In my growing up years, I could never even dream of travelling through the Rocky Mountains to the west coast. My mother had a fear of narrow roads high up in the mountains, didn’t like crossing high bridges, and wouldn’t even consider a ride on an airplane. As a child, I thought it a bit strange, but my father never tried to change her mind, so we stuck to the flat prairies. Fortunately, our American relatives lived in the Dakotas, and we made several car trips to visit them.
My husband was born and raised in Manitoba, and his dad had an old truck for farm work but never did much driving. They could walk to town for groceries and the mail. When Ed was 15 years old, he came to Alberta to join his older brother, and to be 700 miles from home was like moving to another planet. However, he only went to the mountains to watch his brother snow ski. Even that didn’t happen often because his brother had had a construction business to run which was more important than having fun.
We got married in May (almost 55 years ago), but we had little money to spend on travel. We had Ed’s brother build a house for us in the town where we met, which caused us to be much more careful with the little money we had for ourselves. Our plans were to drive to the town of Banff for one night, and then move into our new home. Those plans changed drastically during our wedding reception. Ed’s uncle and aunt were unexpected guests when they appeared at our wedding. We did send an invitation but didn’t consider that they may attend; they lived in Vancouver… on the other side of the mountains! They came to our head table with a small gift… an envelope with a note and a key. We were invited to travel to Vancouver and move into their home because they would be in our city as interim pastors to cover for an ailing resident pastor. We had already received a cash gift from Ed’s father, who was not able to attend our wedding, so we decided then and there that we should not pass up this opportunity to go west and see the Pacific Ocean. I had never seen fruit trees in blossom and Ed had never driven mountain roads like the ones west of Banff and into British Columbia. What a treat!
A relative in Vancouver presented us with tickets for the ferry that sailed to Victoria, and to visit the Butchart Gardens. We had never seen such beauty in a garden; the gardens on our home farms were vegitables to be harvested and preserved for our meals in the winter.
Two years ago, when our granddaughter was attending University of Victoria, we were able to travel to see her. We took her with us to visit the Butchart Gardens again, and it is even more beautiful than when we saw it the first time. It brought back so many wonderful memories that we also shared with Emily. When she came home for the summer, we showed her the pictures that we took on our honeymoon.
Click here to see some pictures of the gardens.
Tags: Travels Photography
