to celebrate five years of being together, i took rob to Tofino this weekend while he was visiting British Columbia. later i found out (on father's day) that my late grandfather and my grandmother used to go on dates to Tofino, some thirty years go, where my grandfather would catch mussels and oysters.
it took us all day to get there, a bus ride, a ferry, and then i rented us a car once we got to the island. it was a little freaky for me, driving on the island. there were long stretches where i was driving along a steep, narrow cliff, with giant mountains close by one side, and a drastic drop into water on the other side....and jackass pickup trucks tailgaiting close behind me, because i drive slow.
but the view was beautiful. the snow-capped mountains, lit by sunlight poking through the clouds, and the crystal clear water of the lake, in an island, in an ocean. we stopped by Cathedral Grove in McMillan Provincial Park, where there were the biggest trees i have ever seen, some over 800 years old. it was pretty amazing, and rob's eyes were so wide the entire time because he had never seen anything like that before.
once we got there, we discovered that rob forgot to bring his swimming trunks. figures that we would go to the surfing capital of Canada, and...oh well, whatever.
there were no celebrity sightings this weekend, but it didn't stop everything in town from being crazy expensive. tofino is one of those odd small towns that have the cozy setting of a small town (downtown is three blocks long, and full of mom-and-pop shops), but without small town prices because people like Diana Krall and Danny Devito and Susan Sarandon hang out there on vacation. so those mom-and-pop shops have Byward Market prices. but such good food, such fresh fresh seafood.
we spent our day hanging out at the beach, watching the surfers confront the ocean, and hiking along the Wild Pacific Trail, which cut right through the rainforest along the coastline bluffs. there were, miraculously, no mosquitos, not even in the thick of the woods. there were crows that would steal your car keys, but no bugs at all. the whole place was this surreal world, like the island was a dream rather than a real destination.
