The Skookum Tour

Sometimes following a bold plan requires making bold decisions – decisions that some might even be considered reckless and risky.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done.

I got on an airplane in the middle of a global pandemic to travel 3,400 km (2108 miles) to Vancouver Island on our extreme west coast to again chase trails across this great country of ours.

French Beach

This trip was a year in planning with Deb from the Widow Badass. She broke my heart by moving to Vancouver Island in May, but in many ways it simply made it easier to thumb my nose at this pandemic and stick with our original plans.

Sandcut Beach

We’re each trying to find our way through this pandemic in our own ways – some have embraced social media even more than usual to stay connected, while others, like me, withdrew and largely cut ourselves off from the world.

To put it another way – I lost my mojo.

With this post I’m trying to crawl my way back into the blogging community I so dearly loved.

Trail to Sandcut Beach

You will meet some new characters on this Skookum Tour … bloggers I’ve known for some time who live on Vancouver Island and I’m finally getting a chance to meet in person. They made no attempt to resist the opportunity to join Deb and I on some of our adventures.

Meet Erica (left) and Donna (right) joining Deb (centre) and I on our 3 beach tour outside of Victoria on Day 2

If you don’t know these great women, you can find Erica at Behind the Scenery and Donna at Retirement Reflections.

This is what blogging is all about – sharing our lives and experiences with other people, sharing their lives and experiences with them, and when we’re really, really lucky, someday we actually get to build some memories together.

The only part that was even remotely strange was not hugging these long time friends.

Sandcut Beach

So, you’re probably wondering what this word ‘Skookum‘ actually means. It is a word I was introduced to shortly after I arrived. Apparently it is part of the west coast vernacular, and if Wikipedia is to be believed, it has Chinook origins with a variety of meanings from “brave” and “strong” to “powerful” and “ultimate”.

Yes, this is the perfect word for this newest adventure.

So I hope you will join me on this 10 day exploration of beautiful Vancouver Island.

It will be Skookum.