We're just a few hours away from driving onto the Queen of Surrey (the ferry) and heading off on our massive drive across North America, leaving Gibsons and the Sunshine Coast behind. We're both more than ready to get moving along although Bec is a little sad after having to say good bye to all her work friends.
In our time here I've realised a few things. Firstly that bears in Canada are a myth much like the Sasquatch or the world aware American. We've been on that many walks looking for bears in places that locals have guaranteed there would be some and we lived at the edge of the forest for three months and still nothing...they don't really exist.
Another thing I've learnt is that Canadians are very nice and polite people in general, more so than we were expecting. That being said they generally are also a bit batty. Maybe its just this part of the country (the Sunshine Coast is the artist/hippie capital of Canada) but nearly everyone around has some quirk such as meditating, conspiracy theorising, organic health, painting etc that they take that bit too far. Most likely reason for this I guess is the abundant supply of Wacky Tobaccy.
Shame to be leaving just as the weather has become beautiful. Its been above 20 and sunny all week which, after the freezing welcoming we got here, is feeling like 42 degrees. The locals are even swimming! It could be 55 degrees here and you wouldn't be able to get me in that freezing water. We went for a weinie roast on the beach a few nights back with a few of Bec's work friends. A weinie roast is basically a barbeque but you cook hotdogs on the end of a stick, simple enough I guess. We followed the weinies with smores which are cooked marshmallow and chocolate in between biscuits, super sickeningly sugary. One of the best parts of the night was watching the seals and huge sea otters in the shallows feasting on the crabs in the rocks as the tide came up.
So good bye to Gibsons. Its been a great choice for a stop, the views here will be unforgettable.
Big drive ahead of us! First stop is Banff (via Whistler) around 900kms. Hoping like hell the little car lasts the trip, its got a lot more after that. The proposed trip is Banff, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas (baby!), Grand Canyon, Colorado, Kansas, Nashville (God help us), Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York and a lot of places in between. Well thats the plan anyway, the car needs to hold together over the 10,000kms...fingers crossed!
