This post is probably more for my own entertainment than yours, but here it is anyway! I thought it would be fun to live blog our travels today, so here we go!

4:28am – Victor wakes up to be fed. It’s pretty much perfect timing since I had my alarm set for 4:45. I feed him and myself then get us both dressed at which point I wake Tim up.

5:12 – Calvin wakes up and is chatting away and is super awake for such an early hour. I dress him while Tim loads up the car.

5:32 – the car is loaded with everything, and we hit the road!

6:48 – Tim is tired of all the pop music on the Christmas station so it gets turned off, and Calvin falls back asleep. I assume Victor is sleeping too since he is silent.

7:11 – Calvin gets a breakfast of dry Shreddies and water. Yum! And if we were still living in Victoria, we would be in Nanaimo around now.

7:40 – first gas and Tim Horton’s stop. And also breakfast for Victor.

8:00 – back on the road and we started our audio book of “The Magician’s Nephew”.

8:55 – spotted: mountains!

10:11 MST – we cross over into BC. The past hour has been fairly uneventful. The weather is cloudy but mainly clear of any precipitation. Currently Calvin is reading “the Nose Book” and I am reciting the pages to him as he flips through. Victor woke up a little while ago, but I popped a soother in his mouth and now he is asleep again.

9:29 PST – spotted: a train.

Thrilling, hey? I told you this was mostly for my own entertainment!

10:12 – we stop in Valemount for some food. The first place we see is A&W so we get some fast food breakfast. Not my favourite, but Calvin is happy to be free of the seat. The past couple times he has been whiny, I asked him what he wanted and all he would say was “up!” A little heartbreaking since I couldn’t do anything about that! But the whiny moments are thankfully short lived.

12:58 – we finish “The Magician’s Nephew”.

1:09 – we play the alphabet game. In winter it’s extra hard since the signs are all covered in snow.

1:47 – we are only at the letter S. Victor got cranky and there was nowhere to pull over to nurse, so out came the bottle. Who needs hands?

2:19 – we are close enough to Kamloops to have service so text messages, from people wondering how our progress is going, flood in.

2:48 – we stop on Kamloops fill up our car and Victor and make the decision to take the Coquihalla.

3:39 – spotted: blue sky!

3:48 – I take a photo of the sun setting.

4:46 – Calvin is getting whiny again, but it is too dark to play with toys so I pull out the iPad for the first time. He is loving Endless Alphabet these days!
I should also note that the Coquihalla, which is famous for awful winter conditions, has the clearest road conditions so far! What a great blessing!

5:31 – Calvin drops the iPad between his seat and the door where nobody can reach it. Unhappy toddler until we stop to feed Victor! He can deal.

5:42 – both boys are crying for sustenance but we are going to hang on until we get to Chilliwack.

5:58 – spotted: a Tim Horton’s!
Tim says, “Oh yeah, snowballs! That is a thing people can do here,” upon seeing a gaggle of teenagers with snowballs.

7:06 – we are passing the exit to my parents’ house. They live about two minutes from the highway so it is weird being so close to them but not seeing them for another handful of days. These specific Golden Arches (my iPhone automatically capitalized that…) were always a sign to me that we were so close to home, whether coming from a short visit with my Oma and Opa in Abbotsford or coming back from a road trip to family in Manitoba.

8:02 – we arrive at the ferry terminal in time for our 8:15 sailing, only to be told it is running an hour late. Not always the best form of transportation but it’s the only option. And the destination is pretty great.

8:27 – we are in the terminal as Calvin sees a hockey game on the screen. He points to it, pumps his arms and says, “woo woo woo!”

8:52 – we get onto the ferry.

9:11 – Calvin is far too happy and awake for it to be 2 hours past his bed time.

10:50 – “It is now time for all vehicle passengers to make their way to their vehicle deck.” We did this about 40 minutes ago in hopes that Calvin would settle down and go to sleep. It did not work. Currently both boys are crying because they are not sleeping.

11:22 – we pull into Tim’s parents’ driveway.

Biiiiig sigh!