Tonight, a refrigerated bottle of fine Costco red wine is ready to celebrate Corey and Lisa Stottlemyre’s eighth consecutive summer of almost taking an adventurous-sounding voyage to Victoria, B.C., but then not.
“Every year I think, how romantic would it be to ride the Peninsula’s big Black Ball Ferry into the Strait of Juan de Fuca?” said Lisa. “Just to try something new and mix things up a bit, you know? But then we just don’t! We have plenty of trees and water at home.”
Sending each other photos and website links about all the gorgeous wilderness that Victoria and Vancouver Island beholds all summer long, and then just not going has become a sentimental annual tradition for the couple.
“Sometimes you think you need Victoria and a far-flung foreign island to get back that spark of adventure,” said Corey. “But really all you need is Snoqualmie Falls and Will Arnett narrating Island of the Sea Wolves at most.”
At press time, British Columbia’s Victorians said less mainlander tourism for them is fine—all the more Cold Comfort Ice Cream to themselves.
