A DAY OF REST FOR US (yeah, right!)

TO READ OUR JOURNEY FROM DAY 1, click here - YOU'RE DOING WHAT???

So we left Cedar pretty early in the morning and we only had a 6 mile ride planned for the day.  We were staying at the Living Forest Campground which is somewhere we have stayed a few times when we have come to Nanaimo in the past.  We really enjoy this city so we wanted an extra day to just have some down time and relax.  Well, wasn't really in the cards for us, I'm not sure if we know how to rest.  

Our ride out was nice, but it rained pretty hard the whole time.  By the time we got to Living Forest it was only 8:30.  

We set up all our stuff and rode off to the Harborside area of Nanaimo.  This was about when it started to pour!  Shane and I wanted to eat outside and the girls wanted to eat inside.  It is so fantastic that they are at the age (and well behaved enough) so that we can trust them to sit alone in a cafe and not bother the other patrons.  They sat in there for about 20 minutes, all alone, even getting up to ask the employee if they could have an extra cup and plate to share their food. 

 (Insert here - a pat on my own back - this trip is living PROOF that homeschooling them has not been bad for their social skills, contrary to what many outsiders may think!)

After the girls finished eating, they wanted to walk on all the piers so we also let them do that (alone).  This gave Shane and I some valuable alone time (hard to come by on trips like this!)  They must have wandered the harbor for 45 minutes at least.  

The rain had not let up at all, and I found on the map that Nanaimo has an aquatic center so we planned some time at the library and some time at the aquatic center.  The aquatic center was a bargain $14 for 2.5 hours of fun.  The girls LOVED the water slides (and we did to!!!) and then these crazy girls wanted to do the diving boards.

I only got pictures on the lower ones because by the time I got my camera, the high dive had closed.  However, they must have gone off the high dive 6 times each!  There were teenagers letting the girls pass them in line because they were afraid to go, but not our girls.  It was a bit scary watching tiny little Jillbug flying off a 12 foot high diving board.

We had planned a ride out to the Costco, mostly because we had nothing else planned and also because Shane and I remembered that cycling the Parkway Trail was a LOT of fun (back in 2002 when we were a lot younger and not dragging two children behind us!)  It is a paved trail that runs the entire length of the city and cars are not allowed on it.  Don't get me wrong, it was still LOADS of fun, but we were so tired when we got to Coscto (9 miles out of the way) and we still had to get back to the campground.  We did have the greatest time on the trail though.  It is like a never ending roller coaster that you have to man power your way up....

but Jill and I would make a clinking sound like a coaster "Clink, clink, click..." all the way up and then "WHEEEEEE!!!!!" all the way down.  She loved that and it helped to pass the miles and miles to Costco.

When we got to Costco Shane was terribly hungry and terribly grouchy!  We had hoped to get something halfway healthy (at Costco?  What were we thinking??)  There was no salad, no grilled chicken, no sandwich that we could just pull the meat off of....so we got the girls chicken fingers, pizza and fries...and we decided to find something in the store afterward.  This was a bad idea.  We got what we needed (trail mix, almond butter, larabars...) but we couldn't find anything for us to eat.  We paid for our stuff, got in line and Shane and I devoured and entire plate of french fries...oh well, we needed fuel for the ride back to the campground.

This had been our day off...we were supposed to have cycled 5 miles to the campground and taken the day off and instead we cycled 33.5 miles.....our longest day yet!  On the ride back, about halfway through, we started talking about the Dairy Queen that was located by the campground.  That got us through the 12 mile ride back...we talked about all the things we could get...a blizzard, a sundae, a milkshake...we were so excited!!!  We rolled into the parking lot and there was NOT A DAIRY QUEEN!!!!  There was an A & W, but no Dairy Queen.  As good as a root beer float might have been, we really wanted ice cream more.  It was already 9:30 and I think I could have shed a few tears right then.  Sleep deprived mama, for sure!!

Country Market was right next store so Shane went in and bought a quart of EXTREME Moose Tracks (or liter, I don't know how Canadians measure their ice cream) but whatever it was, we road the 2 remaining miles to camp and ate the ENTIRE box.  I would never have thought we would have finished it, but WOW, we sure did.  It was 10:15 and with full bellies we all crawled into bed and fell asleep.  Hopefully our next rest day will consist of some actual REST!

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