Blackberries and Blow-ups

We left Edmonton on Thursday for a 3 week trip through BC and Vancouver Island. Our first stop was in the shadow of Mount Robson and one of the campgrounds there. We sure appreciated the ease of setup of our Westfalia. The next day we hit the Coquihalla and the monster hills at a whopping 40km an hour. We stopped every hour or two to give our van a breather and it seemed to be working great right up until we turned onto my brother's street in Vancouver. At that point the engine gave up the ghost never to propel the van again. Luckily we have a trustworthy mechanic in Vancouver from our earlier experience. A new engine is being installed this week and should be ready by Monday. In the meantime we continued on to Vancouver island and a few days with our good friend Diana. We've spent a few of the last two days scouring road side bushes for blackberries (which are in season) and stuffing our faces. Mmmmm. We're renting a car this afternoon and heading out to Tofino and hotspring cove to tryout the natural hotsprings there.

The airline we booked our ticket with made the news the other day and this is not a good thing. The plane burst into flames on the runway (thankfully no one was hurt).