Tofino

On the morning of Wednesday the 19th, I set out for my one last hurrah in Canada. The Yaris, Garmin, and I left to explore Vancouver Island! At precisely 10:30 am, we boarded the ferry leaving from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver and sailing to Nanaimo, a ride that lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Garmin (we didn't get along initially but later became good friends)

The Yaris (I fell in love with this car)

From Nanaimo, I drove straight across the island to the west side and ended up in Tofino, a quaint port town that

is exactly how I would picture Alaska. Tofino is known for its beautiful terrain; rainforests that open up into long beaches that are great for surfing, and my first night I went to a beach and walked around as the sun set.

The next day I did a long hike called Lone Cone Mountain.

When I first heard about Tofino a month ago, I googled it and found this picture.

It was what convinced me that I needed to go and I determined that I would do whatever it took to see this same view. After a little bit of research, I discovered that it was a relatively tough hike, similar to the Grouse Grind or the Chief except longer and out on an isolated island off the coast. On Thursday morning I took a water taxi to the island and set off on the hike.

Two and a half hours later, I reached the top to discover my view:

It was covered in mist! I should have known as the water taxi came up to the island and the mountain was covered in a cloud, although I thought it would blow away.

I sat up there for three and a half hours waiting for the cloud to disappear and for my "revelatory" view, as one website called it. It was to no avail.

Nevertheless, I still had one of the most unique nature experiences. There were only two other groups the entire day who went on the same hike and on the way down, I was completely alone in the woods with the mist all around. I was literally in the middle of a cloud and it was eerily quiet and absolutely amazing. One of the coolest things I have ever seen.

That night I stayed in a hostel, my first (and hopefully last?) hostel experience. I walked in to find my three roommates sitting around the room, drinking. Luckily, they were out when I came back to go to sleep but when I woke up, the room smelled strongly of cheap wine and I quickly made my escape. They were actually very nice, friendly people, but it was clearly a different lifestyle from mine.

On Friday, I picked up Ben at this little airport in the middle of the island and we drove back to Vancouver together. On the drive back we stopped at Coombs, a very quirky hippy town with goats living on the roof! Those crazy Canadians... as if there isn't enough space in the rest of their country to raise goats; nope, instead they decide that the roof is where they want their goats.

The ferry ride back to Vancouver may have been the highlight of the trip. It was right at sunset, and we stood on the deck with the wind blowing like crazy to where we could hardly even hear each other. And then when it got too cold, we bought clam chowder soup and ate it inside.

I learned a few things from my last week in Canada

1. Traveling alone is not nearly as fun as traveling with someone. Having a person to share it with is a thousand times better.

2. I've always wanted to do spontaneous things like the people I met who are from all over the world and spend their summer working in the botanical gardens in Tofino. However, the type of people that this attracts have a very different lifestyle than me and although they are good, nice people, I wouldn't feel comfortable living with them. Running away to foreign countries to live like a hippy probably isn't the right thing for me to do, as appealing and adventurous as it sounds.

3. People are surprisingly generous if you allow them to be. I was homeless for my last week in Vancouver and relied on the kindness of friends I had made there. I was surprised at how willing each person was to open their door and allow me to stay with them, even giving up their own bed or going out of their way to make sure I was fed and comfortable. I do believe that people are often more than happy to serve you if you give them the chance.

Overall, I loved my Canadian summer. As with most good experiences, it was the relationships I formed that made my summer so much fun; thank you to the Mexicans and Ben!

Sunshine Coast

This weekend, Dr. Hayden had a lab party at his beach house on the Sunshine Coast, which is a 40 minute ferry ride up north on the coast. I was so excited to be on a ferry (seriously, they have pretty much everything you could ever want) and I think all the local Vancouverites in the lab thought my enthusiasm was pretty funny. Dr. Hayden's house was absolutely gorgeous; in fact it was even in a magazine as a designer home.

The highlight of the day was when me and two other grad students in the lab borrowed Dr. Hayden's kayaks. We headed straight out in the ocean rather than staying on the coast as suggested and as we got out there, Martin flipped over in his kayak! Kusala and I were able to flip his kayak back and help him into it, but there was too much water for him to go anywhere and we had no water pump! We weren't worried at all actually, and I couldn't stop laughing. The irony was that I spent the afternoon mocking Martin for not jumping into the ocean because it was "too cold" and thus I found it pretty hilarious that he was now in his clothes rather than swimsuit and completely soaked. Kusala and I had a plan to drag Martin and his boat to a nearby island so we could dump out the water, and we were on our way there when a motorboat showed up to help. Apparently everyone back at Dr. Hayden's house was watching us through a couple sets of binoculars and they witnessed the whole thing! So what we thought was no big deal turned out to be a huge scare for everyone back at the house. Who would have guessed it?

Dr. Hayden shows Kun the magazine with his house in it. That's his house!

After the kayak excursion, Martin and Kusala telling the story.

Kelowna, baptism, and canoeing

Ben and I get along well, can't you tell?

I've discovered the "interior" of BC! Two weeks ago, a handful of us Vancouverites traveled to Kelowna for a YSA conference. Kelowna is about 4 hours away from Vancouver, and is a small town on a big lake. We were planning on going sailing, but there were thunderstorms that day and they wouldn't let us out on the water. Something about getting struck by lightening...

We did one of my favorite things instead though; we drove up to the top of a hill and watched the storm! The drive through the interior of BC was one of my favorite parts of the trip actually. My one vivid memory of Canada before this summer was years ago driving through farmland with my dad as the sun was setting and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. For some reason I've always loved the countryside and it has more of an appeal to me than even the mountains and coastline of Vancouver.

This is Ben losing a bet and jumping in the pool with all his clothes on.

The following week, Ben and I took the same drive to the interior and went canoeing on a lake. Well, I actually fell asleep in the boat while Ben paddled us around. We also took a short hike through swarms of mosquitos (literally swarms, we were running to try and get away from them but it was impossible. I am still suffering from the effects of those darn mosquitoes.) to a couple of waterfalls. The first one was perfect, it was 8:00 am and the sun was just beginning to shine through the trees which created this glowing mist over the water.

This is the first lake we went to.

Notice all the water in the canoe as Ben wrings out his wet t-shirt. That is because he tipped the canoe over while I was still in it. Yeah, thanks Ben.

The highlight may have been getting the canoe back into Ben's apartment at 3:00 in the morning. His apartment is on the second floor. Do you believe that canoe actually fits through that window? Believe it.

One of the other highlights of the last

few weeks was the baptism of Ben's best friend Colter. He was baptized in a creek in North Vancouver, actually the same place that I first hiked with Ben and Colter. I've never been around missionaries and new converts much before this summer, but it has been exciting to see people that I learn to care for make huge changes in their lives for the better. Why do they do it? Not only because of the greater peace and fulfillment that comes from living correct principles, but also because the gospel that the Church teaches is real and true.

Something else that was fun was on Friday night, Ben and I had dinner with Kun and her husband. It's a new thing for me to associate with people I work with outside of work and I like it!