a distant memory.

six months ago we were planning the final details of our epic journey, the image of us driving off together into the unknown helping to distract from the often debilitating pain we were feeling after the loss of my mother. six weeks ago we were on the road, windows rolled down, living out loud, the wind whipping in our ears, the radio blaring, helping to drown out the melancholic dialogue in our heads. we don't have a distraction anymore, the trip nothing but a distant memory, the sadness weighing on us.

i am home alone all day, every day. i'm drowning in free time. i often find myself wondering where the day went, six hours gone & all i have to show for it are teary eyes & the seventeen lists i've made in an attempt to get my head together. & it's not any easier for luke. he's alone most evenings & is dealing with an equally exhausting internal struggle. turns out life can be fucking difficult, fucking complicated & fucking ugly.

but we are determined to rise from the pit we have found ourselves in. our pit of self pity. our pit of sorrow. our pit of cruel words, missed opportunities, crushing heartache, mistakes made. we are determined to get back to us. the us that goofs off & carries on. the us that decides hitting all ten restaurants on the best of ottawa list is a must do. the us that never turns down an invite from friends. the us that chases down new craft beer releases & consumes them in moderation. the us that considers date nights & short getaways a priority. the us that is constantly setting - & acheiving - goals. 

family, please continue to be patient with & supportive of us. friends, please continue to reach out to us, even though we've turned down so many generous invitations. life, please be kind to us as we attept to figure you out.

home, bittersweet, home.

no, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth or disappeared into the wilderness [ if only], we're home & back to reality. back to a reality that, quite frankly, is a total mindfuck. we went from five months of unbridled freedom, to two days a week of free time, with only seven days in between to get our heads around it. total. mind. fuck.

since arriving home we've spent hours upon hours pondering our life. & life in general. & the meaning of life. &, for the life of us [ ! ] are not able to understand how working [ sometimes ten to twelve hours a day ] five of seven days a week while we are at our healthiest & most capable of adventuring, to pay for a life we barely have time to live &/or to sock money away for a future we are not even guaranteed makes any sense.

to be clear, it's not that we dislike work. it's the opposite, in fact. we love & respect work. without work we'd never have been able to take five months off to travel north america in a van this summer. without work i wouldn't have been able to spend five weeks walking across spain three years ago. without work we would never had the opportunity to honeymoon in europe for three months [ & subsequently move to dublin ]. &, perhaps most importantly, without work we would never have been able to press PURCHASE & book the flights that reunited luke with his family in poland after almost fifteen years in canada [ & awoke the wanderlust inside of us ]

all that said & thought about, it seems to us we should be out exploring NOW while our movements aren't limited by the aches & pains that come with aging. NOW when we will benefit from all the world has to teach us. NOW before the sea swallows up the maldives & the black rhino becomes extinct. hell, NOW before world war III breaks out.

so what next?

up island & back east.

comox, courtenay, cumberland, campbell river, sayward, telegraph cove, port mcneill, port hardy, tofino. we've covered a lot of ground since we left our beloved port renfrew. & though the west coast - with its tall trees, rugged coastline & driftwood lined beaches - is a slice of heaven, we haven't found a permanent place here.

while port renfrew was a dream, the population in the off season dwindles to two hundred & forty [ from five thousand ]. & while the idea of spending the winter cozied up in front of a roaring fire in a remote town on the wild west coast wearing plaid shirts & hiking boots is romantic, the reality is we could very well end up like john & wendy from the shining if we did [ heeeeere's lukey ].

tofino was stunning, & a close second to renfrew, but as far as we can tell, the only housing options are the campground just outside of town [ as much as we love living in our little van, it's getting to be autumn. & winter follows autumn. & camping on the west coast of british columbia for an entire winter would get ugly ] or staff accomodation [ we're almost forty. 'nuff said ].

the third [ & most practical ] option was the comox valley. but let's face it, as beautiful as it is, it's not the west coast.

so, if you haven't already surmised, i'll spell it out. we're not staying on the island. & that's ok. as you know, after my mother passed in january our plan went from making a permanent move to seeing what was out there. to healing. to exploring. to self discovery. to taking a journey. to having an adventure. & what an adventure we had, & will continue to have. we're heading east with a van full of memories, heads full of dreams & hearts full of hope.

for those of you that only know us via the internet, we'll keep posting. to those of you at home, we look forward to sharing our stories with you - live & in stereo.

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end of season.

fishing season is coming to an end here in port renfrew & that means it's just about time for us to move on. we've got three & a half days of toilet scrubbing, bed making, pantry cleaning & fish processing left. & as much as we're looking forward to wandering again, it turns out we're really going to miss this place. & these people.

though we've only been here three weeks, it feels like we've been here for ever. we've developed close relationships with a few of our fellow seasonal workers, we've fallen in love with the wilderness that surrounds us & our senses have become accustomed to the sights, sounds & smells of this beautiful port town.

we'll miss the sound of the ocean breeze whispering through the trees, the whizzing of the motorcycle clubs that come into town for lunch, the beeping of the golf cart when we housekeepers are driving out to the hiker huts in the morning & the ruckus the locals raise when the pub lets out [ at ten o'clock. eleven o'clock if you're lucky ].

we'll miss the smell of uncle mike's dinners, the day's catch being portioned in the fish room, peter's whiskey cigars & the clear, fresh water of lizard lake [ it is my new favourite smell. fresh water. i want to bottle it ].

we'll miss the wildlife sightings [ bears, banana slugs, sea lions, lizard lake salamanders, porpoises, humpback whales ], the spotty wifi [ ok, maybe not the spotty wifi ], the log balancing competitions [ i've gotten rather good ] & the blackberries that grow along the road.

but it'll be wonderful to return to the freedom we had. to do what we like when we like. it's been work, work, work for weeks & we've only had one or two days off since we started.  it's been worth it, though - we've doubled the money in our bank account. & that, my friends, means we can double our time left on the road.

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bought a fishing licence, got a job.

if you follow us on instagram you may be wondering how the heck we found ourselves in port renfrew [ winter popluation two hundred & forty ], how the heck we found ourselves working & what the heck we are thinking. well...

we left victoria & made our way up the west coast of the island. our intention was to vist mystic & sombrio beaches as suggested by my brother, but with all the unscheduled stops to trek down unmarked trails, by the time we got mystic beach it was getting late so we opted to make our way to the end of the road & into port renfrew where we would spend the night - & head back to mystic the next morning.

we passed the 'welcome to port renfrew' sign & saw a few houses. then the general store. then a marina. then a dump. then the coastal cafe. then a few more houses. then trailhead fishing resort. then the port renfrew hotel [ & pub ]. then a second marina. & that was it. that was the town.

by that time it was early evenng. time to find a spot to spend the night. time to have a beer. the first marina offered overnight parking for ten dollars, so that was an option, but after a conversation with the bartender at the pub, it was decided we would stay right there, in the parking lot, for free.

just before ten o'clock [ closing time. even on a friday night ] we made our way to the van to get cozy & get some sleep. our plan for morning was to go to trailhead for a fishing licence [ luke would finally get some fishing done ], go to botanical beach to explore the tidal pools, do the china beach to mystic beach hike, visit sombrio beach & head to lake cowichan.

well, our plans changed. drastically.

we woke at 8 o'clock [ the truck delivering beer to the pub was parked directly behind us & wasn't exactly quiet ], went to coastal kitchen for two [ five fucking dollar ]  cappuccinos & went to trailhead for the licence. within two minutes of arriving we were offered jobs.

for some reason, as we were waiting for the licence to print, luke mentioned that he had worked part time as a fishmonger. when connie [ didn't know her name then ] heard this she immediately offered luke a job in the fish room - cutting, rinsing, packaging & labelling fish. huh?

our initional reaction was, what? work? here? but we're on vacation!? [ all in our heads, of course. what luke said out loud was 'is there work for my wife?' & the answer was 'yes, housekeeping'. whaaaat?! ]

for the next couple of minutes connie explained how things worked. it was an hourly rate + tips [ all members of staff split the tips ], three home cooked meals were provided daily & we could cozy up in a cabin on site. she also said that we could give it a go for a week & see how we like it & go from there. well, THAT was definitely worth considering. so we did.

we headed to botanial beach, chatting excitedly the whole way. it only took about ten minutes for us to decide that yes, we were interested. in fact, we were VERY interested. if we worked for a few weeks we could stay on the road longer. if we worked for a few weeks we could get to know this teeny tiny town on a personal level. if we worked for a few weeks we could learn new skills [ turns out you CAN teach an old dog new tricks ].

we spent a few hours roaming botanical beach at low tide, investigating the tide pools, climbing onto rocks, taking in the sights. & then we returned to trailhead to accept the job offers.

luke started that evening at 4 o'clock & i started the next morning at 9 o'clock. & we've been working ever since.

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family time. just the highlights.

we spent our first week in canada visiting luke's brother in delta & my brother in victoria. needless to say, it was wonderful to be in the company of family.

between the two visits we bbq'd, relaxed, caught up on each other's lives, visited the crystal clear sooke pot holes, beach hopped & submitted my passport renewal documentation.

when it was time to leave, it was difficult, but everyone had to get back to work & we had to get back to play.

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rocky mountain low.

we crossed the border into canada the saturday before last & were uber excited to be back on home turf. the moment we entered the country luke insisted we pull over so he could show some love to the british columbia sign. we were home & we were excited. & within four minutes i was calling my dad [ we don't have an american phone plan so have not made a phone call or sent a text since we left canada 8 may ].

we spent our first night in fernie. we had a coffee [ used the wifi ], visited the brewery [ as we do ] & slept in the fernie mountain resort FOR FREE. yep. FOR FREE. we don't always visit the tourist office when we arrive in a new town, but for some reason we did. & it was there that we received the good news that the resort was allowing campers to pitch up or pull up for no cost. don't hear that often. [ thank you lovely tourist office girl ]. the only downsides to sleeping in a mountain resort parking lot are my having to pee outside in bear country [ eek! ] & the price of the bag of ice we bought [ 1.40 in america, 3.60 in canada. that REALLY irked me ]. otherwise it was glorious. dark, quiet, no forced early morning wake up. glo-ri-ous.

but we did wake early [ obviously ]. like, before 6 o'clock early. & i had to pee. & it was too bright to just pee beside the van. & too early to use the resort bathroom. so we packed up & headed to starbucks [ i honestly think we should approach them for sponsorship at this point ] where we used the restroom, the wifi & the comfy chairs with the epic view of the mountains. this is also where we decided we loved british columbia & agreed to take at least a week to drive out to vancouver, where we would stay with luke's brother.

we hit the road around 7 o'clock anticipating views galore. we were pumped. we'd heard so much about this drive. but, alas, after an hour driving we started seeing the impact the forest fires were having. instead of mountains we saw smoke. instead of blue skies we saw white. our sight was literally limited to the trees along the highway. any further away & they became hazy. it shocked us. &, unfortunately it meant we may as well make our way to delta directly instead of dilly dallying like we'd intended. we attempted to stop & stay a number of times but the smoke was intolerable. our rocky mountain drive was a bust.

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