one. It was so so great to connect with people we don't get to see very often because of geography. Canada is SOOOO big!!!

6. Every province seems to have very different rules about where you can take a baby. In Campbell River we sussed out a restaurant for lunch one day and walked all the way there only to be told they don't allow babies. Annoyed, we found somewhere that turned out to be much better; interestingly the place that DID allow babies was a brewery! Doesn't that seem backwards?

9. Jets fans are everywhere! We stopped in Port Renfrew at Botanical Beach and did a little hike down to the water. When we got back we found a note on our windshield saying 'Go Jets Go!'

10. We went out for lunch more often than supper because Rudi turns into a pretty whiny pumpkin at precisely 6:30pm. When we did go out for supper, it was at 5pm. We embraced it :)

11. The opportunity to go and look at different things and live your life somewhere else for a while is always something to be embraced. Many people told us BC needs teachers and I have to admit it's tempting to think about moving out there, especially when it's 20 degrees in March and the daffodils are blooming. But in the end of course, coming home is also wonderful too.