Although it seems counter-intuitive to travel during a global pandemic, we decided to do just that this last week. Eschewing our plans made last December to visit Disneyland this fall with our adult children, we opted for safe(r) travels within the confines of our Canadian border. All of our pictures are clearly time-stamped by the masks we had to wear anywhere we ventured outside of our pod.

About a month ago we booked flights for six to Vancouver and held our breath, took our vitamins and said our prayers that we would actually be able to take said flights, barring any fevers, sore throats or other COVID-like symptoms. The plan, over which we had absolutely no control, went according to… well, plan.

Travel, as they say, is broadening. Our main destination was not Vancouver but the giant island to the west of it. Sure we could have flown directly there, into Victoria or Nanaimo, where we spent a couple of nights each. But part of the charm of visiting The Island is engaging in what I like to call Ferry Culture. For those of us born in the wide open prairies, we can get into a vehicle and drive ad nauseum for days. But when you live on the coast, water sort of gets in the way.

Ferry Culture involves a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. If you need too make sure you connect to a flight, you have to get to the ferry in time and before it fills up. So you get up super early, drive to the ferry landing nearest you, and then you wait in line. Then you get on the ferry and you sit back and wait again as the ferry takes you over. This can all take hours. Fortunately there was food and phones and, in this case, family to amuse us.

And it’s fun, especially when it’s novel and when you’re on vacation. And when the scenery around you is beautiful. All that water surrounding you seems to do its job of cleansing your brain – which is really what a vacation is for.

Maybe it’s the change of scenery or the brain-washing, but I found myself fascinated by the number of small things that added up to big things on this trip. While the boys skipped rocks on one little beach in Chemainus, Sharlie was able to look for seashells to her heart’s delight – there were so many on that little piece of paradise that she could literally take her pick of the best ones. On that beach there were hundreds and thousands of shells and rocks and logs that the tide had brought in.

Should I even mention the grains of sand? Or the gallons of water?

And then we visited the Butchart Gardens. Of course, there are very green plants and trees and flowers (still) everywhere in October on Vancouver Island but the Gardens do an especially nice job of arranging and clustering them in a way that gives you pause. And when you try to estimate the number of petals on an accordion-like chrysanthemum, you count past 100 quickly. When you consider the petals in a twenty foot square patch of mums, it’s boggling.

And most of the plants were not even in bloom at this time of year.

In the rather large Butchart Gardens there are also trees, shrubs, leaves and needles you could consider “counting”. But really, that would get old, fast.

And then, there is the travelling itself. The ferries we rode on could hold hundreds of vehicles, some of tremendous size. Where the heck was everybody going and what was so important that it had to get done on the other side? And plane travel: what would have taken us a good day or two in the car to traverse, we managed by crawling into a giant sardine can in just a little over an hour. 500 miles an hour at 30,000 feet. Really, you don’t want to think about it too hard or the whole relaxing part of the vacation just goes Poof!

All this makes me consider my own tiny mortality. It’s really not much in the scheme of THE WHOLE WORLD, is it? And sometimes, I wonder: what am I really doing here, anyway?

On a podcast recently I was reminded of something that Andy Stanley said – whether it’s his words originally or not, no matter – it’s still good. He said that when we get overwhelmed with the idea of doing something good for mankind, just try instead to do for one what you wish you could do for all.

For some reason, I was reminded of this as I considered the seashores and the sand and the seas this last week. The stones that were skipped and the walks that were taken and jokes that we shared didn’t do that much for the world, but they did a world of good for us.

Thanks for the nice holiday, world. I owe ya one.