Today was the international portion of our trip. We got up early to drive into Port Angeles and catch the 8:20 ferry to Victoria, BC. We dropped the truck off at a local shop for an oil and filter change beforehand and picked it when we got back at 5:30pm. The inbetween time we spent walking the streets of a really pretty city.
We wandered in front of parliament and The Empress Hotel before heading several blocks to Craigdarroch Castle. It’s not a real castle. It’s another vanity mansion built by a coal magnate at the end of the 19th century. Visiting the vanity mansions of incredibly wealthy magnates is now an official sub-theme of our trip. This makes the fourth we’ve seen. Like the others it was pretty elaborate — more on par with Fulton Mansion in size, but more ornate. It sits on a hill in beautiful neighborhood overlooking the city.
The only danger with walking to the mansion was the proliferation of used bookstores along the way. We stopped in one outbound and two inbound. Danine got another Adriana Trigiani book, which she just finished. Sheesh. I got two short story collections, one by — you guessed it — Italo Calvino and a big cheap Hemingway collection. As the store clerk said to me, Calvino is good times.
The now extinct two dimensional polar bear
We ate lunch at The Blue Fox Cafe: soup and Moroccan quesadillas for me (great), curry chicken burger for Danine (good), and french toast for Elise (okay). I win! Somewhat slowed by our meal we wandered aimlessly, eventually finding ourselves in the rose gardens beside the Empress. There we relaxed until it was time to mosey back to the ferry. Man, the day went fast.
Back home Danine read her book — did I mention she already finished it? Sheesh. Elise and I went for a walk through the park past a rather tame group of five does to another path leading to more tidepools. These were great and we’ll have to go back. I saw a new kind of sea star that I haven’t identified yet. All the while, Elise and I talked about the Guinness Book of World Records. She wanted to know what types of records it had and who and how they were made and recorded, etc. I think she’s angling for one herself, but hasn’t decided which to go for. Probably most sugar consumed per pound of body weight in a single day… or most hours spent listening to audiobooks in a year (104,655 so far, I think).
April 24, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Wow! I think Victoria, B.C. should be on my list of places to visit! How was security – going to a foreign country and all that?
M
April 25, 2008 at 4:13 am
So… what’s a good Adriana Trigiani book for me to start out with?
As always, hanging on your every word…
B
P.S. I have a second cousin who, a couple of years ago when she was a junior in high school, was an exchange student and spent 11 months in Thailand with a host family. Like you guys, she kept up a supremely educational and informative blog, and I looked forward to reading it every other day or so. I got to know all about her Thai friends (two of her three closest friends were named Cherry… must be a popular Thai name!), her host family, the geography of Thailand, the food, culture, celebrations, schools, paper flower making, dancing, athletics… you name it, she eventually wrote about it. Then… she went home… and my vicarious trip to Thailand stopped so suddenly and completely that I went through a rather painful withdrawal period; it took me quite some time to stop wondering about how the Cherrys (or would that be Cherries?) were doing and whether or not my cousin’s host sister passed her entry exams for medical school. So, all this is to say that now that it’s nearly May, I’m starting to gear myself up for that inevitable day–one that will be here before we all know it–when you settle back down in VA, sell the Airstream and stop blogging. I’ve seen so much of the United States through your eyes and words, and have enjoyed every minute of what you’ve shared. So, just be thinking about how you’re going to let us all down gently when that time comes. Maybe a slow weaning process… kind of like those days when there’s no wi-fi available to you…
Thanks, all three of you, for such thoughtful words and such amazing pictures.
B
April 25, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Happy to see that you enjoyed your visit to Victoria. This is home for us until we join the airstream community ourselves. Happy travels.
John
PS How do you like your Titan? How long a trailer are you pulling?
April 25, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Yes, yes, yes!!! Long live the Two-Dimensional Polar Bear! Down with the Three-Dimensional Polar Bear! (And, for that matter, the Infinite-Dimensional Polar bear that exists in a Hilbert Space.)