From West coast of Vancouver Island to South Dakota.

    Well it has been hectic for the past week, thus now I need to catch up on the Blog. Sunday after church we left the Living Forest Campground in Nanaimo after 7 wonderful months and headed south to a new park in Victoria. The park was right on the bay downtown and we shared space with a marina and a group of float homes which sell in the $600,000 range. Across the bay sits the majestic Empress Hotel, which was part of a large chain of luxury hotels built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Empress was built in 1908.  
Anyway, we left early Monday to drive along the west coast of Vancouver Island to Sooke and Port Renfrew. Yes, it was raining, but that is what it does on the west coast of the island, that's why there are "Rain Forests" there. So our first stop was Sooke. We made our way down about two hundred steps in the drizzling rain to walk along the boardwalk in the drizzle, then climb back up the two hundred steps in the drizzle....me carrying the dog who doesn't do steps!! The road wound round and up the switchbacks through the rain forest; it was beautiful in the rain. The road was very narrow and we crossed at least 20 single lane bridges. When we finally arrived at Port Renfrew, consisting of maybe 20 or so homes, we continued on to the the Botanical Beach. It was raining steadily now so we decided not to hike down to the beach, but did spend half an hour as Bev fed grapes to a Steller's Jay so I could get a picture. To avoid the drive back along the same road, we chose to cross the island to Lake Cowichan and Duncan then down to Victoria.We stopped on the way to see the enormous Harris Spruce tree. The trip was about 250km and beautiful all the way. A perfect way to end our Vancouver Island stay.


      The boardwalk in Sooke 

                                                      One of many single lane bridges

           The Steller's Jay loves grapes.

Harris Spruce, an example of the huge trees that use to be the norm in the rain forest.

We love the Rain Forest and will miss our many hikes through them.

Some of the float homes

The beautiful Empress Hotel

    So then off to the ferry which would take us back to the mainland after eight months on the island. A two hour drive south to Seattle then onto the I-90 east bound. This would be our route home for the next 10 days. There were the many expected miles of forests, then up to 4300 feet and over Lookout Pass. We kept an eye on the temperature as it dropped from 10c to zero as we climbed higher and higher to the top. We had seen several signs for places to put your chains on. Not very comforting... Just as we reached the top the rain changed to snow and we were more than a little stressed..... Over the top and then we wound our way down until the temperature gradually rose; 1c, 2c, 3c, and the snow became rain again, and we began to breath again. Within an hour we had dropped down into a gently rolling valley as the highway followed a peacefully flowing river. The land was very arid and the only land that was productive was where there was extensive irrigation. The next fear we had was crossing the Homestake Pass at 6345ft, about 2,000ft higher than Lookout Pass with snow. I had a sleepless night, but we had to carry on in the morning. We were soon climbing to the summit, with clenched knuckles. We finally passed the sign. "Continental Divide", 6345ft. That was it, we were over the top and had survived with out the dreaded snow. For the next two days through Montana and into South Dakota we seldom saw a tree, just endless miles of rolling hills of grasslands. There were lots of beef cattle and horses roaming the hills, as would be expected and that was about all we saw. It is amazing how far you can see, as you come over the tops of the many hills when there are no trees to block the view.


                       The last of the snow capped mountains

                           White knuckles over the peak of the Lookout Pass.

Friendlier secenes






Next stop, Mount Rushmore.