Ferry Life - Still Day One

"Hello my lovelies" (stealing a line from Lena) - I miss her!

Kazi booked a rental car for me at Enterprise where she currently works which is why I flew into Vancouver airport instead of Victoria. Vancouver having an Enterprise location while Victoria doesn't.

 However, it turned out Enterprise wasn't at the airport after all - I had to find and then hop on board a shuttle to the off-site Enterprise location. It wasn't far, and I found the shuttle easily after getting excellent instructions from the wonderful old guy at the info desk.

The young fellow at Enterprise gave me directions to get to the Tsawwassen ferry depot which I followed meticulously but still ended up going north on Hwy. 99 instead of south. If there was one thing I knew for sure (and one thing was about all I knew at this point!) it was that I should be heading south! So I got myself turned around and found Tsawwassen with about an hour to spare.

If I go out again to B.C., which I would love to do - I may reconsider flying into Vancouver. Another reason for that is the additional price I had to pay to take the B.C. Ferry from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island. It was definitely more expensive than I thought. It was around $50 for my rental car, $20 for 1 adult, and fees and taxes bringing it over $80 one way! Though I do enjoy a ferry ride.

A huge part of this ferry location is the OOCL - Orient Overseas Container Line which the Tsawwassen First Nations people helped to construct.

Orient Overseas Container Line

It was a beautiful day for a crossing. 

 It was cool and windy but there were areas where the sun shone warmly and those who braved being outside gravitated to those.  I caught my reflection in a couple of photos.

We could see the Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington.

And periodically we'd see another B.C. Ferry chugging away.

I wish I knew why the water changed suddenly from a greeny grey colour to a blackish blue colour. Does anyone know?

The journey took about 1.5 hours and eventually we got close to a number of islands.

I didn't get any photos of Swartz Bay as we had to head back to our cars in preparation to disembark. I always get into a bit of a panic at this point as there are about 2,000 black cars and I'm just looking for ONE!  And that is why I memorized my license plate number, well, the first 3 letters anyways!

Once we were off the ferry I was caught in a huge swarm of cars heading to Victoria. The going was slow but on the bright side it was impossible to get lost!

Have you ever gotten lost on a holiday?

Jane in Wonderland

Hi everyone - I'm back :) Truthfully, I've been back for a few days but I had a wicked case of jet lag to get through and since then I've been editing and deleting photos - I only took 1497 of them! I take a lot of duplicates from various angles and distances, then keep the best and delete the rest. I'm not finished yet but thought I'd get started on some new posts anyways.

Wed. May 24th saw me rise at 4:00am in order to get to London, Ontario's International (yes, truly) Airport to board an early flight to Toronto and then on to Vancouver. My daughter hooked me up with an Uber app giving me a $15 credit which was just enough to get me to the airport. Lucky huh?

Below is a photo taken shortly after my arrival - that's it - the whole airport. It doesn't really operate like an "international" airport - I left my suitcase inside while I went out and took this photo - then I realized I'm not supposed to leave my suitcase unsupervised incase someone wanted to turn me into a drug mule...or worse! But when I went back inside the security folks seemed quite unconcerned. Welcome to London!

I'm hoping this isn't my airplane...

No matter the time of day or night a Timmy's somewhere is always open :) A shot of caffeine was exactly what I needed at 5am. And again I left my suitcase unsupervised while I lined up for a dark roast. I did keep my eye on it though.

Pretty spiffy huh? I like it because I don't have to look very hard for my gate.

Of course there is the usual pathetic corporate nod to our First Nations people. I'm sorry, I just think those in power could do so much better. And then...everything went to sh-t!!

I thought I had everything under control! I signed myself up for notifications (delays and cancellations) of London to Toronto flights because lately there have been a LOT of delays and cancellations due to construction at Pearson airport in Toronto. But I didn't receive any notifications and we boarded promptly.

However, once they had us trapped on the plane they announced a 20 minute delay. That doesn't sound like much but the whole flight to Toronto only takes 20 minutes. Then the 20 minute delay became a 40 minute delay. My heart rate went up with each increase. Finally we took off - at the same time as my Toronto to Vancouver flight was boarding!

First sight of the Rockies

 Once we landed I chomped at the bit wanting to get off of the plane to see if I could still make my connection. Well, you know how long that process takes! I sprinted into the airport and asked an employee which gate I needed - she yelled out Gate D34 and I raced down several hallways suitcase whacking at my heels. I found the gate and the last couple of people in line. Thank God!! I was in quite a lather but managed to make it to my seat before I collapsed.

The fabulous Canadian Rockies.

The flight was uneventful (thankfully!) though I have to say as we started to descend I was a bit worried about the mountains that were poking up through the clouds.

But I guess the pilot knew what he was doing as we broke through the clouds with the mountains at a safe distance.

I travelled with just a carryon and a backpack so leaving the airport was easy peasy. Finding the Enterprise car rental depot wasn't quite so easy but a lovely volunteer at the info booth gave me directions (I'm sure he's done it 10,000 times before) and within minutes I was on a shuttle and then in my rental. A Hyundai Veloster which I never quite got used to. Never thought I'd say I missed Dougie the Dodge but I did. I mean, if my foot even got near the brake pedal I almost went through the windshield!!

Stay tuned for the rest of DAY ONE. It gets better :)