American Thanksgiving in Canada

"And how do you know the Wensauers?" the US Customs agent asked.
"They were our neighbors." I smiled.
"Really?" surprised, this agent from Port Angeles asked.
"Yep, they moved back to Canada a few months ago and we went to visit them."
"All right," the man said, "have a nice day."

It was a marvelous few days. Tuesday night Lynn and the kids picked me up from my outside the Columbia Tower and we drove straight down to the Ferry dock and made the 5:30 sailing to Bremerton.

We had a spaghetti dinner at Lynn's parent's place in Silverdale and spent the night there. We slept in, had a pancake and bacon breakfast and hit the road bound for Port Angeles and the 2:15 BlackBall ferry sailing to Victoria. We made it easily, walked around town and had lunch at the Downriggers restaurant. The food was decent and well-priced, but the service was mediocre and we had to wait 30 minutes so we felt a little rushed trying to make it back to our car by 1:30.

Santa Castle Made of Sand in PA

The sailing was smooth save for some rollers in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the clear day made for great views of the Olympic Mountain range and the city of Victoria, B.C. as we approached.

I hadn't been to town since 2004 when I did the New Balance Half Ironman (the same year I did Ironman Wisconsin). We were visiting Marc, Amanda, Mackenzie, Sloane and Kiefer Wensauer and seeing their new house in West Saanich, just outside of Victoria. They live a 5 minute walk from the Commonwealth Pool (which was finished in 1997 for the Commonwealth Games). It is a great community center (or centre) with everything from spin classes, a birthday party room, dance studio, teen center, 10 meter platform diving board, 50-meter competition pool, water slide, wave pool, kid pool, hot tub, sauna, steam room, plus an additional shallow 25-meter pool, just for kicks and lessons.

We put Kiefer and Owen to bed around 8 and just made our reservation at the Med Grill just a few minutes down the road. It was great to catch up over a good meal and some yummy wine with just the adults.

Thursday saw Lynn and Amanda cooking for a fair part of the day while I scowled in front of the football games. Marc came home early and watched the tail-end of the Seahawks getting embarrassed (again) on national TV. At least we had some Belgian beer to soften the blow a bit.

That evening we had Owen, Allison, Will and their dog Scout over for dinner. We had some more tasty wine and a fabulous Thanksgiving meal shared by our Canadian friends. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, carrots and stuffing. Good times.

Amanda and Allison's parents joined us for a desert of pumpkin pie, fresh-whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. Gordon, the dad, tried to get me to go sailing with him on Sunday. He had a race and he needed some Rail Meat. I appologized that I was leaving Sunday morning back to the states. Pat, their mom, had a second helping of pumpkin pie, claiming it was the best she'd ever had--even better than her mother's.

It was darn fine pie--and I must admit, I've always been partial to my wife's too.

We chatted late into the evening and went to bed. I slept hard and well. Part two, next post.