The week was long; work and Christmas festivities filled the hours. The pressure mounted, my nerves frayed and both brain and body wore down. A friend died, children sang, the world went on.
I am off on a new adventure to visit my daughter Ashlee for the holidays in St. John’s, Newfoundland. According to my navigation app she is 7,740 Km away.
It will be a two ferry, two plane journey east that begins now.
It is 3:27 am Saturday December 20th. After a lovely visit with friends I returned to load my SUV and try to rest. Sleep was elusive but there is a long ferry from Bella Bella to Port Hardy and then a long drive down Vancouver Island to catch another ferry across to the Vancouver area.
My friend Shannon is sharing the trip on her way to fly to San Francisco. Many of the teachers are heading out so the boat should be fun if I can stay awake. We have to check in 2 hours ahead of the 6:30 departure of the Northern Expedition.
I shan’t bore you with the minutiae of getting on the road but hope you will follow along as I head for the other side of this vast country of Canada.
On the boat now but by the time we got upstairs there were chairs but no place to sit as everyone brings bedding and sleeps on the floor. Some get staterooms. This is a new and weird experience for me as I have always travelled by day.
ah well, when in Rome….
It was 6:30 by the time we found a spot and Shannon rolled out her bedroll and fell asleep. I was in the chair by her feet and couldn’t handle the loud snoring ( of the guy across the lounge, not her) so I put in my custom earplugs with the jawbone device in one, listened to my iPhone’s music and drifted in and out for an hour and a half. By then it was light and I went wandering. Some people had really settled in!
it is hard to capture in photos the waves but we were told at one point that there were 50-60 metre seas so we would be holding back for two hours before crossing the channel, which would really shorten our time to make the long drive to the next boat. We all met up, visited, ate, watched Mr Peabody in the onboard theatre and generally began to unwind. Finally they came on to tell us we were only holding for an hour and heading across but it was ominous when a crew member began strategically placing barf bags about the ship.
finally we were heading on our way with many a Christmas and safe travel wish.
Shannon and I headed into Port Hardy for gas and to fill my tires. 71$ of gas at the cheapest rate I’d seen in a while, 113.9/L
As we headed south on a mostly two lane paved logging road the sky opened up. At times the wipers had a hard time clearing but we had time to make up as I needed to pick up some custom made chocolates from a friend s home business in Nanaimo before we got the next boat. I will tell you more about them after we try them tomorrow.
The drive straight through to Departure Bay was at times torturous as I was battling fatigue by times. But finally there it was
I had offered to take Colleen as she was going to Yale Town and Paige and Jordan were going to Squamish. We all hung out and Richard appeared on board too I took some fun shots and was getting my seventh wind of the day.
We had agreat sat, are tucked in in New Wet,insert I took a sleeping pill and a barely tend to see straights so will toy this in morning. Good night
triumphgal 