Next stop - Vancouver Island

I do like all the gadgets we brought on our trip - they let us work and play just about anywhere. This morning we hung around a Starbucks in Abbotsford for a while - Catheleen did some on-line booking, the kids went off looking for a geocache, and I read a news site. It does have its downside though as we followed Siri's directions to three different George streets before we found the right place to drop off the car rental in downtown Vancouver. Made for a tight rendezvous with the ferry nearby in Horseshoe Bay with minutes to spare. Here's a picture of Elizabeth feeling the breeze on the crossing on the first sunny day in the area in a while.

Reminds me of running for the ferry heading for Victoria a few times in the late 80's after visiting with a friend and his family in North Vancouver on the weekend. Woe to he who missed the last ferry Sunday night and didn't make it back for roll call and Monday morning classes. We always seemed to make it though.

So we've made the crossing and now we're on the island near Nanaimo visiting my birth mother Barb, who I connected with a few years ago. We've already managed to pack in a few activities in Parksville including catching the end results of the sand-castle competition. Sort of like the ice sculpture competition at Winterlude in Ottawa but the artwork is browner.