Day 3 - CANADA! And my first injury of the trip...duh.

Today was the day - CANADA.

I was pretty excited. Except for the fact we had to get up at some ungodly vacation hour, like 6 am, to catch the ferry over because Courtney and I plan these things in the middle of the day when we are excited and awake.  Courtney is the only one still excited at 6 am.

And thank goodness she was there, because she was the only one with the wherewithal to wander around taking pictures while the rest of us were asleep (the boys) or descending to new levels of grumpiness (me).  Take Exhibit A:

Look at this really cute sculpture on the dock! I can fully appreciate it now, but at the time Court had to drag my surly self over to take a look.

The ferry taking us to Victoria

I am asleep somewhere below decks at this point

Or maybe not asleep, but playing a game on Paul's iPad I got obsessed with - Plants vs Zombies. Anyone else have this happen to them? Anyone? Bueller?

Leaving the US

Once we were almost to Canada I decided I should probably go and look

Court and David - ready to experience everything.  Me and Paul - taking naps.

Yay! Let the adventure begin! We were actually so excited about the adventure, we almost forgot we were supposed to be below decks, getting our car

I am fond of my husband

Victoria Harbor!

The castle, I mean, The Empress Hotel

Home of some crazy vines and the world's most expensive high tea

My attempt at being artsy - a lot of people were starting at me, wondering why I was practically laying on the pavement to take this picture

Love my sweet sis

Who knows what we are doing here. Striking an Explorer pose?

Sitting in the pretty rose garden, waiting for Court to finish taking her requisite 300 or so pictures of the hotel

Court making out with a plant orca

We only had a day in Victoria, as our schedule called for some pretty intense driving to get to Tofino by the next morning.

So...Bikes. Helmet Dorkfest....engage!

Those motorized bikes were looking mighty good....

But we got pedal bikes. Helmet? Check.  One rolled-up pant leg so my jeans don't get caught in the chain? Check.  Last shred of dignity gone? Check!

We planned to ride along the coast and then cut back towards Victoria via a popular main road, as you can see below:

That is a lot of biking, people.

Stopping in a tranquil garden along the way

The fam at one of the points

Looking out over the ocean, thinking deep thoughts, not unlike Jack Handy

Court's having a great time

And now I'M having a great time, because this ginormous bush on the lookout is just overflowing with ripe blackberries.

This became a theme, as I was quickly obsessed with blackberries.  There are just wild bushes of them EVERYWHERE and more than once everyone else would realize I was not with them anymore, bc I had stopped a mile back and was stuffing my cheeks with blackberries.

The best part about this particular patch is that right after my right foot, which you can't see, the cliff just drops off, more or less straight down. I think everyone was surprised I did not fall off.

Aww yeah

Haul

Rolled-up pants for the win!!

At the point

We stopped a random stranger and made them take a pic

What is Paul doing here!? Inappropriate! Really, my picture selection process kind of looks like this: Is Paul in this picture?  Is he doing something awkward or embarrassing, preferably both? If yes, then POST.  You gotta zoom in on this one to see his expression

It was a stupid beautiful day

And there were gorgeous flowers EVERYWHERE

Taking a break at the Marina

Being an over-expressive nerd at the Marina

The actual Marina

Being nerds runs in the family

We spent some time wandering around the Marina, taking in the peace and tranquility, listening to some old men arguing about chess.

There was a little beach, and the calm waters looked perfect for some rock-skipping.  I love that there was time for things like rock-skipping. Off vacation, I feel like sometimes I don't have time to eat, much less take the time for pointless yet pleasurable activities.

After I proved my superiority at rock-skipping, I spent my time sitting on the warm rocks, finding perfect stones for the boys.

Those rocks were perfect butt-warmers.

All the other bikes got stolen. Ok, not really.

After the Marina, we rode up the coast a little bit and then cut inland, back toward downtown Victoria.  The entire time, we were passing yards that looked like they were effortlessly maintaining prize-winning landscapes.  I was starting to get bitter.

Exhibit A:
This was literally a tiny garden set up on a public corner that was made just to walk around and smell things. It was heavenly. My resentment increased. And my knee started to twinge.

I actually rode my bike through here. I don't think we were suppose to do that.

We were riding through yet another stupid cute neighborhood, and I was planning our eventual move, when we came upon...

An honest-to God castle. In a neighborhood. Say what?

Paul tries to become a bachelor again via vehicular manslaughter.

They resolve their differences

Court and I being dorky. I love this shot. Although, notice I am not jumping, bc I am now devolving into a gimp

At this point that twinge in my knee has become a persistent ache. Trying not to be a buzz kill, I don't say anything and start pedaling with one leg only. Which is pretty hard, actually. My stick legs rebelled a bit.

David notices I am lagging behind, and he comes to keep me company enabling Court to be able to take this pic since she is so far ahead of us

Blessedly, there was an adorable strip we came across that we stopped and browsed through.  I was sorely tempted by The Penny Farthing (below) that offered a fish and chips special - although I had to pass, as we are traveling with Paul, which meant we were having full meals every 2 hours and I basically never had the chance to get hungry.

Paul has the metabolism of a 14 year old.

The jerk.

AND THEN I FOUND A BOOKSTORE!

Y'all. I love family-owned bookstores. I love big box bookstores too, becuase they have books in them, but I have a special love for tiny bookstores. They have a special smell.  In a good way.

Oh, shut up, they do.

That's me in there - Court says they turned around and I was gone - this is when they found me.

This bookstore came complete with a delightful mix of new and old titles, a wooden ladder to reach higher shelves, and a  French owner guy reading something pretentious who really didn't give a shit about anything, including customers. David found an old C.S. Lewis title he wanted to buy, and the guy looked pretty put-out to have to actually put down his book and take our money.

This could be mostly due to the fact I was running around like a kid in a candy store, saying things like "Holy crap!" and "Get a load of this!" in non Canadian-approved decibels.

Paul came in to see what the fuss was about.

Then Paul found his favorite thing - sweets.

David and I went across the street to a bakery, because I was jonesing for French pastry, and had the world's best almond croissant thing.  But Court wasn't with us, so of course there are no pictures.

We noticed that my hands were stained form all the blackberries I was imbibing from along the way

A cathedral!

The Sticky Wicket! How come we don't have cute places named like this.

In which I finally give into the injustice of it all, and start yelling at plants that I can't grow in TX under careful observation, but here grow all over the place. 

We made it back in one piece, more or less, and my knee officially looked like a baseball.

Before we headed out of town, the boys wanted to try one of the local coffee shops.  David is an old hat at coffee caffeine, but as we found out, Paul is not so much.

There were pictures (of course) of the boys with their drinks, but David had reached his Courtney Picture Quota for the day, and looks kind of irked. Paul has long since mastered this. 

Pre-caffeination

Getting coffee - it was a fun place.  There was a saxophone in the bathroom!  That is all I really remember about it.

About an hour later we stopped along the way up the coast at a pretty lookout.

It looks like Paul is attempting to toss Court over the banister, and I think it's hilarious.

We are re-enacting the totem pole - Paul's the eagle, Court is the...bottom thing, and I am the middle pig person.

LOTS of totem poles in Canada

At this point in the adventure, it became very clear that Paul is not used to the amount of caffeine in a latte, or whatever it was they had.

He was kind of freaking out, and it was awesome to watch. Apparently it was required that he jump up on the car and be...what? Spiderman? The Hulk? Who knows.

What is he actually balancing on, anyways?

Spiderman it is. I was so very sad that all this crazy entertaining energy was going to be wasted on a long car ride.

I love my face. This captures my relationship with Paul pretty well.

I'm not sure why I decided this needed to be on here. Perhaps the signage is entertaining when you can read it, but it is like tiny print for me right now.

We stopped in Nanaimo for dinner, and due to my depressed, now completely gimp I-cannot-bend-my-knee status, I got to pick where we went for dinner.

Strollin' the streets, lookin for edibles.

I chose this place, although I almost passed bc I was put off by the hot pink neon sign.

I'm so glad I didn't.

What followed was the best food of the trip, hands down. Everything was amazing. I think I had some kind of lobster curry bisque thing? And some mac and cheese to rival Yardhouse's. And that is saying something.

I was also introduced to poutine (poo-ten) which is fries with cheese curds covered in gravy. Not cream Texas gravy, brown demi-glace gravy.

Y'all. It was stupid good.

You should blow this up and read the menu so you can drool properly.

After stuffing ourselves, David gave my gimp ass a piggy-back ride back to the car, and I felt slightly guilty for just having eaten approximately 10 lbs of food.

We made it to Ojai (really? I just had to look this up, as I was shamed that I had no idea where we has slept)  and stayed at the Hummingbird Inn, which was really a B&B that we had a huge room/kitchen/sitting area upstairs all to ourselves.  It was just us and a bunch of guys going out the next morning to hunt bears.

HOT TUB TIME.  Beer + people + boiling vat of water = Good.

Babe, I love you for making this expression

The deck

 After this we just drifted cozily off to sleep, nice and warm and relaxed.

Which was good, bc Court made us all get up at the crack of dawn again the next day.