Four days in Powell River – Day 1

Posted on May 25, 2007 in Life | 2 comments

As rare as a blue moon or steak tartar, we enjoyed a four-day Memorial Day weekend. Crystal and I decided to take the opportunity to travel to Powell River to visit my family there. It’s a beautiful trip, though long—about six hours with two ferry rides, but we were looking forward to the time together and the weather certainly cooperated.

Day one

We headed north up I-5 about 11am and were at the Canadian border near Blaine/Surrey by about 1:30. The truck customs were a bit busy but we were through and up highway 15 shortly afterward. Next we hit highway 1 and went west through Vancouver to Horseshoe Bay. We’d missed the 1:55 sailing, but were early for the 3:30. We slept a bit in the car, but it was too hot so we wandered around the ferry slip and enjoyed the weather until the ferry arrived.

The ferry was huge; by far the biggest I’d ever been on. Very nice, too. We sat on the upper deck and read our books and snacked while watching the small islands and not-too-distant mountains pass by. The crossing to Landingdale was short, and we were soon on the road again.

We took a brief stop in Gibsons at Prime Minister Tim Horton’s donut shop, where Crystal evaluated his “double double” legislation; I reviewed his single. Good stuff, especially accompanied by a donut.
The road from Gibsons to Earl’s Cove, where we were to catch the 6:25 sailing to Saltery Bay, is—in a word—curvy. Sports car commercials should be filmed here, and a future edition of Project Gotham Racing must include it as a track. What fun! We had a ferry to catch, which gave me reason to speed along the twisty road to the best of Crystal’s car’s ability. Made me wish for a nice roadster rather than the aging four-cylinder we were in, but Crystal’s white knuckles kept me from really finding out how well we could take a hairpin turn. Luckily there was no other traffic save for a BC Hydro work truck that actually passed us on his way to the ferry. Luckily, we arrived in time, thanks to the ferry running behind schedule.

The second crossing of the trip took 45 minutes and we equally beautiful, though the ferry—the “Queen of Tsawwassen” wasn’t nearly as well-appointed. We enjoyed the last 27 kilometers from Saltery Bay to Powell River, where we met Auntie Val and Uncle Owen. We snacked and caught up for a few hours before hitting the rack–in a brand new Murphy bed! It was built by Auntie Val’s son Mike and is really neat. We’re the first to stay in it.