Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

(THE PHOTOS ARE NOW HERE!!!)

Hope, BC is in a spectacular setting. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides. And the mountains are in-your-face. I first noticed this a the gas station when we arrived in town but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera handy. However, our campsite was right beside an almost vertical face straight up about 1000 feet or more. Quite dramatic and quite impressive. But seeing as we had a ferry to catch to Vancouver Island later today, we thought that we had better get a move on. It was rather surprising how the mountains seemed to just drift away as we approached Chilliwack and left Hope behind (that sounds weird, eh?). The change seemed almost sudden as we had gotten used to seeing mountains at every turn. The road became flat and straight and I put the cruise control on for the first time since leaving Saskatchewan. Seriously! What a stark contrast to the previous day’s road. Everything was going well until the traffic slowed to a crawl around Abbotsford. We then put the GPS to work to help us find a different route and, of course, just as we exited the highway, the traffic sped up. From this point on the roads, along with the road signs, degraded rapidly. Then the GPS lost its satellite reception. Uh oh. Luckily at least the directions to the Ferry were well indicated. We made it to Tsawwassen (yes, that is the proper spelling!) in time to catch the 3:00 ferry, which happened to be the very next one, so no waiting … always a bonus. What was not so nice was the price. You see, they charge you by the foot when you are driving a vehicle like ours and they actually will measure your vehicle to determine the price. The MoHo with the Matrix attached behind turns out to be 48 feet long. And according to the bill, the seem to be charging about $3.50 per foot. Ouch! But wait a second … charging by the foot? … where are the "metric" police for this major infraction?
Anyway, we had enough time before departure to enjoy another (late) MoHo lunch in the ferry terminal parking lot before driving the 48-foot JoRo MoHo onto a boat. The ferry, which held three separate levels of cars, MoHos and transport trucks, then took us on a scenic ride through the islands and dropped us off at Shwartz Bay on Vancouver Island. Although this morning was raining and foggy in Hope, it had cleared up to the point of being a beautiful sunny day for our ferry ride. No complaints here. Then it was a 15 minute drive to our campsite where we can see the water and are just a 5 minute walk to a very rugged looking, log-strewn, but sandy beach. Tonight we decided to take it easy and stayed in to watch a movie. Tomorrow we take on Victoria! The city, not some new WWF recruit.

# posted by Jeff, Chantal and the kids @ 1:17 PM