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I don’t know if it’s the fresh air or the time change but it caught up to me by this point.  I think I’ve already needed to have a nap in the afternoon each day and when we woke up around 6:30 to head through Vancouver Island, I was dead tired and slept most of the way.

We headed up North into Duncan where we stopped at a farm that the Mustard Seed Food Bank had purchased.  It is used for multiple reasons; to store all food being shipped for use in Vancouver Island, to grow food on the farm, and to be a form of rehabilitation center where patrons stay a minimum of a year in a house on the property and work on the farm while receiving the aid they need.  I was very impressed with the operation.  They don’t have a large operation as of yet but it will turn into something that is self-sustaining which I personally feel is amazing.

We then headed up further North to Chemainus which is a small town which have painted murals all over the place to attract tourists.  It was neat to walk through the town but that’s that.  Nothing mindblowingly exciting about the place to report on.

He headed back into Duncan where we stopped into a Chiwakan Native area where they had a bunch of totem poles.  We started off in the area going to watch a film but something went wrong with the projector so a man came in and said he would give us a tour around the area until it was fixed.  This was excellent as there usually aren’t guided tours.  He was very insightful and gaves us good stories about the history of the Chiwakan Natives and the stories their totem poles represented.  My favourite story (which has inspired a song) is of an old woman who would hunt down children who were out after dark and then would either eat them or burn them.  Then in a Hansel and Gretel inspired turn of events, the children manage to burn her.  I thought it was an interesting story from their culture.

We got back home and it was a relaxed affair with us munching on some shrimp and hot peperoni, swapping stories and watching Honey Wrestling and the Real Catfight with Troy and Dad.  I also chatted with Troy for quite a few hours into the night along with a nice bottle of Crown Royal that Dad had picked up for us while on his Alaskan cruise.

When I woke up, I had some cereal and decided to hit the trail with the bike for a long bike ride.  It has been a few years since I’ve had a great bike ride and was excited at the prospect.  I ended up riding for 12 kms and it was slightly tough going out on it but then I realized I had been biking on an incline the entire 6 kms and so when I came back down it took me less time.

After the bike ride, I settled in with the guitar and created a new chord progression in the key of C that I worked on a bit with Troy.  We had these grand aspirations to write music while we were there.  It worked out decent for us over the week as we developed a little musical number based on a riff that Troy developed.  I think it has potential.

Today was the day we headed into downtown Victoria to see the sights.  Aunt Ree took us around the area where we shopped a little and we ended up getting some Dim Sum for lunch.  Mom and Dad had never been to a Dim Sum restaurant before and while it was a enjoyable meal, I don’t think they will return in the future.  Dad didn’t care for the rubbery texture on some of the items.  They also didn’t appreciate that I ordered something that probably was a bull testicle.  It was quite disgusting and it left a (literal) bad taste in our mouth afterward.  YUCK!

After traipsing around Chinatown, I dropped by the Service Canada Center for Youth to see where I could find the main Service Canada Center to say hello to a colleague of mine.  After finding the center, I phoned Kathleen but she was out of the office.  Turns out she was out of town for the week which was unfortunate.

Random side story: I was passing this guy on the street and he had what looked like a red menu and he was standing outside a Chinese restaurant.  When he started speaking I just assumed he was an employee of the restaurant and I said “No thanks, I’m full.  I already ate today.” and he starts laughing and cries out “That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard!”.  Turns out that he was someone working for Amnesty International!  I did feel bad for brushing him off like that but we all had a good laugh.

We saw a guy called Plasterman who was one of those mimes that move around when you pay him.  He was pretty interesting to watch.  This was right in front of the harbour which is an amazing sight to see.  It was also right in front of the Empress which is supposedly a grand hotel to visit but they were going to charge us to walk through there and we said ‘Nay” to that prospect.  We ended up in Big Bad John’s pub where we could eat peanuts, throw the shells on the floor and look at the bras and underwear hanging from the walls and ceiling.

On Father’s Day, I started out taking a job on the Galloping Goose Trail which is a 50km trail starting from the city of Victoria and running across Vancouver Island.  It was quite inspiring to hit the trail in the nice cool forest as the trees sheltered the effects of the sun.  I passed by forest, trails and eventually ended up at a bridge overlooking a river below.  It was quite nice.  Dad and I headed back on the trail later on in the day with some bicycles (mine having some amazing streamers off the ends of the handlebars) and I enjoyed that time with Dad on the trail seeing that it was Father’s Day.  It was also inspiring to come back and work alongside Uncle Brent and Troy who were attempting to fix a clothesline.

I also gave Dad a copy of Drunken Covers Volume 1 which I envision to be a series of live albums whenever we actually hit record on the machine.  We are also trying to figure out an easy way to distribute this to anyone who wants it.  It’s a recording of Troy and I playing some covers last year in London.  We popped it in the car stereo when we headed to Victoria and I was proud when Mom thought it was the radio playing!

We headed into Victoria for some fish and chips which were amazing.  One thing that struck me about Victoria was that everywhere you went, the landscaping was amazing!  You could have a rundown apartment complex in the welfare area of the city but it had shrubs and flowers and nice lawns!  I found it quite intriguing.  Uncle Brent also took us up Bear Mountain which is this new housing development up on this mountain outside of Victoria.  It was quite amazing to be so high above the city.

At night, Troy, Uncle Brent and I played crokinole which I had never played before.  Clearly Uncle Brent had played before as he kicked our ass every time.

Troy and I then discovered that Uncle Brent had the Fight Network on his television and we decided to see what was on.  Hilariously enough, at 10PM, we stumbled upon a show which had Russian girls wrestling in honey.  Beautiful!  We had some good laughs at the show as the commentator was hilarious.  The girls had some great names like “Black Widow Spider” and “Angel Dust”.  So the commentator would say “Black Widow Spider is slowing down due to the viscosity of the honey.” or “Angel Dust needs to spend more time wrestling than adjusting her top.”

At 10:30PM, “The Real Catfight” started up and it was a bunch of Asian women wrestling each other.  Usually they were dressed up in some crazy outfits and it was a hit and miss show.  Sometimes they would not wrestle at all, sometimes they went all out and we cringed at their antics and sometimes it was a little crazy as you would have the girls getting bonus points for various acts.  Considering this is a family friendly zone, you can talk to me in person if you want to know what was going on in the show.  We found the shows highly entertaining and watched them every night and had a good laugh at it.  Dad even came down one night to see what the fuss was all about and he had a good time.

Awaking early at Aunt Dinah’s on Saturday morning, I grabbed a bowl of cereal and we hit the road around 5:15.  Connie dropped us off and we went through the motions of checking our luggage.  I inadvertently almost sent our luggage to Asia as there are two separate check-in counters…one for Asia and one for the rest of the world!

We had plenty of time left before the plane took off so we hit up Tim Horton’s and then headed for the plane.  They started boarding as soon as we arrived so that was good timing on our part.  We flew on a 767 and I must say that this is a high-tech plane.  They had these interesting pod like seats in first class.  Troy and I ended up in Row 21 and Nanny was a few rows back in Row 24.  All was good in the flight until Troy’s video screen wouldn’t load up any movies so we ended up splitting a set of headphones between the two of us and watched “Shine a Light” which is the new Rolling Stones documentary by Martin Scorsece.  It was pretty neat although it’s more of a concert than a documentary.

Let me not forget to mention how amazing it is to have your own video screen in front of you!  I have always been stuck looking at video screen across the hall and watching the one movie they have on board.  These personalized video screens allow choice to be at your finger tips!  I could listen to satellite radio or any new albums that were out, I could watch a ton of TV shows (we even watched a good episode of Ali G after the movie), I could watch the news, tons of movies…it was great!  I wanted to stay on the plane even longer!

After disembarking the plane we made a bee-line to the washroom.  This is when the hilarity of the trip would start for us.  Troy grabbed a urinal and I grabbed a urinal next to him.  I unzipped and then said “Ah, my little friend” referring to the urinal that I’ve been dying to use.  Troy gave me an incredulous look and then I realized that my comment could definitely be misconstrued and not be meaning the urinal!  With shock and laughter I said “No, no I was talking about the urinal!”  Meanwhile a gentleman who came into the washroom behind us scooted outside of the washroom after hearing my comment!  Ha ha…this started the trip off right and Nanny had a good laugh when we told her the story.

Luckily, Uncle Richard’s estimation of when Mom and Dad would be getting of the cruise ship was wrong and we only had to wait 30 minutes for them to pick us up instead of the original timeline of 2 hours.  We piled our luggage into the car (we still had to throw a suitcase on top of both Troy and I) and we headed for the ferry to get across to Vancouver Island.  We were lucky and made it into the 11AM ferry with only a few cars to spare (otherwise we would have had to wait 2 hours and then spend another 1.5 on the ferry.)  We grabbed a bite to eat and then sat on the deck.  It is a great trip to Vancouver Island.  It is difficult to peg the scenery here…I feel that it offers the best of both the East Coast water views along with the Northern elements of Quebec/Ontario.  It is very beautiful.  Many pictures were taken along the way.

Once we arrived into Sydney we met up with Uncle Brent and Ree who showed us the way home.  Their house is in Sooke which is about 40 minutes outside of Victoria.  It is a small town and their place is very secluded which is very nice.  When I talk about it being secluded, I mean it in that you cannot see the neighbours and there is much forest around the property.  There are also many deer sightings during the day which is amazing.  I also love how their house is very cozy and I felt welcome there right away.

We met Ree’s daughter Jennifer who is a lovely woman training to be a hospice nurse and we also enjoyed a good meal of cabbage rolls.  Afterwards into the night we ended up having a few beers and closed out the night playing guitar for a few hours and starting out what is hoping to be a good week of guitar playing.