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| The view on the walk to breakfast |
In the afternoon we went hiking on a trail in Pacific Rim National Park where we unfortunately found ourselves face to face with a rotting, decomposing seal carcass. Unfortunately we couldn't smell it until I was practically standing on top of it and then it was the only thing I could smell for several minutes afterwards. At that point I felt like the stench had seeped into my skin and I could taste the decay. It was a whole new level of disgusting. At least the two beaches we hiked to were pretty.
That night was the annual Tofino Lantern Festival so we made like a local and walked from our hotel down to the Tofino Botanical Gardens to listen to music, see homemade lanterns, and walk the paths after dark. It was really neat to do something that was so clearly geared toward the people that live there and not the tourists that flock to the area for surfing and wildlife. And the lanterns that people made were so adorable. The interesting thing we noticed is that unlike in our area where the parents are so overprotective, the parents there seemed somewhat oblivious to the fact that their children were running around near open flames. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, but I can tell you the parents seemed much more relaxed about being out in public with their kids.
Walking back to the hotel in complete and utter darkness was quite the interesting experience. At one point I kept waiting for a wild animal to saunter out of the woods and eat us for dinner. I'm happy to report that did not happen. What did happen was that as soon as we got back to our suite, I fell asleep almost immediately without any prescription medications.
