Last Day, Part II

Too many photos for one blog post, so here is some of Thursday.  Our bus picked us up at 7:15am and we headed to the ferry for Vancouver Island and our trip to Victoria and Butchart Gardens.  What a fabulously, scenic route,

This ferry carries tens of tour buses, as well as trucks and cars.  Huge would be a good word to describe it.

We went first to the city of Victoria - a really charming, olde-world style city.

After the requisite shopping and wandering, our bus took us to Butchart Gardens - renowned gardens north of the city (gorgeous any time of the year, but outstanding on this trip)

Everyone was pretty quiet on the ferry and bus ride home.  Everyone was quite tired but delighted with our lovely day.

So today, Friday, we made a short trip to the Holland Shopping Center - a shop [winkletje] in New Westminster (next-door to Burnaby where we are staying).  Of course, we found a couple of things we couldn't live without and several that we could pass on.  [We have been told, tongue-in-cheek, that B.C. stands for "bring cash" and perhaps it's the truth.]  So we only bought a little, but did also have a very fun chance to meet the president of the "Netherlands Association "Je Mainutiendrai".  The volunteers of this organization maintain a Dutch Library in the shop - books are available for anyone to take and/or donate.  So I have an Annie Schmidt book for me to work on translating.

The rest of the day has been spent cleaning, tidying, and generally getting the RV ready to head out again tomorrow morning.  We have met some delightful folks on this trip and hopefully can catch up with some of them this next week in Seattle and maybe sometime in the future.  What an adventure we have had!