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| On the ferry into Victoria. I think we took 5 different ferry rides during our 4 1/2 day trip. |
(Disclaimer: Although these pictures are now almost 3 months old, I just recently was able to get them all transfered off my old computer and onto my new one...note to self: burn pictures onto a CD before taking apart old computer...restoring files off of backup hard drives is too complicated for simple minds like mine).
For our 15th anniversary (which was actually back in December) Scott and I took a trip to Victoria, B.C in early March. (Thank you again mom for babysitting)!!! It was also a good pre-baby getaway for us. Scott served his mission in B.C. and we took our honeymoon there so it was fun to go back. We flew into Seattle and spent the afternoon shopping downtown at Pike Place a 9 acre, indoor glorified farmer's market.
Of course, there was lots and lots of fresh fish everywhere (Scott says he looks like one of the fish in this picture),
and there were rows and rows of fresh spring flowers - so good to see after being in Utah snow for too long.
We ate lunch inside Pike Place at this little fish stand. This guy ate lunch across from us and doesn't know I took his picture, but he just fit the Seattle seafarer/fisherman image so perfectly with his yellow rain slicker and long gray beard.
This was down one of the the alleyways outside Pike Place...a colorful collage of gum about 40 feet long...yum.
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| Leaving Seattle |
After a fun day spent downtown, we took the ferry out of Seattle to Bainbridge Island and then drove to our next ferry stop in Port Angeles and spent the night there. The next morning we got up, took another ferry and arrived in Victoria. We stayed in a cute Bed and Breakfast called Abbeymoore Manor. It was perfect, one of the most relaxing places we've ever stayed in.
Our room...
Breakfasts were a 3-course heaven...soooo good. It was hard going back to cold cereal when I got home.
Since I was about 10, I've wanted to visit the Butchart Gardens so that's the first thing we did. Scott asked the ticket booth attendant when we arrived, "Umm, if I'm a guy, am I gonna like this?" The attendant looked genuinely sorry for Scott and mentioned something about, "well, we sell beer." That wasn't helpful. Despite Scott's preconceived notions, he (and I) loved it. There are flowers everywhere...even growing on all the tops of the garbage cans.
The sunken gardens - used to be a mineral quarry that was part of a concrete plant. When the plant went out of business, the original owner started a flower garden over it to cover it up and it just grew and grew over the years until it is what it is today.
People watching..
Scott has an exciting history involving near-death experiences with boars so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to pose with this one.
Ice cream anyone?
Riding the carausel in the gardens...we're so cool.
There are so many good restaurants in Victoria. We ate at one called Bon Rouge Bistro, a quaint little French place where we sat by the fire and enjoyed a relaxing dinner.
The Rockland neighborhood we stayed in had a castle nearby called Craigdarroch Castle. We toured it one day...lots of stained glass and lavish wood furniture.
And an ugly porcelain baby statue. What kind of person wants this in their bedroom? Creepy.
We did a lot of driving all over the island. Speaking of driving, we requested a compact car from the rental company and when we checked in, they kept asking if we were sure we only wanted a compact. I said yes, hoping my mom's trick would work and it did. They didn't have a compact available so we got this fully-loaded Outback for the same price. I don't know what class this car would be in, but it was definitely not budget. I loved the heated seats, the backup camera in the rearview mirror, the leather, the sunroof. I never thought twice about Subaru cars, but they're not bad!
On one of our drives up the island...stopping for a quick photo with the totem pole.
We made a jump over to Salt Spring Island to visit their farmer's market and see some friends that live there. It was a beautiful island, very big on the organic, all-natural, artsy and eccentric scene.
Everything for sale in the market - including the hemp-fiber yoga pants (passed on those) - is grown, made, baked, harvested, sculpted, aged, painted and stitched on the island. We picked up some yummy smelling homemade soaps and fun jewelry for the kids. Then we ate lunch nearby at a little cafe.
I thought this little chapel on the island was so idyllic looking.
We walked along the shore near the market and found purple starfish. I've only ever seen orange starfish on the Oregon coast...didn't know they came in purple!
The government house, just down the block from our bed and breakfast is the where the Canadian Royal family and visiting foreign dignitaries stay when they visit Victoria. The locals got all excited telling us that Prince Charles and Camilla stayed there a couple years ago.
We walked around the gardens on our last night in Victoria...it's a much bigger place than this picture shows so we didn't have time to walk everywhere on the grounds.
We discovered J.K. Rowling's inspiration for the whomping willow here...Scott does such a convincing job of appearing captured and in the midst of a brutal beating.
One last picture...and it is only because of Scott's insistance that this picture even exists. On our last day, along our way back to the Seattle airport, we stopped in Kent, WA where I lived for a year. It's funny I only lived there a year, because for some reason I have so many memories of this home. Steven, my little brother, was only a baby when we lived here so I was about 6. We were able to find the house (with some help from my mom on the phone) and Scott went to the front door and explained to the owners that I lived here as a girl, years ago and came back to see the house, and would they mind if she came inside to see the house? I was in the car this whole time because I was so embarrassed! I was afraid to intrude, but Scott saw the American flag out front and just knew it would be an nice elderly couple living there (which it was) and that they'd be happy to let me look around (which they were). Actually, they loved showing me around. The husband told me all about changes he made and gave us a full tour that lasted over 30 minutes. I told them my parents had built this house. I told them how there used to be a big forest behind the house that to me, had stretched on for miles. Now there's just a shallow fenced-in back yard with a busy road behind it and more subdivisions beyond that. My favorite discovery though was in the kitchen. Hardly anything had changed about it, and the oven was the original oven. I looked at it thinking, "this is the same oven my mom cooked casseroles in and cookies for us in over 30 years ago!" It was a strange feeling. So, as much as I dragged my feet and insisted to Scott that I was NOT up to that door, I was so glad he did.
It was the perfect ending to a perfectly wonderful trip.
