Monday, September 22, 2008

Vancouver Island Adventure Day 3





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Vancouver Island Day 3:
We woke up in the morning and needed to be down for breakfast at 7:30am. It was a continental breakfast style with Yogurt, fruit, berries, cereal, granola, baked goods, and juices, coffee, and teas. Everyone was happy with the selection. We were the only ones eating at this time. After breakfast we packed up and checked out.

This day we headed out toward Ucluelet and Tofino. We stopped in at the information centre at the beginning of the park and got our park pass as well as making a pit stop. The facilities were beautiful. The drive to Uquilet was beautiful, but was very windy and the road was in bad condition. We passed this one lake and I asked Dave to stop to take photos. It was glass smooth and I was not feeling so good being in the back seat on a windy road. Even Jon said he was starting to feel the effects so it was a good thing we stopped. There was still dew on the petals of the wild roses at the side. We could see minnows in the shallows of the lake. It was quiet and peaceful.







For the remainder of the ride Laura let me take the front seat. I felt much better. We stopped in at the Rain Forest and walked along the trails. It was a beautiful sunny day. We decided to take one trail and it lead us to the Coast Guard base where the Army guys were doing some exercises. We quickly got off the property and onto the road back to the parking lots. It was a long walk, but it was beautiful.







Back in the car we headed towards our camp site which was 0.5km from being the exact centre point between Ucluelet and Tofino. We set up camp and headed to the beach. It was long and white. There were quite a few people there with their families and dogs. We walked along the shore and pulled up our pant legs to keep them from getting wet. We walked over to some rocks to see if there was any life on them. Not much there, but tomorrow we would check out another spot. We found crab parts, feathers and baby jelly fish on the shore.




After our walk we jumped into the car and headed into Tofino in search of dinner. There was a place on the outskirts that looked like it might be good. It wasn't the place we thought it was. We went inside and the decor was directly from the 1970's and hadn't been touched since. We were greeted by this real character of a person. He told us to sit at any of the tables except the front one near the TV. The pop machine didn't have any pop in it, instead the canned Co-op brand pop was stored in the milk dispensor. The water was okay in colour, but a little weird in flavour. The greeter turned into our waiter and took our orders. He didn't have some of the stuff on the menu but recommended a couple of the fish meals since he caught it fresh that morning, so he says. We place our orders, why not this could be entertaining and give us something to tell stories about. Next our waiter turns into the cook and goes into the back to prepare our orders. Poor Jon but this guy decided to pick on him because he ordered pizza and not fish like the rest of us. The guy even pulled the 'look you have a spot on your shirt' and bopped Jon on the nose. Talk about invading personal space. After dinner, we decided we should have all ordered pizza. The fish was good, but I felt it was over done. Laura liked it that way though. There was some coslaw looking thing that none of us touched and I didn't like the look of my garnish so I didn't eat that either. We paid for dinner, a decent price considering and headed back to our campsite.







Earlier we had purchased the makings for smores and decided tonight was the night to make them. The fire pit was built perfectly with a platform on top to place your cracker with the chocolate on it in order for it to melt some before making your sandwich out of it. We had the perfect fire built and lots of good coals for toasting. Now that we are adults we had a little more patience to nicely toast the marshmellow and not just burn it. We enjoyed the fire and then made sure it was out before retiring for the night. It was so dark and quiet in the campground that Jon woke up at one point and had a panic attack thinking he had gone blind.

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