Point Roberts, WA 11 September 2019

Into every trip some rain must fall?

Today was a travel day, from Ucluelet over the top of Vancouver Island and down to Duke Point for a ferry across the Salish Sea to Tsawwassen and then across the border to tiny, isolated Roberts Point.

Just outside Ucluelet, a huge construction project has delays of more than half an hour in each direction. It started to rain in earnest. Rochelle said, "I won't be able to relax until we get through the construction."

We did get through. The rain intensified as we climbed in a long parade of mostly campers and RV slugs. Just over the top, the rain stopped.

East of Port Alberni there's another crest, and then down into a patch of ancient forest called Cathedral Grove, aka MacMillan Provincial Park. Much beloved by British Columbians because it represents the remnant of the ancient forest that was miraculously spared. Their "Big Tree," at left, is 76 meters (250 feet) tall and over 800 years old. Like the Redwoods, the tree is simply too big to fit in a single frame, so I did my best. The woman sitting on the log was waiting patiently while her boyfriend fussed with his camera gear in preparation for taking her picture, reminding me of some of the other long-suffering photographic models / spouses I have known. 

We tried for lunch in Nanaimo, but our restaurant choice (and, far as we could tell, the only non-franchise food outlet in town) was so disastrously understaffed and poorly managed that we gave up and continued on to the ferry landing, where we did some random food gathering from amongst our traveling kitchen stores. 

Finally on the ferry we got some institutional lemon meringue pie and some very tasty sweet potato fries.

Off the ferry, through Tsawwassen and customs/immigration with no trouble, thence out onto Lily Point where we found our Gingerbread Cottage in the edge of a forest. 

But we also found that no restaurants are open today or tomorrow. A very strange megamart gave us some rudimentary supplies, but dinner was far far removed from last night's experience. Also on tomorrow's agenda: heavy rain. 

Days like this were easier to manage when we were younger.