Experiencing white man's map envy..

Welcome to Vancouver Island, Land of the beautiful wet... It's Endor-ific! This whole island should be teemimg with sasquatch.

- Vancouver Island takes about 3 hours to cross. Couple that with a 1.5 hour ferry and a 2.5 hour ferry wait and suddenly we've been sitting/traveling the entire day.

- Tofino, tiny town on the Pacific Rim, was filled. It turns out Canadians also celebrate Labor Day -- however, they simply call it for what it is: "The Long Weekend". People are unintimidatingly laid-back.

- We found a place in Uclucet -- "The Little Beach Resort". We can see the sea, and have a kitchenette in a tiny half cabin-thingie. The guy at the front desk was a surfer and kayak-guy and said that eveyone knows everyone.

- This is not the "eh" brand of Canadians, this is the "hey" brand of Canadians. Take English, lilt it like Irish, sprinkle some Northern North America "oah"s and you've got the B.C. accent. "Beautiful boaht, hey?"

- There is one road to Tofino/Uclulet. It is highway 4. It twists and turns and ups and downs though massive forests, punctuated by greyblackblue rock and moss.

- Beach! Trees! Water! Wind! Surfers! (Tofino is the surfing capital of Canada -- who knew.) Big rocks! Europeans! Twisity roads! Pretty! Repeat!

- Saw two slugs, 4 inches across and 1 inch thick. Held a spiny star fish.

- People come here to surf. Anyone our age has that beautiful basted by salt, baked by sun look. I want to learn to surf and become a surf instructor in Tofino. It's what our sea kayak guide does, and she was hyper cool.

- Met Dan the sea plane pilot... Maybe early 30s, blonde fu-man chu, short hair, wearing aviator glasses. Had hairy blonde ear lobes. Spends his summers playing sea plane taxi and surfing and camping and hiking, and his winters traveling around the world, surfing. Yes, people live like this! Amazing to me!

- Grilled last night, after a beautiful day (lovely lunch at a place called Sobo. I could eat raw oysters and drink cold beer for hours, if you let me)

- Saw Sydney Inlet, one of the 5 remaining old growth inlets on Vancouver Island (out of an original125). Loggers would eat the world, if they could.

- Finally, its so quiet. So beautifully quiet.

- According to Canada, pizza comes from Boston and chowder comes from Manhattan.

Hoping to be in Victoria tonight. Taking the ferry and flying back tomorrow.

Onward.