Plan C – We Made It!
Plan C turned out to be the one that worked!! We left Qualicum Bay on Friday afternoon – pulled into a parking lot to share our last meal on the island with friends from Wildwood and then headed down to Duke Point to wait for the right time to line up for the 5:15 AM ferry.
Why, you say, would anyone want to catch the ferry at 5:15 in the morning? Well . . . it’s all a matter of money, isn’t it? We found this great sale that would save us over 40% on certain ferry sailings . . . so . . . does that answer the question?
Anyway, we pulled into the parking lot at the terminal at 10:40 pm (after the last ferry left). Needless to say, we were first in line for the morning sailing. There’s an advantage to being “turtles” – we went to bed and slept until the Bang! Bang! Bang! on the door at 4:15 am to inform us that it was time to wake up and get ready to go through the toll both!!
Of course, it had rained, but then what else would you expect. Groggily, we got up and dressed and went on to wait in the next line-up for the ferry. I figured there must be something wrong cuz nothing happened – smooth getting on, getting off and even finding a pull-off and hooking up the car. Things were looking up. Maybe this was a sign?
Actually, we can’t really complain about the trip back to Lethbridge. When we got off the ferry in Vancouver, there was a heavy fog and then rain and then some snow, then wind and horrible pot holes on the TransCanada and finally a road wash-out around Fernie but, hey, what can you expect at the end of March? The cost of gas went from $1.14 in Vancouver to .955 in Southern Alberta – that’s progress, isn’t it?
We got home in record time after spending the night in the now-closed Government truck scales lot in Golden, BC watching four deer lick the salt off the car. By 4:30 Sunday pm, we had winterized and parked the Motor Home; emptied the fridge and collected the essentials to come into the Condo; and by 5:00 I was sitting in a very hot bathtub where I stayed until I was warm and wrinkled!!
The one thing I must say about Lethbridge, you can always depend on things staying the same. Six months and it feels like we haven’t even been away. Everything is exactly the same as when we left. The hot tub is closed for repairs; the same people use the same exercise machines at the same times; and the same people sit and wait for the mail talking about either their ailments or the weather. Aw-w-w, the stability of life!
I think it’s going to take us a few weeks to get organized and into the mood of planning our next adventure. We have decided not to go to Kelowna this year and maybe venture east across the country – weather and the price of fuel permitting.
P.S. Today is April 1, 2007 and it is snowing in Lethbridge!
