Victoria. Day 14

This day we were headed out of Victoria to the Sooke Potholes, but we stopped

so I could take a few snaps of Beacon Hill Park and this fountain I found

on a run that I loved.  It had the feel to me like out of the movie, Great Expectations.

They have firemen in Victoria also! 

Sooke Pothole....we were here 19 years ago and had fun

hanging out in one of the pools...since it has been turned

into a National Park and access did not seem as easy

to get to the pools, but they did have viewing sites,

but we went off looking for trails,

the destination was water, we had Bobo's wet suit after all!

Some thoughts as the pictures wander us through Sooke,

Deveraux had the camera about as much as I did......

 

This feels like a vacation and it doesn't.

For Andrew, he said, "rarely do you get to spend a week in each place,

on our honeymoon we visited all three of these places in a week, now we are almost

in each place for a week."

It is vacation in that we are seeing things that we haven't seen and

we are not home.  It is also a vacation in that Andrew has studied, read and checked

into these places to make sure we are not missing anything, we are sight seeing.  We also

 usually eat out one meal a day, we don't eat out this much at home.  We also allow ourselves

the joy of discovery and stopping when we want.

 

We are "tripping" as Andrew called it.  Going from place to place

with more time in each location.  Yet, we still have some normal life like keeping up on our budget,

keeping up on bills, and correspondence. 

We don't need to cram everything in during one week so we are allowing ourselves 

sleeping in, book (school) time....like one day we did not leave until 2:00.  And again

even more discovery and stopping time....we are not under pressure to see it all in a certain

time frame.

 

We don't have a set routine in each place, as we are tripping and vacationing. 

Yet, we do seem to find a unique rhythm after being in a place for awhile that suits that place.   

(getting on that wet suit)

Tonight Andrew asked me how I was doing with our trip.

The first thing I said was,

"I feel like I am waiting for it to start."

That may sound strange or like I am discontented.

I am not.  I feel present in the moments when we are doing something.

I think it is in the inbeweeen moments or times of reflection this comes to surface.

It probably comes from a few places:

I think not having a home

we've never done anything like this before

We don't know how long this trip is going to last

 

I do wish I was a freer person.

In some moments I am, I love spontaneity,

and yet I am such a planner and love order as well.

I can be uptight and I am thinking, I have no earthly reason

to feel uptight on this trip.....but we always find a reason. 

I know I am missing my daily quiet time,

\I need to figure out how to incorporate that in.

Andrew said he is enjoying the trip.

"Its been what I wanted or hoped it would have been.

It has played out how I thought.  Getting to see the different

places....He feels like the week we are here (Victoria), we have been living here.

If I get to the end of a certain place and say, too bad it is over, well it is another

place to look into living one day."

traversing the trails, it was fun trying to "track" the trail.

 

 

 

A chimney with other stone remains of a house that was attempted to

be built, but the owners ran out of money,  Based on the size of

the chimney, it would have been a big house.

This is the spot we finally stopped at to play in the water.

Bobo played in the water

I brought his bark boat he found the day before

They played animal show, like a Sea World show,

included was animals you could feed yourself.

ahhh...I had a little time on a rock.

"D" that Deveraux found

These are the potholes I wanted to get down to that I remember

from our honeymoon, 

A stop for some food, you can gain some perspective of the

pothole below.

Romance baby! 

Bobo giving me one of his gifts

gifts from my boy!

We left the pothole area and I asked Andrew to pull over because

I saw this area with three waterfalls.

monkeys!

Next we went on a Salmon hunt because someone told us

we could find them swimming.  We stopped in a Salmon

fishery place and the lady told us where to look but she said,

look out for bears and just make a lot of noise.  Wow.  So

I told Bobo, go for it!  We all made some noise down to the

water to see if we could see some salmon....along with the bears!

Stopped for directions and came out with the delight of a brownie,

that's my man!

We were given a tip to go check out this lighthouse

while asking directions for China beach.  We had to

go check it out.  We came upon this beautiful sight after

walking a little bit. 

 

China beach...we were after this one, it was about an hour

drive from the Sooke Potholes down an isolated highway.

We found tons of these shells, I have never seen so many shells!

We were blessed with beauty and we did not see

another soul the entire time we were there.

This cool log was played on for a long time.

We walked through the woods talking a lot about bears,

joking a lot with a little worry underneath.

Amazing long day in beauty, it was truly wonderful.

This kiddos were so tired, they walked so much.  We ended

with a hot supper in the town of Sooke.

This is the next day after I washed all our shells in the bath!