PLAINS, TRAINS & BACK LANES

As travellers, we may marvel at big cities, but what about the small towns we pass along the way?

- Catherine Sands-Unruh

Road trips! We love them. We’ve always loved them. Sometimes the road trip is a day trip, sometimes a multi-week trip and sometimes it’s a ride on a bus where we both enjoy staring out the window.

For much of my working career, I was able to extend my vacation allotment with banked overtime. My husband, John, a self-employed cabinet maker, matched his vacation time to mine. Some years we travelled from Toronto only as far west as Ban­. Other years, the extra weeks of vacation time took us to Vancouver Island, where we spent as many days as we could in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve before heading back home. For flatlanders by birth, the Rocky Mountains and the natural beauty of the old-growth forests were a huge draw. It’s no surprise that we eventually retired to the West Coast.