And the Landscape Changed

We spent a week travelling back to Ontario from Vancouver Island and saw so many beautiful places in such a short span of time! 

When we arrived back on mainland we took a different route than we have in the past and found ourselves driving just north of the American border. 

Seeing the border markers made me feel like I was at the beginning of another adventure (and in a way we were, it just wasn’t a hiking adventure).

Of course it made Michael feel like he needed to jump back and forth between the two countries.

Our only planned stop was in Abbotsford to spend a day with Michael’s brother Peter. We ended up picking him up and going up to Yale where the guys spent the day gold panning and I took lots of pictures and learned a little bit of local history.

It was a gorgeous area and one I’d like to come back to and really explore.

Peter found a ton of Rubies and Michael thinks he found gold!

I found pretty rocks!

We all enjoyed a perfect day!

We spent the night in Abbotsford and headed east in the morning. At Revelstoke we stopped several times to take pictures.

It was so sad to be leaving BC but our first stop in Alberta at Canmore was just as breath taking! I love this cute town!

We are so grateful for the chance to travel and see these beautiful places.  As we drove into the flat land we saw a different kind of beauty.

And soon we were in the centre of Canada (east to west centre).

And then there was the familiar landscape of Ontario.

It was a whirlwind of a trip. We were in a bit of a rush to make it back in time for our grand daughter’s birthday and we made it! 

The Warmest Place in Canada



I can’t believe that it’s been almost a year since I’ve written anything. I had purposely decided not to continue the blog while we were travelling during the pandemic. I didn’t want to encourage anyone to take the risks we were taking and didn’t want to offend anyone who disagreed with our decisions.  Regardless, I know that how we have spent this past year has been the very best decision for us. 



We have had an amazing time In British Columbia! We spent a few weeks in Vancouver to make sure we didn’t have covid before heading over to Vancouver Island. I was surprised at how many places there were to park in a busy city as big as Vancouver.

We spent days walking the beaches and a few days up on a mountain overlooking the city as well as a few days doing van projects with (my daughter) Rebecca. 

When we left for the island I wasn’t sure when we would see her next but she had a job lined up within a week on the island in Victoria. It just so happens that Victoria is the warmest place in Canada so we had more than one good reason to stick around. 

We have found travelling in a pandemic to be the best time to see the popular tourist destinations. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves even in Tofino, Ucluelet and at Pacific Rim National Park.

It was a little disappointing to see Cathedral Forest fenced off but the abandoned parks we found more than made up for that one area being closed. 

 We met other bus life/ van lifers who were more adventurous than us and had been island hopping but we left the smaller islands for a future trip and spent most of our time in Victoria.

We did make several trips to the beaches near Jordan River (where Michael learned to pan for gold). 

Also multiple trips to the Parksville area.

I had an ordeal on the Juan de Fuca Trail where I learned just how out of shape I was (I’m in better shape now).



We are so thankful that we got to see so much and so many beautiful sunrises and sunsets. We are thankful that we had the time to explore a part of our own country.