After a short sleep, I dashed out to the ferry docks. Got there way early, so I transferred some footage at a coffee shop in the village, and hopped onto the first ferry to the sunshine coast.
It was an excellent ride, but it threw me a little discovering how short it was. The transfer to Newfoundland is five and a half hours (on the short ferry) and it's totally coloured my perception of how long a ferry ride should be. I kept sitting down to do things and not getting very far. But the DRIVE up the sunshine coast is really something.
After driving through the rockies, I thought the driving could only go downhill from there, but I was absolutely wrong. The sunshine coast is like a hot wheels track. Driving along the 101, up mountains and down, along the coast of the ocean, looking across to see Vancouver Island across the gap....it's quite breathtaking. And the ROADS are just amazing. Zip left, rip right, hairpin turn up the side of the mountain, just awesome. Only one road though, so sometimes traffic changes things.
It took the better part of the morning to go from ferry, to mainland, to ferry to mainland, and finally after trucking down the end of a forest maintenance road, I arrived in Lund.
Imagine driving through the Jurassic jungle, only to arrive in the Muskokas. That's what finding Mary Tilberg's cabin was like. My friend Michelle had been out here with her entire extended family, from the far reaches of California, Australia, and Ontario. Mary is her Aunt. The ceremony they'd come for had been the day before I arrived, so only some folks were left when I made it to Lund. They were the most welcoming, nice, accommodating, friendly people i've met so far, sitting me down to dinner, asking genuine questions about my life, and really making me feel like I belonged.
It was a really nice reprieve from being in my car a million hours a day only to stick myself in a tent, by myself, to get up and repeat the process. There was music to be had, we all played guitars and bongos, Mary (a published poet) recited us some of her work at our request, and we sat outside by the ocean enjoying life. I really relished having conversations, although since i'd been alone in the car for so many days, I talked my way into a sore throat by the end of the night.
But then...for the first time since leaving Aurora last Wednesday....I slept in a BED!!!
It was marvelous, and was oriented as such that when I rolled to my left, a window filled my entire field of vision, and I could see the sea, Vancouver Island, the beach, and the sky. It was a wonderful way to wake up. The next day followed much like this one - but tune in to the next blog entry to read all about it!
-Jeff
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