TA, Part Two: Headed There

The drive to Port Angeles is stupidly long, but not bad. We hit traffic leaving Portland, and some after that, but nothing horrible.

Pilot, co pilot

Sonic, Ptera, Steem, and Rizzo rode in crates for the drive, while Roo was totally spoiled as per usual with her front-and-center seat.

Not our neatest packing job ever

Ptera, riding along in her crate

Rizzo.

Steem. He wasn't so sure about the camera

And Roo, with her little wool whale toy

We were running later than we'd hoped to be, and the person we were meeting to carpool with the rest of the day had missed the earlier ferry she needed to take to meet up with us due to huge lines, so she was running late as well. We were all planning on camping at the tournament until at the last minute, the venue decided not to allow camping- so instead, we were offered an unfinished basement to camp in about five minutes away, owned by someone on the host team. But we still had most of our camping stuff with us, which made for a pretty full van. Once we met up in Port Angeles, we did a really fast transfer of stuff into the van, including our third human and sixth dog, and all of their gear, and booked it down to the ferry. You have to be there at least an hour ahead of sailing time or you lose your reservation, and there isn't another ferry until after 8 the next morning.

We made it with about three minutes to spare.

Sunset while waiting to board the ferry, over the car tops of everyone waiting with us

The line in front of us waiting to board

Once we checked in to wait for the ferry, we potty walked the dogs, and fed them all dinner. And then sat around, waiting. And waiting some more. Boarding the ferry was interesting, as we took all six dogs out of their crates to bring with us up top. We were asked more than once on the ferry if we were a rescue group. Nope. Just a flyball team.

In the below-decks car compartment, getting organized to head upstairs

Sunset from the boat, and our last view of Port Angeles, WA

Steem, Roo, and Rizzo on the boat deck, enjoying the evening breeze

The ferry crossing takes about 90 minutes, which went by pretty slow. The dogs were all pretty well behaved, with a little barking here or there. We sat out on the open deck with them for a while, but this ferry line (Black Ball) also allows dogs inside, just not in the dining areas. Once we docked in Victoria, BC, we cleared customs quickly and headed north on the island to our "campsite" for the night. We set up beds, pottied dogs, and basically passed out. It was around 2 am.