Day 1

Today we started on our trip to Vancouver Island. We are going up for the wedding of Raj's co-worker, Seema. After the wedding, which is in Nanaimo, we will travel south and spend a couple of days in Victoria before going home. We rented a car through Budget for $98 for 5 days. It's a black Chevy Cobalt.



We didn't want to drive our car because of the amount of miles, and also because our car hasn't been getting very good gas mileage. This one is suppose to get 30 mph compared to our car which has been averaging 17mph! The car we rented drove ok, but it's was little "light" on the road.

We decided to stop in Seattle on the way up and eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Salumi! Unfortunately, they were out of what we really wanted, Finocchiona salami, but what we ended up getting was just as good. We had a sandwich and a bowl of veggie soup. Delicious!





We crossed the border in Blaine. While waiting in line, we enjoyed looking at the Peace park gardens.





It took about 30 mins to cross into Canada. After crossing, we drove to Twassan to catch the Ferry over to Nanaimo which is operated by BC Ferries. We arrived at the ferry station at 7:45pm hoping to get on the 8:15pm ferry, however it was full! So we had to wait for the next and last one, which wasn't until 10:45pm! Luckily there was a nice market with plenty of restaurants and shops. We picked up some souvenirs for family members at the market, and got a slice of pizza and a crepe with maple syrup on it. The crepe was good, and the pizza was so so. Here are a few shots of us at the ferry terminal.







The cost to ride the ferry with 1 vehicle and 2 people was $30. The ferry was very nice, it appeared brand new. Very modern with cafe's and flat screen TV's! Unfortunately it was dark outside, so we weren't able to get any shots of the view from the boat, but here are a few of the inside.











During the ferry ride, I finally finished Ammon's baby blanket, only 8 months late! Yeah!!



The ferry ride was 2 hours, so we ended up in Nanaimo at 12:45am. We were tired, but still had to drive to our Bed and breakfast, which was in Parksville. It only took about 15 mins to get there. The owner left the door unlocked, and we quickly brought our bags in and went right to sleep!