Left the Island

 

Luckily, blogging has no deadlines, or I would be very overdue for this post.

I set a new record for getting on to the ferry at Swartz Bay.  I was lying in bed in the McDonald Park campground checking for messages, weather forecasts, and ferry schedules on my iPhone.  While still lying in bed at 0823 I decided to see if I could make it onto the 9 AM ferry.  After a quick feeding of Hailey and a cup of coffee while the walls were coming in, I made it to the ferry terminal and was in the lineup 20 minutes later!  In 30 minutes we were loaded on the ferry and on the way.  I decided there was no better time to send in my retirement notice to the employer!

Fortunately, there were some photo ops on the ferry, otherwise this would be a very short post!

The weather cams and road reports were fair for the highways to the east, so we took the toll-less Coquihalla.

Snow levels were just above the road at the summit of the pass.

After a night spent in Revelstoke, it was up and over Roger’s Pass.  The snow level was also just barely above the elevation of the road, but the roads were bare and dry.

Every now and then, I would see a chunk of frozen snow or ice on the road surface, like it had fallen off a passing truck.  I was concerned that this was a harbinger of worse conditions ahead, but I made it all the way back to Alberta with good roads.  Apparently Saskatchewan had been having storm conditions, so I suspect that was the origin.

Back in Lake Louise for a few days, surviving sub-freezing temperatures at night, while I shredded files at work and cleaned out my desk.

As usual, Hailey is stressed by the constant travel.

Next, off to my house in Sundre to organize things for my southern departure in the very near future.