Mountain home

I am a planner. All of our trips (even prior to having kids) were planned months in advance. So to book a 13+ hour drive to Vancouver Island in two weeks was quite ambitious. I would also like to add I have severe motion sickness. The thought of being in a vehicle for an extended period of time AND getting onto a boat to hopefully see a whale makes me to hurl. Despite COVID, post radiation side effects, wildfires burning throughout interior British Columbia, and my motion sickness I knew I would regret it if I didn’t try. Penn taught me I need to be more adventurous and to live in the moment. So we booked Vancouver Island and prayed that highways would be open, fires would be extinguished and COVID numbers would decrease.

I guess all of our positive thinking worked because when we left for Vancouver Island, wildfires had calmed down. The Coquihalla highway was reopened and active COVID cases started to decline. Gravol and candy saved me as we made our way to our ocean home. We took three days to get to the island. We took our time and decided we would not stop in the interior as recommended by the BC government. Our first stop: Revelstoke/the Enchanted Forest. Our BC mountain home. We don’t call them hotels because Penn thinks we are referring to hospitals.

Two hours into the trip, we had to stretch our legs. Not even half way to Revelstoke.

My brother Chris also came along for the journey. I don’t know who was more excited about visiting the Enchanted Forest, my brother and I or the girls. Growing up we drove by the Enchanted Forest so many times, but we never got to see it. The skies were clear and because school was about to start it was not busy. Some of the highlights of the Enchanted Forest: the girls climbing to the very top of the treehouse, visiting the three bears’ house and seeing a black slug for the first time.