Drive Out

Helen and I love to travel, but the return home is always good, too.

If we go to visit family, it is in a city called Victoria. To get there or back involves two ferry trips. There is no way to really plan a travel time to there or back with any great accuracy. Not only would we have to predict highway and city traffic, the added complications of ferry schedules (which are a bit bizarre), as well as guessing how heavy the ferry traffic is. We don't try. We just go.

If we are on a flying trip, it isn't bad going. We just leave tons of extra time, as we don't take a car. That means riding a transit bus, a ferry, another city bus, and the train to the airport, in order to get to our plane. Coming home has all of that backwards, plus whatever the flying adds into the mix that everybody else has to contend with, like connections and possible flight delays. We don't try and predict our return when flying, either.

Road trips are about the same. Normally those head into the US, which involves a border crossing, which is always a crap shoot, especially if you have to try and hit a particular ferry after it. Again, no point in trying.

What this all means is that we never race when heading home. No point to it, and what are we racing for? Wouldn't there have to be a goal?

So anyhow, we were off with my sister Kathy, and her husband Al for a few days in Ucluelet, after a week in Victoria. Ucluelet is also on the island.

The plan that Helen and I settled on for the day of leaving was to pack up, do one more (rain-soaked) beach walk, and then head out. Google maps calculates the drive to the ferry as 2 hours and 39 minutes. Ucluelet is one of the places Google maps has trouble with. The road out winds insanely, and is mostly one lane each way, and runs through several towns. Along the way, Helen wanted to hit Costco, and at least one craft supply place.

We would then catch our first ferry, whose trip lasts an hour and 45 minutes. Then it would be a short drive over to the second ferry, which sails for 45 minutes. The end part is a 45 minute drive home. The first boat sails hourly, but the second only goes every second hour.

I had mentioned a desire to get home in time to get to Jiu-Jitsu, which starts at 7pm. It was just a, “it would be nice if” kinda thought, not a real goal.

The day before our return, I downloaded the boat schedules, cranked up Google maps, and did the math. I told Helen that there was no way we would get me home in time unless we were on the road by 9am., and if we limited our Costco time to 30 minutes (fat chance), and dropped the craft store stops. That translates into impossible, and didn't even take into consideration a final beach walk.

I thought that settled it, but after thinking about it for a while, she said she didn't need that last beach walk (who was this person and what did she do with Helen?), or the Costco visit, and only needed to hit one craft place?

We were on the road by 8:30am, making my Jiu-Jitsu class a distinct possibility.

Ever get caught on a long, skinny, tight-cornered road when you're in a hurry? What happens nine-times-out-of-ten is that you scoot along until you catch up to a big, fat RV, or a freight truck, or white-knuckled slow poke. You slow to a crawl, and can't escape as there is nowhere that is safe to pass. Any kind of a slow drive would have killed the dream.

Miracle of miracles, this didn't happen. Sure, we were less than lightning fast, but no serious slow-downs.

Found the craft store on the way, and they had exactly what Helen was looking for. We were out in no time at all. I couldn't believe how well everything was going.

Got to the ferry terminal with time to spare, loaded aboard, and were on our way. Ate on the boat, and did the switch over to the lot for boat two as slick as a whistle. The schedules don't line up at all (horrible actually, as we got to see boat two pull out just as we arrived, but that's what is supposed to happen). We did the parking-lot wait, and loaded right to the front of the boat. Napped during this leg of the voyage.

At that point, ETA prediction became, well, predictable. I was going to make it to class.

We banged off the final drive, got home, unloaded the car, and I gathered up my Jiu-Jitsu gear. I usually enjoy the half-hour drive to class, but after 11 hours of travel I didn't.

Class was lovely. We worked on sit-up sweep, which I am pretty sucky at, as well as some guillotine work, which I'm also lousy at. Perfect training for me. There was exactly the right amount of sparring at the end. After we broke up and people headed to the change rooms, Koko grabbed Tobias and wanted to film one of her 3 test sparring videos. Scott and I each ran a camera (backup, you know), and her roll with Tobias looked good enough to submit. All-in-all, a great night at Jiu-Jitsu.

Then a little half-hour drive home.

I was tired, for some inexplicable reason.