It had been about six years since Drew and I had taken a proper road trip to the Pacific Northwest. My family lives in Washington State, and he has a sister who lives in Portland. Every time we make the trek we always make time to see both. But because we had more time for this vacation we wanted to add something new into the mix: head even further north to Canada!

In our planning phase we were initially torn between going to Vancouver or Victoria. Drew thought it might be easier just to drive north into Vancouver. But I really wanted to us to experience the ferry, and I wanted to revisit Victoria. I had been there a couple times as a kid, and I wanted to go back and share that with Drew. Additionally one other place we knew we wanted to visit, that was new to the both of us, was Butchart Gardens. I have several family members who have gone there who said it was breathtaking, and sure enough, it lived up to the hype. But more on that in a minute.