July 17, 2005

For the first time since we got here the weatherman is predicting a week's worth of good weather (good weather only promises low chances of rain).  So, we went to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.  There are two ferries to Victoria.  One leaves Anacortes and winds though the San Juan Islands and the other leaves from just north of the Canadian border at Tsawwassen.  Tsawwassen is faster and the ferries leave every hour on the hour whereas Anacortes only sails twice a day.  From here to the Tsawwassen ferry is about an hour and a half.

The real goal for this trip was "The Butchart Gardens", about twenty miles north of Victoria.  In all the years that we have gone to Canada, Butchart Gardens has been a heavily advertised destination, but Nancy has never been.  The Gardens cover about fifty-five acres and are constantly tended and updated to be in bloom.  Part of the Garden is an old lime quarry, making it ideal for waterfalls, streams and small lakes.  I have been once before during the early spring when the color was from rhododendrons, tulips and daffodils, so I was curious how they were going to get color this time of year.

We arrived about 11:30, the place was jammed but in a very organized manner.  We passed thought the visitors center and the first display was a hanging garden of every kind of fuchsia you could imagine mixed with some hanging geraniums.  The next was the ?Sunken Garden? (the old quarry).  One can quickly run out of superlatives but this was awesome.  The quarry walls (mostly covered with various plants) and a tower in the middle (a remnant of the quarrying) provided the structure.  Trees, shrubs and non-blooming rhododendrons supplied the greens.

And the color by numerous beds of begonias and geraniums of all color and shape.  The whole place is tied together by a couple of streams and a small lake finally cascading down to a pond with a large dancing fountain.

A river otter playing in and around the fountain supplied whimsy.  I have seen river otters in zoos but this guy was wild and busy.

After the "Sunken Garden" we took a break for lunch at the Visitor Centre's "Blue Poppy Restaurant" and then wandered to the area where they have live concerts (nothing happening) and some beautiful displays of dahlia and zinnia.  From there we went into the rose garden, the Japanese garden and the Italian garden. The whole thing was overwhelming.

We left the gardens and headed for Victoria.  We hadn't made any hotel reservations because of the spontaneity of the trip.  It took about two hours to find a reasonable room.  The trouble was that it is "high season", so the rooms were either not available or outrageously expensive.  One clerk told Nancy that there were no rooms anywhere in Victoria for under $100 (Canadian).  All we wanted was a clean place to sleep.  We did find a motel with a view of the inner harbor, fairly close to downtown and with a free breakfast.  We drove downtown and had a really nice dinner at a fairly authentic Japanese restaurant.

We have been to Victoria many times.  The changes have been slow, so we pretty much know where everything was.

We had packed a box of research material for our trip to England, but we have no clue where the darn thing is now.  So, our first stop was a bookstore.  We found a great atlas of just Britain (better than anything we had) and a couple of travel books that might be useful.  Nancy found a skirt that she had to have and we bought a couple of interesting pieces of art at a street fair.

We stopped at the town of Sidney on the way to the ferry so that Nancy could visit a spinning/weaving shop.  We ended up contributing to the Canadian economy there, too.  We made the 5:00 sailing and were close to home by 8:00.  Stopped and had dinner at a real motorcycle "road house" at a place highly praised by the locals.  They had great hamburgers.

The week's worth of nice weather ended after three days with a whole day of drizzle. Friday started a new cycle and by Sunday we had 80° sunshine.

Friday night we went to dinner and to see "Sound of Music" by the local Civic Light Opera with our neighbors.  The performance was great!

Return to Journal Home Page

Go on to the Next Page

Return to the Title Page