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The ferry was fullly-loaded with cars and motor-homes, so we all proceeded up the hill out of town in a slowly moving chain of vehicles. Found the Safeway just outside town, and picked up some bread, fruit, and water.

Haven't bought store bread in a while, and I didn't get a chance to make the 2 loaves of sourdough last night for the trip, but did manage to FREEZE my starter, which is now almost 3 months young. I hope that baby springs back to life when I thaw and feed it after the trip.

While the kids were snacking on lunch, Lance and I made sandwiches for the adults. Yum! the home-made veggie butter went quite nicely with some extra-old cheddar and a pickle. I'm thinking that the veggie butter might have been spiked with gingko or something ,as I was immediately inspired with several great ideas shortly after chowing down. Robin denies spiking with any herbs or other additives....

If I was to pick 1 word to sum up the start of the road-trip, it would be "frantic". Everyone was busy yesterday at home getting ready for the trip, while I was busy at work leaving several projects in various states of being. I've been updatng a hard-copy trip check-list, and there was still lots to do by the time I got home on Tuesday night. Had to do various bits of cleaning, tidying, packing, and online errands.

The Coho was fairly heavily booked, so we had to park the van down there overnight to secure a spot in line. Needed to be on the first ferry, leaving at 1030. Went to bed at 0200, and got up with Wolfe at 0545, as he was needing a change of sleeping venue. Crashed with him on the couch downstairs for almost an hour, and got up at 0645. Got up feeling thoroughly trashed, but that's not uncommon these daze. Me and Lance got a ride down to the Coho Customs Compound at 0800 with Sarah, with all the rest of our stuff that we still needed to cram into the van. While Lance did the strategic packing exercise, I moved Charlotte's car-seat from the middle row into the back row. We've decided to travel with 1 adult seated next to each child, as we felt that might go over better for both of the kiddies. Took Charlotte's car seat out and discovered that I'd need to put the head-rest back in that seat. Ooops. Had to run home to get it out of attic storage, and back by 0900 before Customs Compound Closedown. Good thing we're not in Swartz Bay.

A large number of mammoth motor-homes slowly lumbered onto the Coho car-deck, and it took a while to get them stationed correctly for the trip. We left Victoria shortly after 1030. The ferry trip was OK, and featured several road-trip highlights including:

• Wolfe shopping in the Coho gift-shop. The colouring books, crayons, postcards, and Hannah Montana toy kit were all targets of . Luckily nothing ended up in his mouth.
• Wolfe inspecting the seating on the upper outer deck. The fold-down deck chairs were all found to be suitable climbing platforms.
• Wolfe issuing a wake-up call to anyone sleeping in the coffee shop. Not sure why he decided to scream at the top of his lungs there, but it could be that I didn't let him play with the change-return slot in the vending machine long enough to satisfy his curiousity.
• Justine's extra-sweet, flavoured coffee: coffee-shop coffee spiked with 2 shots too much of a caramel syrup. Mmmm...don't know how I reached the bottom of the cup on that one - I've been going with only cream in the coffee lately.