Getting closer to Vancouver Island

In a month we will on Vancouver Island!!! When we started planning this in October, it all seemed so far away but now it's really just around the corner...

We will have managed the flight connection with the rather short stopover in Reykjavik, we will have picked up our car at Vancouver Airport without problems with the handbreak or the navi, we will have caught up sleep during our first night on the mainland and we will have boarded the ferry to Nanaimo. These steps are all things that are in my thoughts more and more often now that the departure date is getting closer. I am a bit nervous that one or tow of these steps will prove to be a problem, but I really hope we will find a solution if it's necessary.

We will stay in Vancouver, in Port Alberni, in Tofino, in Courtenay, in Madeira Park and then in Vancouver again. I am so looking forward to the ocean, the wilderness, the colours, the food, the people, the knitting and spending lots of time with my kids.

I want to write about our adventures on my blog but I'll probably not do so while we are away, because I don't want to take my MacBook with me and I want to really enjoy the holidays and not stress about processing photos and writing texts. I can do that once we are back, so stay tuned...

Dreams of Vancouver Island

Yesterday I met with two friends who had been to Canada this summer. They told me about their road trip, what they liked and what they wouldn't recommend. I think I am starting to see our own trip more clearly.

We have 15 nights and I will have to drive everything myself. I don't want to drive more than 150 km per day on average, preferably less and the biggest distance for one day shouldn't be much more than 250 km.

I would love to see both the Pacific and the Rockies, but I think that's just too ambitious. We do have great mountains in Switzerland and while they are probably much smaller and much more populated, that seems to be the part that I can live without. So I want to concentrate on the sea.

We will start in Vancouver, but I'd like to go to Vancouver Island soon after our arrival. At least half of the time I would like to spend on Vancouver Island. I am not sure yet if it would be better to stay in the same spot (Tofino or Ucluelet) and drive around from that starting point or to change location every two to four nights.

I'd also like to see the American islands (maybe San Juan Island) and go back to Vancouver via the National parks along the American-Canadian border. I am pretty sure our passports are still good to go into the USA without problems, I think, the ESTA is valid for two years.

At the end of our trip, I'd love to spend maybe two nights in Vancouver before going home again.

So next I'll have to read my new travel guide, have a look at the distances and just try to find out as much as possible ;-)

Looking back: 10th of October

My friend Sunneschii did a blog entry a few days ago (on the 5th) about looking at old photos in her archives on flickr. I really liked the idea and decided to copy it. So for the next few months I want to look back too. And because October is the 10th month, I will start with the 10th of October...

My first photo is from 2006:

These were Y&As dummies. They exchanged them for a toy at the toystore that day and I remember how hard it was for them to fall asleep without them the first night, there were a lot of tears and some swearing too. In the morning they didn't want to go back to exchange their present anymore and by the evening the dummies wrere mostly forgotten. This photo is part of my first year of A Picture a Day, it was day 16.

In 2007 there were a few pictures to choose from... Here is one of them...

Trini and Sandra, two  German women I'd met online via flickr came to Zürich for the day. We took selfies (of course), had a glass of bubbly (broseggo actually ;-) and did some sightseeing. It has been far too long since I've seen these two in real life but thanks to facebook and flickr I still keep up with them.

While there was no photo for 2008, I could choose between a spider and fall in 2009.

You get a leaf, raindrops on a car and a definite feeling of the end of summer and warmth. But the important thing is to see beauty in all seasons!

In 2010 we were on holidays in Engi / GL.

 

We had a beautiful, surprisingly warm week in the mountains. We stayed in an old farmhouse where we had to cook with wood and fire. In the evenings we huddled around the tile stove, even though it was barely cool enough to light it. We got friends with Idefix, the farmer's dog, who protected us from every stranger that dared to come close.

There are no pictures from 2011 nor 2012, but in 2013 we were on our road trip through Canada and the USA.

Exactly a year ago we climbed Mt. Washington with our rental car. Even though we have lots of mountains in Switzerland it was a fantastic experience to climb that mountain and to see the landscape change with every meter. At the top, we had a fantastic view and we were lucky because there was barely any wind. Looking at these photos makes me want to go on tour again right now!