First Vacation in 4 years! (Days 1 and 2)

aarellanes (56)in #travel • 7 years ago

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to take the time to share my journey from Seattle, WA to Ucluelet, BC. This was my fiancé and mine’s first vacation in four years. It was also the longest trip we have taken together as well!

How journey began from Seattle, Washington to Surrey, BC. Our Ferry wasn’t scheduled to leave until 5:15am PST on July 1. However, we decided to head up to Canada 1 day early to take the trip pretty slow and keep it stress free as possible. As you can see in the map below its not that far about 7 hours trip, 5 in the car and 2 hours on the ferry.

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We weren’t wanting to just travel straight there and be done with it, we wanted to see what the drive had to offer! We left Seattle about 3pm and headed north to Bellingham, Washington. (where my fiancé and I met!) Even though the drive to Bellingham from Seattle is only about 90 min there is some extremely gorgeous scenery of the Pacific North West (PNW)

Oh yeah, I can’t forget, on the mini pass on the way to Bellingham there is this Bolder that is very visible from the road. Every time I drive up to Bellingham there is something different on it. It can be completely random or even seasonal based. One year it was all pink with red hearts on it for valentines day. Another time near summer it was for Sehome High School Class of 2016. Im going to assume the high schoolers did this.

Here we wanted to get a bite and some gas before heading over the boarder. Our favorite place to go in Bellingham is a pretty popular local brewery called Aslan Brewing Co. On this trip we wanted to try something different, we went to this farm to table restaurant. Where I got a Batch 15 IPA from Aslan because they had all the local breweries on tap and had this incredibly fresh tasting burger! It was by far one of the most juicy burgers I had every had!

After dinner and topping off the gas tank we drove up to the boarder, where we missed getting an incredible picture of the Peace Arch! But luckily my fiancé got a picture of the Peace Arch Park sign! Of course we had to get a snapshot of the Boundary Bay!

We made it to Surrey, safe and sound, sorry but I didn’t take any pics of the hotel. We ended up getting to the hotel around 8:30 pm. We wanted to try to get to sleep as quickly as possible but it was pretty hard because the sun doesnt set until 9:45 in the summer time in the PNW!

We were trying to scramble to get out of the hotel on July 1. We had a Ferry reservation at the Tsawwassen, BC. So when reserving a spot on the ferry you need to arrive between an Hour to half an hour before the ferry left. With that being the criteria we had to leave the hotel no later than 3:45am at the latest because we had to drive about 30 min. I know you might ask, well why didn’t you bet a hotel closer. I actually tried! Most places around $100/night were sold out! I tried to book a week in advance as well! We made it to the Ferry terminal with PLENTY of time to spare! I think we arrived at 4:25 which was perfect!

The only downfall was that we had to just wait around until we started boarding at 5:10am but it was very quick! The ferry left right on the dot 5:15 am! I was using my phone on the ferry for a bit because I had some service. Like most of the time on long trips my Fiancé fell asleep in the car, I can blame her she is normal and takes a name when only getting 5 hours of sleep and getting up at 3am! I took a quick snapshot of our location when we were on the ferry right before I lost service!

I knew the views would be beautiful especial because the sun was about to rise, I went up to the main deck and took some pictures which Ill share a few of the view!

Once we docked be departed the ferry, It was about 8am and we were very hungry we had some snacks in the car when we were on the ferry but that was about it! On the journey to Ucluelet, BC we had to drive through a town know as Nanaimo. There we stopped for breakfast at another farm to table restaurant called Gabriel’s Cafe. This place had to be the BEST please I had ever eaten in my life! (SORRY MOM, You still have amazing cooking!) I enjoyed a fresh glass of squeezed orange juice ( I saw them squeeze it!) and INCREDIBLE Avocado and Tomato Eggs Benedict! When cutting into the yolk you could tell they were some superb quality because the yolks had a hint of orange to them. My fiancé had the same exact thing! I dont think I ate a meal at slow as that one!

We had a lot of time to spare because our check in time for the Air BnB was 4pm and it was only 9am at the time. We decide to walk around Nanaimo, but there wasn’t that much to do because it was only 9am and to top it off, it was CANADA DAY!!!!

I took some basic pics of what we saw around where we parked. First was this massive, Mast, I believe that is what it is called!

Oh and here is our first pic in Canada!

The drive to Ucluelet from Nanimo! We have so many pics but here is one of the views we saw!

The is the cutest store that I have seen! It is called Goats on the roof it is a little market! I have so many pics but I will make it another post because there is just more than this little store, there is a farmers market and a pottery shop!

This was a river about 30 miles out side of Ucluelet! The water was incredibly Blue! Also, there were little pockets of water in the rocks that must have been warm enough to house a lot of little tadpoles! I think this river was from a melted icecap but I cannot recall.