March 26 - 29, 2018

We're doing our best to get caught up on our blog but travel days and fun are slowing us down! We got so far behind at the start due to not getting the setup right until Shannon and Dan fixed us up. They are so awesome with this stuff. Okay here we go.

March 26
We have been trying to be much more active as part of our retirement goals. With my disc issues I can't run but I can enjoy bicycles and walking/hiking as long as I don't get crazy so Margaret and I are walking lots. Dave is trying to jog a bit which he hasn't done in a very long time. So it was a beautiful day and we headed out on the paved trail that runs right in front of Ft. Victoria Park. Me for a brisk walk with Margaret and Dave out for a jog. We had gone almost 2 km when we meet up with Dave and he is limping a bit, uh oh. Turns out while he was walking on a rocky road and having a drink he rolled his left ankle....again. It's happened before and his ankle is weak from previous twists, he managed to slowly jog back to the rig but a few days off are in the future. Margaret and I kept our brisk pace going and we all met back at home. Showers and a ice pack on the bad ankle for a bit to help with swelling and we have chores to do. Off to Costco !! Cheap propane and some groceries but nowhere near our usual Costco haul. Storage space is limited in this new lifestyle. We dropped stuff off at the rig and headed east out of the park to do another errand. The traffic was slow due to some construction and we were basically stopped at the entrance to 4 Mile Pub....hmmmm. Wait we said we would make this a "no liquor Monday". 

Okay we're weak and we just retired, right? lol. They have a delicious Brown Ale on tap so we only stayed for one. Margaret is in the truck after all. We felt a little guilty but it is a great place and we will be back, you'll see. We went back home and had supper and put our feet up for the night. 

March 27

John texted this morning and he is coming over and we are going for a walk around Thetis Lake Park trails. It is really close to where we are so John parked at the RV park and we took the truck over to the park.

Lots of trails to choose from

It was a great walk around a beautiful lake on a pretty nice day. Thanks for joining us John. Well... after our walk we all felt a little thirsty so we drove back to our new favourite place. Yep, the 4 Mile Pub ! It's a great place and we only had one pint. We have to get back to the rig and prep supper for tonight. Shannon and Dan are coming over tonight for dinner and to help us set up the blog page! Very exciting, they are both so good with computers because that's what they do for a living. We had a real nice dinner and some chatting and then they got to work setting up our page and the mobile site. Man so cool to watch and listen to them go!! 

Dave is looking for a picture, the real genius is happening on the far side of the table. We had the park wifi and hooked to our phones for net connection for all the laptops. Shannon also hooked us up to their home wifi so we could watch Survivor after they went home. Can't thank you guys enough for all your help, so nice to visit and watch you work. Thank you both.

March 28

John is coming over today with his bike in the trunk and we're all going for a ride on the Galloping Goose Trail which is also very close to our park. The "Goose" is an old rail trail that runs from Sooke to Sidney but we are only doing a small section today. We rode towards Sooke on the trail, it is an awesome ride. The trees and bushes are so close on the banks of the trail and you can smell blossoms. What a great place! We rode to Royal Roads College and back, about 14km round trip. Interesting fact about Royal Roads is that it is where they filmed X-Men movies when they were at the "school". Very nice place but we forgot to get any pictures again. We're still learning to take pics everywhere. So after a long ride like that we were all pretty thirsty again. We extended the ride down to .... you guessed it, 4 Mile Pub :)  

stained glass above the fireplace

John and me

We had a pint and and some snacks and rode back to the rig. John went home and we will see him tomorrow for another hike. He's going to drive us. Like we said before he's a great tour guide and really active. He's wearing us out. Not really, we are having a blast seeing all the sights we can. We took Margaret for a walk, after a light supper, to an off leash park nearby. She didn't get much trail time today after all.

March 29

We are planning a walk in East Sooke regional Park today but first we will have lunch at a restaurant John knows about along the way. We stopped at My Chosen Cafe (in Metchosin). It was quite busy being lunch time but we got a nice table and had a great lunch so we can fuel our hike.

We asked John to stop at another RV park that we had a brochure for called Pedder Bay Marina/RV park. All I can say is wow! We won't be staying here this time but we will sometime in the future. Their premium sites back onto the edge of the water by the Marina. Super nice place, would be so nice with the view of the water out the back window.

I could stay here!

Okay, off to East Sooke Park for a hike with Margaret. It's a cloudy day but not raining so it should be great.

 A split Arbutus tree

The 2 short guys :)

We hiked out as far as we felt comfortable with, the rocks were actually pretty slick in places. We found a geological marker and we think it marks the southernmost point in BC. Hard to read.

Tough to read

Our phones welcomed us to the United States so we were definitely far south. We hiked back and walked the beach a little bit then headed back to the car. Along the way another girl walking her 3 dogs mentioned that last week she saw a bear and a cougar down by the beach trail we had just come up! Glad we didn't see them.  We drove back to the rig and relaxed for the evening. Long day.