Trip to Victoria

Through the wildfire season in BC, we made it to Victoria. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as 2021, where the fires closed the highway after us, but for people in Kelowna, Lilloet, and Yellowknife, things are dramatic enough right now. This year marked a first: it was only Tammy, Ian and I on the trip. Miranda elected to stay in Calgary: she has work at Abbey’s, and she has driving lessons with the AMA. She was trusted to look after Murphy, so he’d better be in tip-top shape when we get home! 😝

The forecast for the day was to be hot, and there are wildfires putting up smoke.

Something new was stopping at the Spiral Tunnels lookout. We timed it to be there just as a train was going through the easternmost spiral, so we could see the way the railway doubled back on itself.

We arrived at the construction on the Kicking Horse pass just as it opened for traffic at 7:00. A stop in Golden McDonalds for breakfast and we were off again. Ian took his first turn driving from Golden to Revelstoke.

The smoke really closed in between Roger’s Pass and Kamloops, but once we got near Merritt, we were in clear (windy!) skies and that’s the way it stayed the rest of the way. We stopped for some Iced Capps at Tim’s in Hope and Tammy took the Fraser Valley driving turn.

Miranda sent us pictures of Murphy throughout the day to keep our spirits up.

We had a reservation for the 7:00 pm ferry. We arrived in Tsawwassen at quarter past 4, giving us enough time for dinner before going to the terminal. The terminal was packed and the ferries were running about 15 minutes late, but having the reservation made the experience better. Of course, for Ian the ferry was the best part of the trip. I swear he must have almost wore out the camera changing lenses and taking pictures.

Here’s a selection of photos that Ian took:

We arrived tired but safe.