Hello. I apologize for my absence after day 1. This could be the way it goes sometimes due to technology charging or wireless access issues or basically just having a good time and taking it all in. This time it was timing and tiredness. But I’m back baby and I’ve got two days to catch up on.

Saturday June 2

This was a full on Victoria day. We got the Pacific water and the bottle is now half full. There is plenty of room left for the Big Atlantic. Must make sure I don’t mistakenly hand it to Guy to drink on some hot dry Saskatchewan road.

We got up and drove out to Beacon Hill Park and down the hill to the water. Guy with his little empty bottle made his way down to the ocean. As I filmed him on our camera, a man with the cutest little black lab pup unknowingly joined the movie and my oohs and ahs at the pup are quite audible as the camera flipped about filming the ground instead of Guy.

Back to filming Guy, he narrates what it is he’s doing but it is inaudible. So, we do a second take. He goes back to the top of the hill and I refilm and as he just gets the water in the bottle and starts a commentary about the significance of the water, the camera notifies me that the card is full on the camera and shuts off. We just finished in time. So now we have 2 half baked versions of this monumental moment.

Then back up to Beacon Hill park we go for a lovely walk around James Bay with its incredible views along paths lined with Alberta Rose. The scent is intoxicating and takes me back to Beach Grove in Tsawwassen where I grew up. The path to the beach near our house was lined with the same roses. It’s the smell of summer.

We end up at Emily Carr’s house in James Bay on Government St.  It is a wonderful old home over a 100 years old and well taken care with beautiful gardens. Emily’s father at one time owned a huge track of land around the house out to Beacon Hill Park. The house and the nature around it inspired her stories and her art from a young age. We both enjoyed the tour through the old house and sensed the ghosts of years past wandering the grand old rooms.

After our walk, we lunched and re-parked the truck to avoid a parking ticket for going over our 3 hours and then visited the Royal BC Museum and saw “In the Time of the Pharaohs”. It was a fascinating exhibition featuring Egypt and its history and its artifacts, mostly from around 3000 BC. It was so incredible to look at these pieces which included little animal figures that were buried with the dead to aid them in the afterlife, regal jewelry that you could imagine Cleopatra wearing,  ornately painted burial boxes and ornaments like the green stone cat. This was my favorite of course.   There was even a mummified little cat.  I love the fact that the Egyptians loved and revered their felines.

After a full and enjoyable day, we headed back to the RV Park and picnicked and had an early night.

As a tent camper all my life, I never thought I would see the day of camper life. But a few nights camping the year before last and the aches and pains that followed made Guy and I realize that a simple camper could work well for us. And oh, we love that foam mattress and not worrying about putting a tent up in the rain.

I should mention briefly the Oceanside RV Park in Saanichton where we stayed our two nights in Victoria.  Because of the popup camper, we are now classified as an RV, so it puts us in places that can be, quite frankly, foreign and a little horrifying. Oceanside RV park is a full on RV park with huge RV like 50 footers with all the modern conveniences. Our little unit got quite a lot of attention. We are not sure if people liked its simplicity or were cackling at its smallness. We saw a couple walk by looking and smiling and we thought we heard the wife say “Henry look at the cute doghouse”.