Last and Final Day in Canada

Yay!! Are you glad our vacation is over? We were, too, but we had so much fun and it was actually kind of nice being sort of unplugged for 2 weeks.

My kids LOVE the ocean. Really, any body of water, but they especially LOVE the ocean. So I made it a point to wake up at a decent hour, eat breakfast and take them the 40 yards to the beach. It was stinky because a ton a seaweed had washed up on shore and was already baking in the sun. And there were lots of sand fleas. But other than those things, after we sprayed ourselves with sunscreen at 9am, we headed to the water and they were super stoked. We let them play for almost 2 hours before we were practically kicked out of the campground at checkout time. 

 

The cool thing was we saw a submarine going out of the harbor. I've never seen a commissioned submarine before. Sorry there's no pictures, it was super far away.

After we left the campsite we had about 3 hours between the time we go to Victoria and the time we could park in line for the ferry. So we headed to a big city park down toward the sound.

LOTS of ducks to feed.

Super pretty lily pads, most of which were just blooming.

Peacocks, all over the park.

There are lots of totem poles.

There's this big tree right in front of the parliament building that grows a foot a year!!

LOTS of float planes.

And a couple of these old ships they use for tours around the city.

And this is our ship. Leaving without us. Not really. It IS our ship but this is the ferry time that was sold out that we wanted so we had to take the last ferry.

This is us walking back toward our ferry at the end of the afternoon. We had to be in our vehicle almost 2 hours before sailing time.

This is the hull.

And this is where we parked. At the VERY front, right next to the door. 

And this is the view of the city from the ferry.

America the Beautiful!!

The majestic Olympics.

Another humpback whale. You know, there are TONS (literally) of orcas in this area and all the way down the sound, even in Olympia. Didn't see ONE orca. Only humpbacks. Interesting, huh?

So, there's a story here. People were looking out the windows and started freaking out. I saw a huge splash, obviously from a whale. I didn't actually SEE the whale (of course, Chuck did) because I was too busy getting my camera so I could catch the action. NEVER again will I do this. I missed it all. But I stood outside in the wind and chilliness to watch these darn whales to never jump again. Just puffing. That's it.

And there she is. American soil (concrete/blacktop). And the first off the ferry.

We drove all the way home from here, 2 1/2 hours. Midnight we rolled into the driveway and carried our sleeping children up to their rooms and slept until 9am the next morning.

WHEW!!  You want to go to Canada now, don't you? Especially now because we are getting a new camper so there will be plenty of room and the kids (hopefully) won't fall off their individual bunks.