O Canada

Our first day we got a pretty good start heading North. Not good enough we felt comfortable stopping anyplace along the way, though. So this is my best picture of Seattle, taken out the car window! There was alot of that on the trip actually LOL. Ron makes fun of me for taking pictures out the window, but some of them aren't half bad. I am looking forward to spending some time in Seattle at some point, but today was not the day.

Canadian border and very sideways picture of the flag (car again). We had no idea fast the line was going to move, so I wasn't about to get out and go wandering around. It wasn't really a very long line.
Ditto. This is the peace arch. Our border crossing went pretty smoothly, even though the kid that helped us literally looked about 16. I would assume he had to be at least 18 to be working at the border, but who knows. This started a trend for us on noticing everywhere we went, there were very young looking kids working. At this one coffee shop, I swear a couple of them looked about 12! I have been wanting to look up and see if their labor laws are different, but haven't had the chance. Maybe they just look younger due to lack of sun haha.
Finally in Vancouver! one of the first things we noticed is that the roads in the city were really narrow. That and the people drive crazily there! Like they would just pull the most unsafe moves right in front of you. That was another trend throughout most of Canada. Definitely a place to be alert when you drive.

Panne Rizo! This picture turned out sucky, but I had to include it. This was our first planned stop - a gluten free bakery! I wanted to get some goodies for the road. Unfortunately, it turned out most of the products had dairy in them, but maybe that was a good thing as I probably would have bought half the store! As it was, we got a box of the only dairy free cookies, which were an almond raisin deal, a box of chocolate coconut macaroons, a loaf of bread, a pumpkin muffin with maple glaze (oh man, was that ever good) and a slice of banana bread.

Hurry up and decide mom!
One very happy cookie face.
We only took about 20 shots here, so I won't bore everybody with all of them!

On our way back to the ferry. We didn't really plan anything else in Vancouver for the first day as we knew we would be back through on the last day. This picture doesn't look very interesting, but it was a cool tunnel as it went under a big river!
Waiting for the ferry to the Saanich Peninsula. There was a nice grassy area off to the left where daddy and Orion did some spinning. Orion get's so dizzy, it cracks me up. A picture can't really capture it, but we did remember to bring the video camera on this trip! Too bad I don't know how to YouTube stuff. Will have to put that on my todo list.

I call this "Thinking About Doing a Yoga Pose". We met a nice lady doing some yoga on the grass. Orion recognized it from the bit I have shown him. It was really cute - he was doing tree pose and a few others with her. Of course by the time I got back with my camera, he didn't want to do anymore. :(
The ferry is here! And yes, so is a big line of cars waiting to get on...
... and after everybody moved up, we didn't make it on and were exactly 10 cars away from the front. Grrr. I guess it would suck even more to be the guy in front though!
At least they had a nice playground closer to the terminal, as well as this really cool mall with eating places and shops. There was also an outdoor fireplace Orion thought was really nifty. He spent awhile pretending to light it and saying it was different colors.

So here is the most embarassing moment on the trip.... We almost missed the next boat too! The one we missed was a little late, and then the next one was a bit early. We were in the mall when all of a sudden I looked out a window and saw all the cars driving around our car! I don't know how we didn't hear the announcement! We went tearing out and had to throw poor Orion in his carseat in a very unceremonious manner that made us feel really guilty. But here we are getting on. (First of many pictures getting on and off ferries that Ron also made fun of me for.)

Play are on the ferry. Hooray for that!
Orion proclaimed this a dog house. In this picture he was barking at me.
"Hello, hello?"

We also saw lots of Canadian flags, as you would expect. It became a big deal for Orion, however, who would shout, "Maple Flag!" whenever he saw one.

On some nonworking ride in the arcade, but it was fun to pretend!
What the car area of the ferry looked like on the way out. Very exciting, I know.
Strange symbol on the wall that puzzled Ron. I thought it meant, put your car in park and set the emergency brake, which turns out was right as it was better explained in a later ferry.
And finally, our tent! We didn't see any of Victoria as we were able to just bypass it going straight to our campground, which was at Goldstream Provincial Park. We plan to have breakfast in town tomorrow though!