Joel had put a down payment on a fishing trip to Port Hardy (on Vancouver Island) in 2019, only to have the pandemic hit. We waited four years to finally have the pandemic over and Canada officially opened their borders without restrictions. We asked Mom if she wanted to come up with us and the adventure began!

Joel and I drove to Bellevue to stay overnight in the Eastgate area. The hotel is just down the block from St Andrew’s where Dad’s ashes are so we grabbed a bunch of new flowers, as it was going to be Father’s Day.

The next morning we visited with Mom and then headed over via the Edmonds/Kingston Ferry to see Bob and Larina. We spent a couple hours relaxing at their place in Port Ludlow on a beautiful day, then headed up to Sequim for dinner. Their place looks amazing and you can tell they are putting a lot of work into landscaping, painting, etc.

After dinner we headed up to Port Angeles where we would catch the ferry over to Victoria early the next morning.

After catching an early ferry to Victoria, we made our way (slowly) to Campbell River. We had the opportunity to visit the Museum at Campbell River which was very well done and told a lot about the fishing, logging and mining that went on in the area. Then, after an elusive, hour long search for fish and chips, we ended up at the hotel restaurant where Mom and I had possibly the best seafood chowder either of us had EVER had! Joel opted for the stir fry.

The next morning we drove up to Port Hardy to the Serengeti Fishing Charters “Lodge.” Actually a house, but due to the fact that they had so many clients, the three of us ended up staying in a cabin down near the boat docks. It was nice to be out of the way and easy to drive a couple minutes up to the house for our meals. The intent was for Mom to relax at the cabin while we were fishing but she had other “plans” and sitting in the cabin was not one of them!