Canada Trip: Day 1

about to leave Port Angeles

The Coho docking in Port Angeles

Crossing the Salish Sea

After months of planning once the international Covid travel rules relaxed between the U.S. and Canada, we finally set off on our trip!  The first leg of the trip had us driving to Port Angeles to catch a ferry to Victoria.  We got there on time (one hour early), but even still we were the last car to arrive.  Fortunately, I had bought tickets in advance and entered all of our travel information into the Canadian Government's visitor Custom's Site.  Super glad I did the research beforehand, because there were people madly trying to enter all that information (passport, vaccination info, travel destination info, etc.) while waiting in line to pick up their tickets!

Crossing the Salish Sea

The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the passage across the Salish Sea was spectacular.  Highly recommend!  And as an added nostalgic bonus, the ferry, The Coho, was built as a sister ship to one of the Alaska Marine Highway ferries so that was fun to see and learn.

I thought since we were the last ones on the ferry that we'd be the first ones off, but as luck would have it, we were the last ones off the ferry too and ended up being the last car through Customs.  The kids and me had listed all the places that we wanted to see, visit, and eat at on the trip well in advance so we knew that we'd be going to eat at a downtown restaurant called Foo.

After dinner, we were going to head to our Air BnB, but that took us right through downtown right at sunset and we couldn't resist parking and getting out for a walk.  Sunset and twilight was really the perfect time to visit because it wasn't hot and everything is lit up and really beautiful.  We walked by The Empress Hotel, then to the Parliament Building, then to the Confederation Garden Court before walking back along the Harbour.

After all that, we headed to our Air Bnb.  But all that walking had made us hungry.  Someone, might have been me, suggested we get cheese curds at A&W.  We pulled into the drive-thru and I asked for cheese curds.  They responded that they only had poutine.  I was like "What?  No!  Cheeeeeese curds!"  And they responded that the only cheese curds they had was served in their poutine.  Sigh.  "OK, fine, I'll take two."

Then we got to our Air BnB which was on the west side of the Harbor in Colwood.  We all fell asleep quickly!