Lindsay and Stephanie....or Lucy and Ethel?

Remember that episode of "I Love Lucy" where she goes to the vineyard and stomps grapes? (If you don't, here's a clip) That's all we had in our heads when we made our way to the Gulf Islands for the Salt Spring Vineyard annual grape stomp this past Saturday.

But let's back up a bit first.

Because we just didn't get enough time in transit to and from Banff, we decided to drive down to Vancouver on Friday. This was technically my only day in the city, and we spent a good part of it doing Steph's favorite activity, biking the seawall. From there we went out to dinner and then drinks with one of Steph's friends and Eric and one of his friends, who was nice enough to let us crash at her place in the city that night. This was a very good thing because it saved us from having to drive to Chilliwack to sleep and then back to Vancouver in the morning to catch the early ferry.

Though we missed the first ferry we wanted, eventually we made it to Victoria, British Columbia's capital city on Vancouver Island. But this was just to connect us to the next ferry to Salt Spring Island, on of the Gulf Islands, where we then took a bus to get to the vineyard.

The island itself is pretty small, only 70 square miles, and you definitely get a very small town vibe immediately. Aside from the tourists, all of the people on the bus, including the driver, seemed to know each other well. It is also known as being one of the artsier communities, so we passed different shops along the way.

At the vineyard we had a free wine tasting and some snacks as we waited our turn to partake in the grape stomp. We soon discovered that not only would we be stomping grapes, but that it was a competition to see which of the four teams could fill up a large wine bottle first. One person started in the grapes while the other held the bottle and a long stick to unclog the spout from mashed grapes and stems and halfway through we would switch. The stomping part was actually easy; it was getting the stream of juice to flow nicely that we had problems with, meaning that we had a great time, but lost the competition terribly.

We then ferried back to Victoria where we met up again with Eric and another of his friends for dinner and then a walk around the city. Since the sun had gone down already we were able to see the Parliament building all lit up and the harbor at night was just beautiful, if a bit chilly. Though we were only in the city for a few hours, I think it was my favorite city in Canada. It just has a great feel to it, with restaurants and pubs on every street and corner and seemed to be geared to a younger crowd because of the high student population. And of course, it is right on the water.

O Canada, Steph's home and native land....

I can't believe it's been a week since I left. And then when I look back at everything we have already done, I can't believe it has only been a week. Time is getting back to playing its usual tricks on me.

It seems as though we have been on the move pretty much since I arrived at the Seattle airport on Monday afternoon. Since then, we have driven from Seattle up to Chilliwack (3 hours), from Chilliwack over to Banff in Alberta (9 hours), back to Chilliwack (8.5 hours) and then down to Vancouver (1.5 hours). We also spent a good chunk of Saturday on ferries to Victoria and Salt Spring, one of the smaller Gulf Islands, which totaled just over 4 hours.

But all of that time in transit was well worth it. Up in Banff we saw Lake Louise, surrounded by mountains and fed by glaciers, it's an amazingly blue-green-turquoise color. We did a short hike up to a lookout point and really got to take in all of its beauty. Unfortunately, it began to snow. At first it was just flurries but after we had gone in to get some hot tea it was coming down pretty hard and the tops of the mountains were no longer visible, so we headed back into the town of Banff. We went on a hike searching for some Hoodoos but there were no markings on the trail and after trying a few different options with no luck, it began to get pretty chilly out so we went back to the hostel.

                                                    The Banff Hoodoos, which evaded us.

The hostel we were staying in was advertising that the pub downstairs was having a Full Moon Party. Since Steph and I are kind of pros at these, we figured we had to make an appearance. Of course it was nothing like Koh Phangan, though they did have body paint, but we still had a nice time meeting people there.

I had forgotten that one of the best parts about staying in hostels is how easy it becomes to meet other travelers. This time was a little different because most of the people we met were actually in Banff  for a job fair that one of the ski resorts was holding. So while they weren't exactly other travelers, they were still interesting to chat with. Most of them were from Australia and New Zealand and one Kiwi in particular was drilling Steph about Canada, specifically its wildlife. It was hard to take his questions seriously, and a large part of that conversation was actually Stephanie teaching him the Canadian national anthem and her learning the New Zealand one, which is apparently partially in another language. (I just did a quick Google search to ensure that this was not fiction.)

On another note, after spending so much time with Steph in Thailand and talking to her since she has come back home, I arrived here already feeling like I knew most of the people in her life. It's been nice to actually get to meet some of them while at the same time seeing parts of Chilliwack and for the most part, I was surprised that most of them were exactly as I thought they would be.

***Have not yet uploaded photos. Will add those later rather than supplementing with ones stolen from the internets.***