Thursday, November 10th, 7:00 am

Today consisted of a twelve-hour drive from Calgary to the Tsawwassen terminal in Vancouver. We had packed the night before, so we would not waste time on trying to make the 9:00pm ferry to Victoria and just make it. The morning was like every other morning; groggy, confused, nauseous, searing Alberta sun through Kelly and Jayme’s enormous living room windows, a fine contrast to the many degrees below zero it actually was outside. It was a great stay and had been our home for almost five days, so we said goodbye and attempted to clean up after ourselves before we left, so as to feel a little less like small children and more like teenagers on an ill-advised road trip. I make apologies to Kelly and Jayme, for the mess and defilement of their pristine “Bathroom of the future” as Dan calls it. I ask Dan why he thinks it’s from the future and he tells me “Because it’s white and it stays that way.” We blast through the two provinces quickly and encounter only one snowfall upon Roger’s Pass where we sludge up the mountain in traffic to find that a big-rig has been pulled out of the ditch, the cab completely crushed and it’s pay-load spread out all over the embankment. Not cool. The image still haunts us. Can I get a “hell yes!” for a tour in the winter?

7:00 pm

We make Vancouver in record time, pulling all the stops and I crown Lewis as our hero of the day. We have two hours to spare before the 9:00 pm ferry and we race through traffic to get there. At this point, Lewis switches driving duties with Tyson and our speed is cut in half, if you can recall my previous notes on Tyson’s efficient, yet cautious driving habits. As we near the terminal, about twelve clicks away, and the last ferry at 90%, we are stuck behind a big truck with every other car passing us on the left. Lewis counts up the percentage as they pass, biding his time, until he finally let’s loose and says “Those cars on the left will be pulled over for speeding before we do since we’re going ten under the speed limit.” Tyson says calmly “Relax bro. It’s in the bag.” And hey, guess what, it was. The ferry ride is windy and bumpy, and even after spending all day in the van with the smell, coffee sweats and small arguments with the boys, we hold up in the back with some whiskey and old tour videos we never posted online because, really, they were always too offensive for anyone at any level of sensitivity and impossible to edit in anyway without it not making any sense at all, kind of like how your favourite R-rated action movies are when they are edited and displayed on television as nonsense, bleeps and overdubs and no real story-line. But to us, they are magic and constantly remind us, that although we strive to excel at our craft, our bard-like existence, constantly broke and in some sort of pain, we’re family.