Oh, Ca- Na-Da!

 We had to wait for this girl to come home from her travels so we could go on vacation and what do we do?  Take her to yet another country: Canada!

 We drove all the way around the Sound through Seattle and Mt. Vernon to catch the ferry in Vancouver, BC.

  It was a two-hour ferry ride dropping us off on Vancouver Island in a town called Nanaimo.

We actually stayed in this cottage in Parksville.  Spencer liked doing the combination lock that opened the front door.

Our cottage was very close  to the beach, but the beach looked very much like the Sound!

We could tell it was not a beach in the US.  There were carefully designated spaces for people to be--lots of fenced off area.

 Vancouver Island is beautiful.  We took hikes to two different waterfalls.

We even saw a world-class sand castle competition in the city park at dusk.  One of the artists (who Karl does not know) works at his school!  The theme was fairy tales.

 We walked around the Craig Heritage Park and Museum too.  It is comprised of original buildings of the area's first pioneer settlers.

Linds has taken college courses on museums and gave it a thumbs up.

 

 

This is one of the earliest one-room schools.

 

 Within walking distance of our cottage was a miniature golf course.  These two young men gave us stiff competition.

 

Mason, the only one of us who golfs in a real golf course, made the only hole-in-one.

 

 Linds, still jet lagged, continued to dress like she was in Pa Klang.

Unfortunately, no one won us a free game.

 

We heard about a store in near by Combs that had goats on the roof!  We didn't see any goats but found a lot of interesting statuary.

 

Two peas in a pod.  We did see the goats on the roof when we drove by headed on a hiking trip.

 

 

This was such an interesting an old church we stopped to look around.  It was built with the tongue and groove method, except for a few nails in the door frame.

The grounds were surrounded by a cemetery with the names of the early pioneer families.

 

Linds tried to peak inside.

Also, while we were out and about (abute in Canadian), we saw a sign to a Tibetan Buddhist temple.  Had we passed it on Saturday, we could have received a tour.

Instead, we just walked the grounds and looked in the windows.

 

We took a hike through the forest that housed the oldest tree on the island--800 years old.

 

 

On our last day, we drove south to Victoria and toured the parliament building seen behind us.

We checked out some local stores.

 

 

We ate lunch in China Town.

We discovered that stuffed animals outside stores is a "thing" in Victoria.

 

We took a different ferry home.  Instead of going to Port Angles, which is on our side of the Sound.  We went back to Vancouver, BC.

 

The route was very scenic.  We went through lots of islands and narrow passageways. 

We even saw some seals swimming in the water too.