Sweet Yet Sour

My Best Vacation Ever

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 | Blog Circle, The Daily Special

First, as a matter of explanation, some friends and I have started a sort of “blog circle”.  We all decided we needed to blog more, are sometimes bereft of blog topics, and could use a little help from our friends thinking of things to blog about.  For me, I could, much to the joy of both my own and my husband’s family, blog non-stop about Anna, but for me it’s not enough.  I am trying desperately not to lose my own identity – to not become simply “Anna’s mom”.  So every once in a while my friends and I will be spending some time tackling blog topics that we all come up with for a little blogging fun.

Today I will tackle the topic “Describe the best vacation you’ve ever taken.”

Mike and I were married in mid-November of 2004, but at the time, due to school and work schedules, we weren’t able to go on our honeymoon until Christmas.  A few days before Christmas we fled Colorado to Victoria, British Columbia.  I have been blessed with close relatives who have a vacation home outside of Victoria on the south side of Vancouver Island.  It is a beautiful home, where Mike and I took our first vacation together before we were married, that looks out from a high cliff over the ocean and across to Washington.

We were picked up at the airport and driven to Sooke, the closest town to the house.  We stopped on the way at the best meat shop in town, where we picked up steaks, sausage, and other things for our time at the house.  When we arrived at the house it had already been stocked with sandwich makings and some basic food – we were so well taken care of that visit!

One of the best things about the house is that there is a long stairway from the top of the cliff where the house is located down to a small private beach.  When we arrived Mike and I dropped our bags and climbed down the stairway to the little rocky beach.  When the waves crash upon the shore the sound of the rocks rolling up on the beach is almost like the sound of thousands of little hands clapping.  It’s a calming, wonderful place to spend time.

Close to the house there are many beautiful trails to hike on, through tall redwood forests that end up on the beautiful beaches of Vancouver Island, some rocky and some sandy.  For the next few days Mike and I spent time sleeping late, reading, watching the sights from the huge windows in the house and hiking the trails.  Mike spent a lot of time taking some of the most beautiful pictures he’s taken of the forest, the beaches, and the ocean.  It was quiet and calming and just what we wanted in a vacation.

Before Christmas we drove into Victoria where we stayed one night at a hotel that overlooked the harbor.  We had a fancy dinner at the restaurant on the top floor, shopped for each other’s Christmas presents and walked around downtown Victoria enjoying the Christmas lights.

We had a quiet Christmas eve and Christmas watching movies, reading our new books (we love giving books to each other) and enjoying our first Christmas as married people.

During our stay we mostly ate at home, but we did visit our favorite pub in Sooke, whose garlic mayo topped burgers are truly awesome, and a beautiful restaurant on a cliff point that overlooks the ocean.  Basically, we hiked, we read, we ate out a little, Mike took lots of pictures and we enjoyed the beauty of our surroundings.  It was the perfect “down time” vacation.

Don’t get me wrong, it was not a flawless vacation.  The car that belongs to my relatives broke down the day of our arrival and we had to deal with that mess and driving around a stranger’s car (we were loaned the car of someone who lives down the road). And the refrigerator stopped working, but we didn’t notice for a few days until there was a smell.  When we discovered that it had stopped working we moved as much as possible to the small wine refrigerator, but we lost most of the meat that we had purchased.  When we couldn’t have the roast or Scotch baked eggs we had planned on for Christmas we resorted to some steaks from the freezer, only to have the grill run out of gas just after we put the steaks on to cook.  But these were minor things, and could not compare with our lovely vacation.

Since then I have been back to the house once, with Mike and our friend Jen, and Mike has been back several times since to go salmon fishing with my father, uncle and my grandfather, before he died.  I miss the house, the ocean and the green of the Northwest greatly, especially these days with the sights of British Columbia on t.v. so much.  With the kids we won’t have that kind of vacation again for a long time, so I’m glad we had that time to really be together, relaxing and doing the things we love – it was by far my best vacation ever.

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