October 1

Today was our “rest day.” We have found we need one of those about ever 8 to 10 days. We slept late, did the laundry, cleaned out the car, re-arranged the bags in the trunk (DID I SAY REST?) After lunch we went downtown for a while. This is the neatest small town. They have great, unusual shops and the people are very friendly. Some of the shops are “tourist-ee” but most are aiming at the local population. We noticed that there were lots of people in town so the shops must be meeting the needs. We asked about the sign at the town entrance which depicts an eagle and learned that this area has a high population of bald eagles. There are lots of salmon in the bay and the eagles feed off them. We drove across the bay and spotted two of the young eagles sitting on a post in the water. We didn’t get any close pictures so I hope these are good. We really hated to leave this hotel and this area – absolutely one of the very best parts of our trip has been our time in Courtenay, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. If you ever get a chance, we highly recommend it!