Trip to Victoria for the Cycle of Life

Yesterday, Zachary, Ian and I climbed into the Tiguan at 5:00 am and headed for Victoria. The time has finally come to take part in the Cycle of Life Tour. Zachary has been visiting for just over a week and it was time to take him back to Victoria. Work has been nuts in the days leading up to my time off, plus my time at the Human Performance Labs has also been a priority, so I’ve felt like I haven’t been paying close attention to my preparations. This trip is a combination of a family trip, a bike event and camping. Trying to organize for all three has hurt my brain. 🙂
Tammy and Miranda were up to see us off. The sun wasn’t up, but it was already twilight when we left. The sun was just starting to hit the mountain peaks when we stopped in Banff National Park for our first stretch of the day.

You can see the smoke from the forest fires in the photos. It was smoky for the first part but then cleared up, despite us driving fairly close to the epicentre before turning south onto the Coquihalla.
We stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s in Golden, and then continued on. We were making good time, but there were a number of slowdowns and even one outright stoppage for construction along the way. B.C. is making good on their pledge to widen the Trans-Canada from Kamloops to the Alberta border, trying to eliminate the two-lane segments.

Here we are, stopped before Glacier National Park. We stopped in Salmon Arm for gas and supplies, and continued on to Kamloops where we stopped at Subway for lunch. We hit a few rain showers along the way. Enough to make my car and bike dirty, but not enough to cause any distress. The temperature got warmer throughout the day, until it was about 25 degrees in the Fraser Valley. Warm, but not too warm.

We got so lucky at the ferry. We’d been warned of a probable wait for the 5:00, but as it turned out we were the last car they let on. The ferries were Ian’s favorite part of the trip. Let’s see if I can remember all of the things he was excited about:

• We were going on the Spirit class ferry (Spirit of Vancouver Island)
• We heard the horn as the Queen of Nanaimo left Tsawwassen and we saw it parked at Galiano Island
• The Coastal Inspiration was docking at Tsawwassen as we were leaving
• We saw the Spirit of British Columbia in Active Pass
• We saw the Queen of Cumberland at Maine Island
• We saw the Salish Eagle, one of the three new small ferries
• We saw the Coastal Celebration leaving Swartz Bay
• We got to see our ferry dock since we were parked right at the front end of the boat.

The Salish Eagle passing us.
The weather was warm enough to make spending time outside on the deck pleasant, especially when we were out of the wind.


Thanks to making the 5:00, we arrived at Dad’s about 7:15. Zachary was reunited with his mom, and other than forgetting his phone charger in the car and having to come back for it, our trip was done.
Now three days to recover before doing it again, in reverse this time.