The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Of course we read the journals, well at least I do!!!

Thanks for sharing and looking forward to the rest of the trip!! (I only get to go on trains and planes mostly these days so this is a nice escape for me.)

[Ur0Drivr]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Yup, I read them keep it coming Ponto!


Sent from my perch atop Mount Olympus

[Ponto]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Ah good to hear guys! Once Melissa is done school hopefully plan to have some more epic (And different) road trips in the coming years. After seeing a guy on 780tuners post up a thread about driving his M shoe with a buddy to the arctic circle I kinda wanna do that, or well Alaska at least.

At work, but going to try and get Day 3 Posted here shortly! Next up Vancouver Island!

[Ponto]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

So Day 3, we got an early start (Much to Melissa's dismay, but she was excited for the trip as well so she obliged me and woke up at 4:30 to get ready) And then I woke up at 5:15, showered, got ready and we were out the door by 5:30am. The first ferry to the island was 7:00am and it suggested being there ready to board half hour to an hour early, so since i have never taken BC Ferries I figured best be there for 7.

It was fairly dark until we got to the docks so no pictures driving through Van lol. Plus I was still waking up.

And here we go!
Got that upper deck... Er Berth. I like my childhood hockey card reference better.



Not their biggest ship, wasn't crazy busy this early on a friday either.



See ya mainland!



And got the ol girl tucked away safely! Oh man, there was a red mustang one lane over in front of us... Lady did not know how to park, pulled in nice and crooked and pretty much on the line. She was a little older, and well larger... needless to say she couldn't get out of her car.... And she was giving the people next to her the stink eye like mad, Melissa and I sat and laughed for a bit. Then I got out, helped her back her car up and move it over a bit. Felt kinda bad. But stupid is as stupid does.



Little bit of a gloomy mornin :( forcast said sunny, wtf forecasters... I wish I could be that wrong and still keep my job.







And bam, back in the car ready to unload! Melissa is in the car rolling her eyes at me for taking so many car pictures. (You'd think she would have figured it out by now that I am always going to take lots of pictures)



Heey look... BURTA! Douche cannoe romped on it as he was pulling out as well.



And just like that we were in Victoria, parked the car and started wandering around! Beautiful city for sure.



Love all the old buildings.





Baam ballin hotel... naah we didn't stay there, figured 400+ was a little to much for one night.



And the Parliament building, did not know there was one in Victoria, but man it's awesome!



Hey its us!!



So after wandering downtown for awhile we decided to venture out a bit further and go find this old Lighthouse we looked up. Turns out, its the oldest lighthouse in Canada!





It was part of an old military fort so we got to explore that as well, cost a wopping 7 dollars!



View from the fort was amazing!!



Fort stuff...



And bam, oldest lighthouse in Canada - The fisgard lighthouse (irrc)







Beautiful out here!



Boom! A cannon! Need to get a hitch... or roof mount that ***** for traffic.



Then at the hotel, heeey another 3.2!



And a mini, little worse for ware but still so nice... and tiny!



Spotted this beauty on our walk abouts as well - Actually on our way to dinner at the most amazing Italian place ever, Pagliacci's my word was it delicious!!



This pretty much ends the first day, did more wandering around and got an awesome sunset at the marina!



Tried a few night shots only a handful really turned out so heres two!





End of Day 3 Distance = A measly 150km! haha

Trip Total = 1430km

[stef2.7t]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Looks Sweet!

[Ponto]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Looks Sweet!

Yeah man there were some awesome views... realize now that the view from the fort - picture sucks big time.. haha was some mist down in the bay, could see a few tankers off in the distance. It looked awesomer than my picture i swear!!

[vteclol]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Thats awesome Ponto! Im very jealous of all your little adventures

[Ponto]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Thats awesome Ponto! Im very jealous of all your little adventures

Holy smokes you're alive?!

[Shoreboy]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

You didnt realize that the Provincial capital had Parliament buildings?

[Ponto]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

You didnt realize that the Provincial capital had Parliament buildings?

Here is where my knowledge of BC is very Murican. I kinda forgot Victoria was the capital... whoops?

[Lars]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Awesome travel log!

About 600 km from Vancouver ( between Barrier and Clearwater ) is a small place called Little Fort - when I go back to see my family I turn there and its about a hour up highway 24 on a cattle ranch I grew up on.

[Ponto]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Awesome travel log!

About 600 km from Vancouver ( between Barrier and Clearwater ) is a small place called Little Fort - when I go back to see my family I turn there and its about a hour up highway 24 on a cattle ranch I grew up on.

Thank you! Kinda got the ball rolling with my other trips, think I will keep these going for future road trips and I have a blog now for trips that might not invole my car haha.

Ah way up in the middle no where land there, friend of mine has a cabin somewhere around 100 mile house I think, we stayed there once. Beautiful area for sure!

[Ponto]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Day 4!! Time to explore some more of the Island.

Slept in a bit, then heading to Wanawafle for breakfast, it was ok - nothing mind blowing lol. We slowly walked back down through Victoria to the car and started off north up the Island to meet up with my cousin who lives in Ladysmith. Took about an hour to trek the short distance, highways were 80kph for most of the stretch with a little section at 100. But a really nice drive.



Apparently I didn't take many pictures for that stretch... haha We met up with my cousin and continued north towards Nanaimo, stopped along the way to get some fresh Salmon and Halibut for dinner!! Mmm so damn good.





Love how calm the water was



After getting the fish we continued north towards her Cabin at Horne Lake (About an hour north of Nanaimo)

Stopped at Qualicum beach for some ice cream! Man it was amazing, loving every minute of the drive and all the little stops my cousin took us on!





Melissa enjoying her ice cream and walk.



baaaam



And here is where the pavement ended! As we got closer the the cabin we ventured off the highway! Nothing to bad, just gravel and dirt, some rough areas or so it seem'd but the car handled it just fine - not even a complaint from the gf haha.





Didn't take us to long and we had arrived!



Awesome little cabin, no power, no cell service. It was great - Had solar power for lights, and then propane for everything else. Was awesome to get away from everything!





We ventured down to the water right away, man alive what a beauty of a lake.





My cousin brought her labrodoodle (sp?) name Doodle with her so Melissa jumped right on playing with her! That dog seriously loved the water, and rocks oddly enough - would dive down into the water and bring them back up. Funniest thing ever.







We figured there was plenty of sun lefft so we grabbed the canoe and hit the water for a bit. Was so calm and peaceful - felt great!





Just like that another day came to an end. Such a great vacation thus far!



Almost done our touring, up next Washington!

Cheers,
Ponto


Oh Right! Day 4 Distance Traveled = 190km

Trip Total = 1,620km

[Ponto]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Next day.



Which is Day 5 I believe.

MUUURICA!!!

We headed south bright and early, first stop - Bellingham!! Met up with a fellow A3 enthusiast named John and his White 3.2 to hand over an HPA Puck mount for a fellow in South Africa who was flying to the U S of A for H20i and wanted it for his bagged S3 back home.



Smell that raw fuel!! Car sounded great with the SS Headers and Neuspeed exhaust. John led us to a local spot for breakfast where we chatted and enjoyed some good food. (Thanks John!!)





After that we were planning to head south to the outlet malls, and well the best way to get there was Chuckanut Drive, yaaay! (Melissa didn't know it yet, but she wasn't going to be to impressed)

With John leading the way we headed south, been 2 years since I drove this fantastic road I really need to do it more often! We sped away, working our way south and slowly increasing the speed too haha. Ran into a bit of traffic, but once they turned off John romped on it! I followed suit of course, which was quickly followed by "Ryan!!! Slow down, I am going to tell my mother on you!" Haha, this is the exact moment where Melissa was no longer enjoying the scenic route. But truth be told she actually did fantastic as we did drive all of it at a fairly brisk pace.







Once we reached the end, John turned off we said our goodbyes and continued onward! Didn't take long for us to hit the outlet mall so off we went for some shopping (Melissa was very happy again and forgot all about the spirited driving and noisy car)

Wallet thoroughly beating we left the outlet mall and continued our trek into Seattle!



Parked the car not to far from the space needle and went out exploring, ended up doing a ton of walking and seeing a lot of cool stuff! Even rode the ferris wheel.







Talk about a perfect day in Seattle, no rain to be seen for miles!! Which made for an excellent day of wandering and touristy stuff.











That kinda sums up our day in Seattle, typical stuff - space need, ferris wheel, Pikes Market. Oh right we did head downtown a bit, checked out nordstroms (read - very happy melissa) before having dinner at the Old spaghetti factory with some awesome service actually, way better then what we get here in Edmonton anyways. And ended up back at our hotel in Bellevue for the evening!

Was a busy day, lot of walk. My feet were toast by the end of it all haha but all in all a great day with even better weather!

[TerryM3]

Re: The long road home - Intro and an epic road trip all for a car.

Isn't Seattle great?, Did you ever get to check out Pikes brewery? I was there a couple weeks back in the M while visiting my brother who lives in kent, also there's a very odd tourist attraction real close to pikes called the gum wall you should check out
too,