Anniversary 2009

For our first anniversary, we decided to go camping. June 14, 2009 was a Sunday so we booked a spot at Manning Park's Lightning Lake campground for the 13th. The loose plan was to leisurely drive up there, stop at a couple places on the way, camp, then maybe hike or something on the Sunday morning before heading back to White Rock.

That didn't quite work out.

Hillary occasionally took pictures as we drove. She never wanted me to stop, she just wanted to get shots from the car to remember the drive. This one does give you an idea of the weather.

Manning Park was chosen as it was relatively close. There were some interesting and not super difficult hikes nearby. This would also be the first time we'd retrace a small part of our Cross Canada bike trip.

We set out. It was raining. We stopped at the Rhododendron Flats area at Manning Park. It was still raining, but under a rainforest canopy, we didn't get that wet.

We got to our campsite. It was pouring. So we debated. We could setup in the rain, it would be cold, but we had the gear. Or we could wander over to the Manning Park Lodge and see if they had a room available.

They did.

The bad weather continued the next morning in the mountains so rather than hike, we elected to visit a couple of tourist areas on the way back and do a mini one day driving tour.

We went to the Othello Tunnels for the first time. We'd take the kids there nine years later as the first rest stop of our July 2018 Cranbrook Trip.

We drove up Highway 1 and went to Hell's Gate.

Hillary barely needed glasses. She only ever had one pair and really only wore them sort of regularly for a year or so. For a couple of years, she'd wear them for night driving, then they were put away.

We spent much of the day in the car. Talking about life, love, sex, dreams, the past, and the future. The topics that usually came up on our long drives together. Hillary likely spent a bunch of time singing. I don't remember if they were Christmas songs.

I don't think we got back home until close to 10pm that night. We had chicken McNuggets in the car on the drive home. The only time we ever ate those was on special driving trips.

It wasn't precisely the anniversary trip we had planned, but we rolled with it as we did most things in our lives and simply enjoyed being together.