Though, Holmes viewed navigating open water like driving through a slalom course, taking on a few more liberties to ‘driving’ than we expected!

Black bears, eagles, seals, sea lions, jellies, an octopus (that inked!), and gray whales! Not pictured, but the gray whales were so fun to see…like big barnacle islands rolling about:) They’re huge!

Meryl outshined us all by reeling in both shrimp pots all by herself! Also, look at that view too!

Off with their heads before heading into the deep freeze for the trek home. Meryl is explaining to Holmes how to twist and pull…ocean to table here, folks:)

We did a nature walk that started on the beach at low tide and ended in the forest. Holmes found himself with an eye for banana slugs. Meryl practiced her parkour moves with what Frank calls, “load and explode.” And we all became fascinated with the potential for what lives inside caves created from fallen decaying ‘nurse trees.’

There were lots of first growth trees to see between Sitka spruce to redwoods…and somehow we grew tall just being near them!

Holmes aptly called himself a banana slug as he so very slooowly crawled up this log pole:) Not helpful for obstacle course timing, but extremely helpful for making us laugh!

Between the beaches and surfing culture, people seemed to refer to Tofino as the Hawaii of the Pacific Northwest. Lots of fresh seafood abound, just with seaweed and rhubarb replacing poi and passion fruit on menus:)

Xanna found her way to the spa (aaah!) while we gave ourselves natural foot peels on the beach and cryotherapy treatments wading into the water. Same, same, but different!

The same Winnie the Pooh anthology, two years apart. In Which…being read to is pretty dreamy:)