Day 2

Our second day started quite early because we had a border to cross...

...and a ferry to catch.


The ferry is an amazing form of transportation. Somehow, those cagey Canadians figured out a way to pack hundreds of cars onto one ship.

Our passage took about an hour and a half, so we left our car down below and got comfortable on the cushy passenger deck:


We took the time to go out on the open deck and feel the invigorating (AKA freezing) wind:




Okay, geography lesson time: Just as the country of the United States has states, the country of Canada has provinces. We drove from the U.S. state of Washington into the Canadian province of British Columbia. The Canadian city called Vancouver (not to be confused with the U.S. city of Vancouver in Washington) in British Columbia is on the mainland, but there is an island which is also part of British Columbia that is called Vancouver Island.



That island was our destination.

Once we landed there we drove to a place that my grandmother (remember Pretty Hazel?) said was the most beautiful place she had ever been.


I won't regale you with the 1oo year old history of this place. I'll just show you the pics we took:

I love me some trees:


...and some flowers:




...and some other plants, too:

Doesn't that second one look like a tree of rabbit feet?


What a crazy looking hedge, huh?

My little beauty amongst the beauty:

My family was particularly impressed with this fountain. If you look closely, you'll see the boar is "drooling":

We actually visited the Butchart Gardens a bit early in the year. When Spring has thoroughly invaded the place it is bursting with color, but I wasn't disappointed. As you can see, it was gorgeous enough.

When we had had our fill of flora for the day, we continued south to the city of Victoria where we would be spending the night.

I'm not much of one for cities but I must say that Victoria is probably the nicest city I've ever visited. It is beautiful, clean, easy to investigate, safe and the people are friendly.

This is the famous Empress Hotel:


...and these are the parliament buildings:


One funny thing about Canada are the "washrooms":


I guess it actually makes more sense than when we Americans refer to them as "restrooms" or "bathrooms" since we visit them neither to rest nor bathe. You truly do "wash" in them...or at least you should.

And, yes, we heard a lot of people ending sentences with "ay?". I chuckled every time which probably didn't do much for international relations.

I had to include this picture Jeff took at dinner because it's one of the very few in which Tobias is actually smiling!


One less-than-stellar thing about Canada were the portion sizes. Behold:


Although the above meal was positively delicious, I left the restaurant quite hungry. (I think they gave me more tartar sauce than coleslaw.) I consoled myself with the promise of a few bites of an ice cream covered Belgian delight, but once we walked back to a place we'd spied earlier called Wanna Waffle? we saw that they were closed! But we wanna waffle! It was only about 6:15 pm! What was going on? It was like the Canadians were conspiring to keep us from gaining weight on vacation.

Honestly though, there must be something to their eating habits because I didn't see any obese people anywhere. Seriously. Us gluttonous Americans could learn a thing or two from our neighbors to the north.

A few times, Jeff has been told that he bears a recognizable likeness to Bert. Here they are, together at last:


A funny phenomenon I've noticed in motels, both Canadian and American, is the tendency for the interior decorators to put two copies of the same print up in one room.


I guess they get a good deal on a piece and just go with it. I had to wonder if every single room in the motel had two copies of this print in them. Depending on the size of the place, that could be about 1000 copies!

No, I didn't lose sleep over it. I just fell asleep to the sounds of The First 48 Hours which Jeff was watching.