Another Mini-adventure Planned

Gabriola Island sandstone (image borrowed from http://gulfislandstourism.com/gabriola-island/)

We just finished our first online course and are launching the marketing of it next week.  Needless to say we have put in many long hours including weekends this summer trying to get it finished and ready to launch for September while at the same time balancing our regular clients.  Hubby pleaded with me this week to find a weekend getaway of some sort so we can recharge.  When you live and work at home you sometimes have to leave to relax.  Our normal recharge type holidays are not going out to restaurants, shopping or being in crowds.  They are spent holed up in an oceanside cabin with our dog Buddy, reading, hiking, taking long walks on the beach and drinking wine on the deck while looking at the water.  I found just the ticket - in mid-October we will spend a 3 day weekend on Gabriola Island which is part of the Gulf Islands and somewhere we haven't been to.  It is only a 90 minute drive plus a 20 minute ferry ride away from home so easy to do with 3 nights/4 days.


The weekend away will cost $587 for 3 nights in the waterfront cabin and the ferry.  These are off season rates as this particular cabin is booked up every weekend until then.   Sometimes it is rainy in October, sometimes not.  We will have a great time either way as fall/winter rainy walks are very peaceful and Buddy now has two different rain jackets depending on how cold the weather is (spoiled yes, loved yes).  We will bring all our own groceries so no eating out expenses.  There is only $177 in the weekends away fund at this point which includes the $76 I put in this week from selling my iphone 4s on our 24 hour facebook bidding site.  Yes, I have been contributing to the travel fund but don't want to pull any more dollars out of there unless absolutely necessary.

If we are lucky we will be able to see some ancient First Nations Petroglyphs which have been dated to as many as 3000 years old.  Most are on private land or accessible only by kayak but there are some that you can hike to according to this resource(walk #23 if you ever go to the island).  It is unlikely it will be great kayaking weather (we are fair weather kayakers) so we will just enjoy the island from land.

Orca whale petrogylph

So now we have a holiday to look forward to and we are motivated to purge junk from the house - a win-win!  Even though I have sold a bunch of things off since discovering this bidding site today I am going through the house to see what we are no longer using/no longer need to help plump up the weekend away fund for our mini-adventure.  It is amazing how much stuff us humans think we need/don't really need.  We are $410 away and only six weeks left.  I hope to at least halve that so only a couple hundred is drained from the travel account.  Wish me luck!