VISITING AND SNOOPING AROUND CAMPBELL RIVER

The pier in Campbell River - a great place to watch cruise ships go by in season

Part of the fishing fleet

Fish and chips wrapped in newspaper- yummmm!

Last night's party at Bill's - Left to right - Maynard and Barbara, Doug McD, Bill's daughter in law Rita and grand daughter Rebecca, me, nephew Paul's wife Judy, Bill, Bill's son Tony, Gay McD, Aileen and Bill's nephew Paul

The youngest member of my parents' grand children, Oliver, aged about five months

On Friday morning, we woke up to rain pounding on the roof. The weather had improved later in the morning when we went off to Courtenay for a drive. Lunch was at a Chinese Smorg (buffet) restaurant which was very good. We explored several side roads along the way and found one nice little campsite right along the ocean that is only $13 per night (no hook ups of course). It was full already and they were jammed in pretty good. This was the start of our Victoria Day long weekend, named after the late Queen Victoria who ruled in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It is the start of the summer camping season and often the rowdiest. I see on the internet that the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks instituted an alcohol ban to curb the rowdies there and I just read that it was very successful in keeping the disturbances down.

On Saturday, Bill took us for a tour around the residential sections of Campbell River. We had lunch out on the pier with take out fish and chips which were very tasty. We’ve gone for several walks around the neighbourhood here also. I spent much of my afternoon saving files over to my external hard drive as the laptop was getting too full again.

On Sunday morning we went to the Farmer’s Market near the pier in Campbell River. There was a good bluegrass band on stage and lots of people wandering around. Aileen finally found a nice bib. She’s been looking for a second one ever since I found her the first one in Quartzsite a couple years ago. They are a real shirt saver. We had hoped to have the barbeque party outside but the weather didn’t cooperate. While the sun did shine part of the time, the wind was too cool. There were twelve of us and it was a great time. We all had fun chatting and catching up on things. Bill had his son, daughter in law and one of his grand daughters (who flew in from Moosejaw, Saskatchewan), a nephew and his wife from Sooke and two of his model railway buddies and their wives. Aileen and I had met them all at Bill and Gloria’s 50^th wedding anniversary a couple years ago so we were very comfortable with them.

Today Bill’s nephew dropped in before heading home. Aileen and I popped down the road ten minutes to visit my nephew Keith and family. We’ve enjoyed our time visiting Bill but tomorrow we will head back down Island to Charlie and Sheila’s. We are visiting long time friends, Lynda and Perry, in Cumberland on the way. On Friday we plan to drive to Victoria to pick up Richard and Georgia for the weekend. Sunday is the big garden party at Chas and Sheila’s then the following week will likely see us head to northern Vancouver Island and the next phase of our travels.