So this was year 8; things were groovin' along and the trip found a rhythm in terms of an itinerary and student involvement, however this was the first of four years of a decline in student numbers. The cost of the trip had gone up a bit for the students (the bus rental and the Great Wolf were the two largest expenses in the budget) and this year saw a loss of twenty students down to 47. As a result, we were able to scale back to one bus and make things fit within a budget.

This year was a special one for me. As many of you know I always start my geography class off with a hearty "Hello Geography Family..." but this year I got to include Noah (my son) on the trip for his grad year. This was his second trip with us (he came along five years prior in 2008) and although he went to (gasp) Mark Isfeld, the Vanier family opened their arms and welcomed him in. I already know that the Vanier community is amazingly accommodating and kind-hearted, I get to see that every day at work, but I was a little unsure how the group would react. I need not have been worried.

This year we had Mr. Jason Arsenault join us along with Ms. Alison Kavaliunas (Mayert). Ms. Ali Tompkins was supposed to join us but she fell ill and was unable to come along. This was a really fun group to work with and although we had a hiccup or two in terms of behaviour the reduction in student numbers actually made the trip a much more manageable and affordable on our end. It was a bit of a shame that we could not justify the extra cost to have Mr. Arsenault continue along with us after 2013, but as you may have noticed with Mr. Bourget's departure as trip co-leader an opportunity arose for Mr. Arsenault to come back on board.

Oddly enough one of these fine students actually ended up working for the Black Ball line in Victoria.

Inner Harbour views from the MV Coho headed towards Port Angeles

We had really good views of the Olympic mountain range on this trip across the Juan de Fuca strait and the clouds looking back over Vancouver Island were amazing

So because the forecast had Saturday as completely socked in with clouds and rain, we chose to do the north side and JRO on day one (which would make for a long trip back to Centralia on Saturday from the Ape Caves) and it started out overcast and less than promising...

The cloud deck looked like it was stable and not ready to clear up

So inside the JRO we went...

And when we came back out things had not changed much

So we did our obligatory group shot

And took our hike along the Trail of Destruction

and with a little patience and fortuitous winds the clouds began to part

for some pretty stellar views

On Saturday, as predicted, it rained heavily so it was a good day to be under ground

Our Ape Cave Headquarters group shot

and Poppa Bourget was a little tired on the bus ride to Centralia

One of the few "inside" Great Wolf photos. A bit pixelated but "I moustache you a question"...was it fun?

The bus ride home was a bit quiet