Victoria

Pictures -- http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20090426VictoriaWithAnita#.
Anita probably got some better shots than me that I can post later.

Anita and I had a great time going to Victoria last weekend. We caught the Victoria Clipper at 8 am Saturday morning. The tix were $90 round trip per person. Kinda expensive, but when I calculated how much the gas cost for the 200 passengers, it's not too bad. Canadian customs decided to allow another visit by one of the notorious Meier brothers. (They harass Seth and I every time we enter Canada because of a little border-crossing incident back in 1997 when their dogs thought our vehicle smelled a little like a marijuana... well OK, that dog's marijuana detection system was probably totally overloaded and permanently damaged. Anyway, we made it in.) Hopped on a bus to get to the famous Butchart Gardens. They were indeed beautiful. But a little smaller and more manicured than I expected. And fairly crowded. But it was nice to see.

We saw one of the street performers in the harbor. These young acrobatic guys put on little shows and are usually hilarious and pretty impressive (juggling torches, etc.). Had a nice dinner and the hotel provided a pretty deluxe night's sleep. Next day, we rented a car and drove an hour to a nearby coast hike. There were some pretty spectacular trees. Especially right on the coast where they hadn't been logged. There were a couple of downed trees that happened to run down the fall line and were turned into quite useful staircases. It would've been nice to spend even more time walking, but a 5-hr hike was pretty nice. We had to hurry to get back for the 5 pm ferry back to Seattle. Talked to some interesting people on the ferry. A Swedish guy who was pretty excited about fusion energy. A couple of French girls who helped me "progresser mon francais". The boat ran into something halfway back to Seattle. Whack! Thud thud thud thud konk. She came to a halt. They pulled the log (hopefully they didn't hit a whale and pretend it was just a log) out of the water intake and we were able to keep going. Delay wasn't too bad. Overall 'twas a smooth trip to Canadia. Oh -- the report wouldn't be complete without mentioning the "Victoria Bars" that Anita baked for the trip. Wow. They are made with crumbled graham crackers with a sorta pecan-pie-ish filling... mmmmm...