On the Road Again! Yeah. Victoria to Sequim to Ilani Casino, Richland, WA Sept 14 - 16

On Thursday, we were on our way to Victoria for our appointment with BMT Group in Sidney for finally getting our main awning fabric replaced.  The material finally came in from Carefree yesterday. We left Lake Cowichan at 7:26 precisely lol and arrived about 9:15. 

Final lockup.

Traffic into Victoria, The Colwood Crawl!

It took them forever!!!! 6 hours in fact to replace the material for the piece that attaches to the roof to the casing and then the fabric on the awning itself. 

We went out for breakfast at the 3rd Street Cafe for some delicious Benny's. 

A beauty Ray captured at a crosswalk.

After our bellies were full, we parked at a park on the Sidney Walkway to waste some time for a couple of hours. A beautiful walk along the water. There was an art show happening there as well. Ray took some pictures of all the lovely gardens.

The picture below is one Ray wished he could buy and take home. lol What would we do with it until April and I have no wall space left. :)

Incredible layered brush strokes.

This job for the awning was only supposed to take a couple of hours .... we went back at noon and nope, not finished. After waiting until 1 pm we decided to go for lunch at the Victoria Flying Club, across the street. Ray 'd heard they have delicious Wonton Soup. Unfortunately it;s not available on Thursdays. We shared a smoked salmon, shrimp clubhouse sandwich as we were going out for dinner. Delicious.

Back to BMT and waiting again for another 1.5 hours. We finally got out of there at 3:30 pm to head back to Esquimalt where the RV Park is. We were all set up by 4:30. Good thing as we had to leave at 5:30 to make dinner reservations  at Kristi's friend Theo's house.

Our view from the MH, Site #13 at the Salish Retreat RV Park.

One of two huge cruise ships in harbour but were already gone when we came home after dinner.

View of the International Marina

It's lovely that Theo also invited Jason's parents, Nadine and Dale for dinner as well. Here are a couple of pictures of Theo's renovated kitchen/dining room and living room. Her Dad and uncle helped her take out some walls.

Nadine, Dale, Alexandros, Nicolas, Ray and Theo

After a great visit and dinner of barbecued chicken, salad and green beans with a delicious pear bundt cake we headed back to the coach at about 8 pm. Theo has her boys to settle in for the night as they have school tomorrow. 

Ray took some lovely shots of the harbour in the afternoon/evening/morning.

Sunset  over Victoria

Good morning Victoria!

We were up early and in the ferry lineup by 7:30.  A beautiful sunny day to start our trip. Unfortunately Ray had a little "booboo" coming out of the RV Park. Since he drove straight into the RV Site he didn't think I needed to help him back out so I left ahead of him. He ended up having an argument with a post... just after we had all our previous scratches repainted. The post is short apparently and he couldn't see it in the backup camera or his side mirrors. He has cracked the fiberglass rear cap. Oh well. Shit happens, especially if your last name is Kyle. He placed a call into ICBC and we will deal with it when we get back in April.

I suspect the post was orange lol

We went over to the coffee shop and ate a muffin and coffee before waiting with me in the car and Ray in the coach to clear customs. Then a bunch of vintage cars pulled in to the ferry parking lot. They're headed to a Show and Shine in Seaside OR. Ray enjoyed talking to their owners.

This Studebaker hides a hemi engine

The sailing ship Athena

Here comes our ride!

We ended being loaded right into the very front of the ship so i was first off. They let 20 cars go by before signalling for Ray. I was asked only how long I'm staying in the USA, but Ray got the Agriculture guy so was asked a bunch more questions. Fortunately I'd prepped him on what's in the fridge as he lost the paper I gave him. lol 

While sitting at the stern of the ship, there were 2 people sitting next to us. Half way through the trip I overhead the lady sitting next to me wondering if she has Covid!!!! She tested but it was negative but who knows. Needless to say we moved post haste somewhere else. She was turned sideways to me so hopefully she didn't spray me. She wasn't coughing or sneezing fortunately. With this situation we called Milt, Ray's brother-in-law and told him.... he definitely did not want to see us overnight in case. We will stop there to pick up our new DISHTV receivers and be on our way.

We met up at the Sequim Walmart so we could get our Costco and Walmart shopping done. I gased up the car at Costco and Ray took the coach to another station to fill with diesel. The price is so much cheaper here, even with the exchange on our dollar. Diesel was $5.84/gal and gas at Costco $4.85/gal. Currently at the lake we pay $1.94 per litre for gas and $2.14/L for diesel.

Our current view ... not as nice :) Walmart in Sequim.

Ray relaxing in his new chair.

We relaxed with the generator and A/C on for a couple of hours, then went out for dinner at the Black Bear Diner. Both of us very hungry after eating only a muffin for breakfast and shared a hotdog on the ferry. Dinner special is Prime Rib, baked potato, green beans, salad and cornmeal muffin for $27.99 each. Huge portions and we have leftovers. A great Day 1 of our trip.

Cool jukebox at the front of the diner.

We had a quiet night in the parking lot. Woke up at 6 and started the generator for coffee and some heat. It really is quite cool this morning. At 7 am, I turned it off and opened some blinds ... 2 cars parked right in front of us. Sorry ..... why do they park so close when the whole lot is empty. Cars behind us too with a motorhome on the other side of us as well. Too bad for them. 

Saturday we were on the road at 8:30 am heading into Tacoma to pick up our Dish receivers. The sun is shining, another beautiful day to travel.

Crossing over the Hood Canal Bridge

After a quick "Hi and Bye" with Milt, we carried on to the Ilani Casino, north of Portland on the advice of our good friend Dianne Colibaba. We did hit a traffic snarl and it took 30 minutes to get through about 8 miles, all because highways reduced a lane to wash a bridge .... OMG!  Traffic as far as our eyes could see. Once we got past that it was smooth sailing.

Finally arrived at the casino at 1:15 pm and just took the car off and headed into the casino for lunch. This is a huge casino inside, with lots of bells and whistles lol. You check in with Security in the parking lot before parking. There's a booth set up. Not a fabulous view but spacious. It works and it's free. They have a shuttle that comes by to pick you up but we opted to take our car. It needed to be driven a little after towing.

The place has ton's of eating options from fast food to high end steak dinners.We checked with a guy at the 360 BAR and asked which one has a "pub and beer" atmosphere. He pointed us to Tom's Urban as  a great choice. Ray ordered pork belly tacos and I their lobster and shrimp tacos. Delicious.

On the phone with Countryside to find out where to park tomorrow. :)

After lunch back to the MH to do a minimal setup. We still have some things to put away from yesterday. I turned on the generator for about 15 minutes to cool our MH down and then was able to open up the windows as there was quite a breeze coming through and it's 30C or 82F. The rest of the afternoon we spent relaxing. Ray will have my leftovers from last night for supper and I'll probably have a grilled cheese sandwich if I feel at all hungry.