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Blooming prickly pear at Hanne’s

It’s Monday, July 21.  We are in Saltspring Island, BC.  This is our second night here.  Leon’s sons Ryan and Damyn have returned to Surrey, along with daughter in law Chrissy and little Griffin, after 5 days of vacationing with us.

We arrived in BC over 2 weeks ago and spent more than a week with Leon’s mom at her home in White Rock.  It’s a lovely area with a nice boardwalk on the beach and some decent places to cycle.  We wouldn’t mind living in that part of BC but apparently many other people feel the same, so the price of housing is not in our budget.  Over our stay, we spent some time at Leon’s sister Hanne and husband Ted’s, where we enjoyed a family bbq and a day in the pool in some above average temperatures.  We ate and drank our way through the week and couldn’t wait to escape to a lower calorie menu, so we took the ferry over to sister Connie in Victoria.

Connie and Paul have home outside of Victoria and a camping lot in East Sooke.  They love to fish and the menus reflect it.  We ate copious amounts of salmon and shrimp, all caught by them.  Their hospitality was warm, as usual and we all had a good time, especially Griffin, who loved the big pool in Connie’s yard.

Seal pup hoping for some salmon heads.
Catch of the day, super yum!
The oddest crab ever.
Damyn and I looking at the weird crab.
The beach at East Sooke.

We didn’t spend all our time eating, however.  We went to the Butterfly Gardens in Sidney, had lunch as a great oceanside restaurant, visited the Viking exhibit at the Royal BC Museum and spent some time on the beach in East Sooke.  The guys tried to go fishing but it was too windy and choppy so they returned home after a short time on the water.

For the past 2 days, we have visited a bit of Saltspring Island, mostly going to the park and shore for some beachcombing.  Little Griffin seemed happy with his adventure and we sent him and his parents and Uncle (Damyn) home on the big ferry.

We found ourselves another campground to stay at which is directly on the beach at St. Marys lake.  Our neighbours are also grey nomads, Dean and Suzy from Cranbrook, who shared a meal with us and a nice cup of tea while watching the sunset.

People are asking us what our plans are for the next few days and we frankly have none.  Tomorrow, we will try to look up a friend’s brother and might check out some of the other beaches and possibly some vineyards, or maybe not.  All I know is that I’ve been on vacation almost a month and I can’t even imagine going back to work in another month.  So little time, so much to see…