What a trip

All was forgiven when the ferry dropped us off in Seattle after lunch. We were back on schedule, and excited to see another city. We only had about 24 hours here, and the highlight was going to be a nice dinner with an aunt of Aimee's who lived in the city. But first we had to make our way downtown.

Washington had just legalized marijuana, and there was some type of Cannabis Convention in town. So Seattle was even more eclectic than usual. But we made our way through the crowd and had some lunch at a great little sushi restaurant. We figured that, while in Seattle, sea food needs to be the focus.

After lunch, we walked down to Pike Place Market.

It needs no introduction, but I did find out that it's the longest running farmer's market in the United States. We dragged our bags through the fishmongers and tourist shops, and finally parked ourselves at a place that had a good happy hour. We had a couple of hours to kill before dinner, and our travel budget was running on fumes.

Aimee's aunt and her husband took us to what was unquestionably the nicest restaurant of the trip. It was the type of sea food restaurant that I probably couldn't have afforded the water at. But, man, it sure was tasty.

It was really nice to meet Aimee's aunt, and we had a wonderful chat about life in the Pacific Northwest. They had to keep reminding me that this was their one day of sunshine for the year, or else I would have moved there tomorrow.

Our hotel was another internet booking that looked a lot better in a 400 x 600 pixel photograph, but it did the trick and it was close to the airport. Plus, the bus ride along the giant Boeing campus was a surprise treat.

It had been a wonderful trip, and we were exhausted. We weren't excited about another vacation coming to and end, but we were looking forward to returning to $0.79 donuts and coffee that tastes as bad as its supposed to. It was good to be home.

No Reservations

After a kayak tour and high tea, the only reasonable next step was a nap. So we took the bus back to the hotel for a quick siesta.

This was our last night in Canada, so we wanted to head back down to the pier for some dinner. But first, we had to make arrangements to get home. We were flying out of Seattle two days later, so we had to make ferry arrangements to get there. We walked down to the ferry terminal, and this one looked a bit different. Until this point, all of the ferries that we took were state run commuter ferries. With the exception of the Anacortes debacle, they cost a few bucks each way, and you could just walk right on, especially if you weren't bringing a car. But the Victoria Clipper was a private operation that billed itself as a vacation charter company. Which, of course, meant that it was going to cost tourist prices. But it was the only game in town, so we bit the bullet, and plunked our $120 down on the ticket counter.

We were a little surprised when the agent didn't take the money. "Do you have a reservation?" 

Get out. A reservation? Come on.

"No, really. The Clipper books out weeks ahead of time."

Sonofabitch.

So with the same disdain as a snooty hostess trying to find you a table, the ticket agent disinterestedly clicked a few things into her computer.

"Hmm. 11:00"  Clack, clack, clack, clack.  "Full."

"5:00"  Clack, clack, clack, clack.  "Full."

"6:45"  Clack, clack, clack, clack.  "Oh, wow. Two seats available."

At that point, I wanted to tell her that we didn't need her stupid ferry, and stomp off. But we actually did need her stupid ferry. Quite a bit, in fact. The 6:45 ferry would get us in at midnight, which would screw up our dinner plans, but it would at least get us to Seattle in time for our flight home. So we bought the tickets and asked about standby. The agent said that standby was possible, but we had to be back here at the ticket counter by 7am the next day to get in line.

Barely getting a ticket, and having to get up at 5 the next day kind of took the fun out of dinner that night. I actually don't even remember where we went, but I'm sure I had a beer, and I'm sure I was cranky. At one point, I considered hiring a sea plane. It was cheaper than you'd think, but more expensive than Aimee would let me get away with.

We woke up super early the next morning, and I was itching to get down to the ferry station. Aimee gets ready really fast, but I was still almost dragging her, half asleep, down to the bus station.  

"It's fine, Myles, we're fine."

Maybe I was trying to stick it to the ferry company, or maybe I was really looking forward to a nice dinner in Seattle, but I was on a mission. I don't think I said a single word on the bus ride down there. But judging by her closed eyes and occasional snore, Aimee didn't mind.

The sun was barely peeking through the fog by the time we approached the ferry terminal. The whole ride down, I had been picturing 20 disheveled travelers in line waiting for a standby seat. But the waiting area was empty! My blood pressure started dropping back down to normal. But just as we turned the corner onto the property, a taxi dropped off a couple in their 50s. Gah! I was convinced that they were also waiting for standby, and they were going to take the only two seats on the 11am ferry. Believe me, I was a real treat to be with that morning. Just ask Aimee.

Over the course of the next hour, about 30 or so people gathered in front of the ferry terminal. My glare may have burned a whole in the head of the guy in front of me, and I probably lost a couple of healthy years during retirement. But I mostly kept it together, at least outwardly.

At 7am, the ferry terminal's doors opened up, and we all walked in with the unmistakable mix of civilized patience and the repressed, untrusting rage of tourists in line at a ticket counter. The couple ahead of us stepped up to the ticket agent, and I almost lost it when they said, "We'd like to buy a ticket for next week."

"What?! Are you crazy?! Do you know what you just did to me?! Next week?!  Woo hoo!"

Even the ticket agent seemed a little surprised. So we walked up next and asked to be on standby for the 11am ferry. This ticket agent was different than the one from yesterday, but she must have taken the same disinterested typing course in ticket agent school.

Clack, clack, clack, clack. "Ok. Here is your standby card. Be back here by 10am. Next."

So now Aimee and I had a couple of early morning hours to kill. The Victoria waterfront is purely made up of tourist operations, so there wasn't much activity that early. A city employee powerwashed the walkway, shopkeepers got ready for the day, and some type of convention was being set up in the parking lot.

This was our view from the bench that we parked ourselves on for the next couple of hours.

Aimee and I, a little delirious from the morning's events, kept paraphrasing Arrested Development.  "There's money in the lemon stand. There's money in the lemon stand.

At 10am, we headed back to the ferry terminal. The waiting area was crazy packed, and there were signs up on the wall apologizing for the tight quarters. They encouraged passengers to call the Victoria Harbor Authority and ask it to expand the Clipper's terminal. Seriously. This was just getting stranger and stranger.

All of the ticketed passengers boarded the ferry, and there were about 20 of us left in waiting area. And then something funny happened. I looked up to see who was around us, and it was like seeing parallel universe versions of Myles and Aimee. Everyone else left in terminal was coupled up, carrying the same types of backpacks, and wearing the same types of cargo pants as we were. They were all different ethnicities and nationalities, but any one of them could have been us. It was like a United Nations meeting for 20-30 somethings that travel light and don't make reservations ahead of time. We're not so different, after all. Maybe I was projecting, or maybe I was still delirious, but it looked like they were all realizing the same thing.

Of course, as soon as the ticket agent gave the manager a stack of standby cards to choose from, we all snapped back to reality. He rifled through the cards, and picked out a few. It was like he was playing goldfish.

He called out, "Some name, Other name, Don't care, Stone, Another person."

We were in! See ya, suckers. Screw the UN, we're getting on that boat.

The Clipper was just as packed as the waiting room, which made me feel far less bad for them getting assigned a crappy terminal in Victoria. But a couple hours later, we were in Seattle, and we couldn't be happier.

Epiloge:

I found this story online a couple months after we got back. He must not have wanted to ride standby, either. Good for him.

Downtown Abbey

Victoria is famous for its high tea. It's a holdover from the colonial days, and there are several places around town that offer the British meal. The most famous of which is the Empress Hotel, which serves daily tea in their lobby. Remember the Empress?

It's the kind of place where I would have had to bring two credit cards just to make sure that I could cover the tab. But thankfully we got a tip from my uncle in Portland about a tea house off the beaten path.

The Point Ellis House was one of the most luxurious Victoria houses in its heyday during the mid 1800s. The residents hosted visiting dignitaries and local big wigs every week. Descendants of the same family actually lived there until the 1970s, and they did an amazing job keeping the house an unchanged snapshot of life in British Colombia.

But here's where it gets interesting. In the late 70s, the family running the house needed to sell the land surrounding it to keep up with the cost of maintaining the facility (it's now owned and run by the city). But in the century and a half since the house was built, the layout of Victoria had changed dramatically. Back then, the river that the house was built on was the center of commerce. Loggers, trappers, and traders all used it to bring their wares into the city. But now, the ocean-facing side of Victoria is where all the action is. International cargo ships are the new hub of commerce, and massive cruise ships drop off tourists every day. The river-facing side of Victoria is now the industrial backbone that keeps the city running. Think waste processing and heavy manufacturing. So the Point Ellis House, in all it's Victorian splendor, is smack in the middle of the ugliest neighborhood in town.  Hence the title of this post. Here's the view from front porch:

Of course, the curators of the home wisely serve tea in the backyard, which is absolutely stunning.

And the meal itself was amazing, too.

All in all, Point Ellis House was a real treat. The history was fascinating, the house and gardens were beautiful, and the food was top notch. The occasional, unmistakable, sounds of a truck full of glass bottles getting dumped into the recycling facility just added to the atmosphere. We enjoyed ourselves quite a bit more than I would have expected for an afternoon tea. It was a real treat.

Three hour tour

It's a good thing we went to bed early, beacuse it's never easy to get up at 7 on vacation. Even if it's for a great cause.

We had been looking forward to today for most of the trip. For Aimee's birthday, I had booked us a kayak tour that went out early that morning. It departed from Fisherman's Wharf, which was where we had the fish and chips the day before, so we were plenty familiar with the area.

We arrived early, so we sipped our coffee on the pier while Brad and Katherine of Kelp Reef set up their shop. Like everyone else in Canada, they were fast friends. As they unpacked the kayaks, they told us about how they made a life out of taking tourists on boating trips around Canada. Not a bad gig.

The Wharf has a few shops right on the pier (like Kelp Reef and yesterday's fish and ships shack), but it also has quite a few homes tied right to it. As in, floating homes tied straight to the dock.

I had never been so close to considering international real estate. $200,000 didn't sound that bad.

The wildlife spotting started even before we got off the pier.

But it didn't take long for Brad and Katherine to get the boats in the water, and we couldn't wait to get in.

Fisherman's Wharf isn't just a name.  It's very much a working pier. We were ducking in and out of fishing boats on our way out to the open water, and that was just the beginning...

We actually had to plan our path and speed to avoid becoming the hood ornament of a sea plane.

That was a completely literal statement. Not one ounce of exaggeration. The Vancouver Harbour Airport, which despite the fact that most of its airplanes are no bigger than a passenger car, is one of the busiest airports in the world. Its runway also happened to be our path out to sea, with sea planes taking off and landing every few minutes. Experienced boaters know to look at the flashing light houses for their cue to enter or exit the harbor. Inexperienced kayakers simply paddle, terrified, as fast as they can across the harbor. Our thin-walled plastic kayaks never felt so thin.

With the sea plane excitement behind us, the rest of the trip was beautiful and serene. There was a ton of sea life, and the currents were pretty calm.

The holy grail of early morning kayak trips is spotting a whale off the coast, but despite a couple of squawks on the radio, we didn't have luck. Apparently, all of the tour boat companies share a radio frequency to tell the others where the good whale-sighting locations are each day. If this is what tourism looks like in a socialist democracy, I'm ok with it. I would have been more ok if we saw a whale, but I'll take a dozen seals and a couple of otters.

Lunch was a picnic provided by Kelp Reef. We all tied up our kayaks to some sturdy floating seaweed and snacked on some pastries and fruit. Classy move, Kelp Reef.

We managed to avoid the sea planes and fishing boats on the way back, and we still had a bit more adventuring planned that day.

Newer England

Aimee was not ready to leave San Juan.

We were having such a nice time on the island that we set our alarm at 6am so that we could see just a bit more of it before we had to leave.  We set an alarm.  On vacation.  While camping.  That’s how much we liked the place.

But we didn't have long before the cab driver picked us up.  It was actually the same driver that took us to the campsite the night before, and we had made arrangements with her to pick us back up that morning.  By that point, we were on a first name basis with Suzie.  We learned that she was one of just a few drivers on the island, and she and her husband made a pretty decent living shuttling tourists from the ferry station to their hotels.  But that day, she kept complaining that her husband didn't fill up their gas tank when he took the van to the mainland.  I took a minute to think about the challenges of living on a tiny island (like getting fuel for your car), but Aimee and Suzie just talked about the challenges of husbands.  I was going to need some more coffee.

We were going to Victoria that day, and we had to pass back though Sidney.  So we made a point to swing back by our favorite bakery in North America.  One last donut stop.

The bus ride from Sidney to Victoria was a testament to public transportation.  The bus was spotless, the driver was friendly (unheard of, I know!), and the entire ride was $2!  Plus, the passengers all knew each other, and chatted the entire way. It was like Cheers on wheels.

We pulled into Victoria a little after lunch, and checked into another hotel I booked online.  But this one turned out to be worlds better than the last.

This is the Empress Hotel.  This is not our hotel.  But it is the centerpiece of a beautiful Victorian city center that reflects the wealth of the area.  The city got its start in the 1800s as a Hudson's Bay Company trading post, and then became a key port during the gold and logging booms.  It later became (and still is) a major base for the Canadian Navy, and is now an important tech hub.  But the main draw of the city remains its waterfront.

All this water (and eating nothing but camp food for the last three days) had me craving some fish and chips.  Barb's Fish and Chips down by the waterfront had one of the best reputations in the city, and it was well deserved.

I was in fried cod heaven.

But as you can see from the photo, it was starting to rain.  That, plus the fact that we had been sleeping in a tent all week, made it pretty easy to justify an early retreat to the hotel.  We watched a bit of soccer on TV, and crashed before the sun was all the way down.  It was wonderful.

Worth it.

Not a bad sight to wake up to.

We were getting back on the water today, and heading over to San Juan Island. San Juan came very highly recommended by my aunt,, but it would require a bit more navigating than the last two stops, since it is technically in the United States.

We took the first ferry back to the mainland (well, actually just the bigger island), and rushed over to the ferry terminal. We missed the first boat that goes directly to San Juan, and the next one got in at 7:30 pm. In retrospect, we should have just waited. But we took the advice of the ticket seller and booked seats on a ship that stopped over in Anacortes. She must have been commissioned, because the tickets cost a fortune. All of the ferries that we had been taking up to that point were $5-10, but this one was pushing $100. But the line was backing up with cars waiting to get on board, and we had to act fast.

We had about 20-30 minutes to kill before the boat departed, and I needed something to soften the blow of a $100 boat ride. I knew exactly the solution. Donuts.

We were just staring to recover from Voodoo, and we needed a quick fix.  So I ran off to a bakery that I had saw earlier in downtown Sidney. Further cementing how much we loved that town, these were probably the best donuts of the trip.

The Washington State Ferry was plenty nice, but compared to the BC Ferries, it felt a bit run down.  Especially for the price.  And to add insult to injury, we saw the San Juan ferry sailing off as we were pulling in to Anacortes.  That was especially problematic, since the San Juan public bus stopped running at 5, and the next ferry would get us in at 5:40.

We were already on the fence about San Juan, and if I hadn’t already booked a campsite, there was a pretty decent chance that we would have just slept in the Anacortes terminal.  But we booked seats for the later ferry, and plopped down, defeated, in the waiting area.  I needed another donut.

The sail over to San Juan was nothing short of beautiful, and I was starting to forgive this island for being so hard to get to.  Of course, the price I had to pay for a taxi to take us clear across the island put everything back into perspective.

But as soon as we pulled into the campsite, Aimee and I looked at each other and said, “Ok.  We get it.”

The campsite was located in a funky little county park, and the spot we picked was absolutely amazing.  We picked it sight-unseen, because it was the only one left when we registered.  The reason that it was open was because it didn’t have any parking (it was tucked away in its own private cove).  The $200 we spent that day to avoid renting a car now felt like chump change.

Within an hour, we had completely fallen in love with San Juan Island, and an hour later, we’d be planning our retirement there.

We had walked over to the main part of the campsite and noticed a group of people enjoying a picnic.  We had assumed that they all came there together until one of them beckoned us over.  She explained that she lived a few blocks away and had some leftover German chocolate cake from her birthday party. She brought it down to the park to share with the campers. This place is paradise.

We watched the sun set behind the water with our new best friends, and I still completely believe that they meant it when they said we could stay with them next time we came back to the island.  And we will definitely be going back.

Moonrise Kingdom

This was going to be a good day. We were taking a boat from the small, idyllic island that we were camping on to a smaller, more idyllic island that we’d be camping on the next night.

It didn’t take long to pack up camp, and we headed down to the pier to grab some coffee and wait for the ferry to pull up.

The boat was piloted by another two very friendly Canadians. It was an easy 20 minute ride to Sidney Spit, and the place couldn’t have been any more perfect. The entire island was essentially just one big campground. It’s a completely under-appreciated gem, and it’s way off the beaten trail. I was beginning to forgive Google Maps, because I found this campsite the same way.

Most of the campers were locals who sailed their boats to the island for a quick over night.

I already loved this place, and it only went up from there.

As soon as we got off the boat, we saw a few luggage carts sitting out. How considerate, Canadian National Parks System.

Aimee was a fan.

You can see the trail in the photo above that led from the pier to the campsite. The trail opens up to another beach in the middle of the island with several marked campsites.

We dropped off our stuff and got back on the trail. The entire island was only a few miles across, and we wanted to explore the whole thing.

The island was paradise. It was like summer camp for grown ups.

We headed back to the campsite to get started on dinner. It did not include any fish.

I blamed these guys for scaring off dinner.

We watched the sun set behind an abandoned pier, and we wondered how much houses went for in the area.

Northern Exposure

We were excited about visiting Sidney for lots of reasons, but mostly because it kicked off the camping portion of our trip. We had been lugging around our sleeping bags and tent all week, and we were really looking forward to putting them to use.

The entire coastal region of British Columbia is beautiful. We just happened to pick Sidney because I noticed a tiny national park flag when I scanned over it with Google Maps. But it couldn’t have worked out better. The town was like some idyllic village from an early 60s TV show. The residents were incredibly friendly, and the mountains and coastline that wrapped around the town were jaw dropping.

But first, we needed some groceries. We hopped off the bus in Sidney’s shopping district. The entire "downtown" was just a few blocks across, and it had a few restaurants, a grocery store, and this place:

I had never heard of Capital Iron before, but I was intrigued. Isaias had given me the fishing bug back in Eugene, and this looked like a place where I could find some equipment. Fast forward twenty minutes later, and I’m surrounded in the fishing aisle by a half dozen residents (none of them under 60 years old) telling me where the best spots are, and what bait to use. I love Canada.

I could have spent hours in that store , but Aimee was waiting outside with our luggage, and she was probably bored out of her mind. But to my surprise, she was surrounded by a half dozen residents welcoming her to Sidney and telling her the best places to visit. She loves Canada, too.

The residents that Aimee was chatting with perked up when they found out we were from Arizona. Our state is apparently the promised land for British Columbians, and every one of them had been there at some point.  In fact, many of them spent their summers in Yuma. On purpose.

For those of you who have never been to Yuma, AZ, it's like Death Valley, minus the cool name, plus a whole lot of RVs. We don’t understand the appeal, but the city population quintuples every summer with cold-weather visitors. They must not know that Arizona has more cities. There is no other fathomable reason to be in Yuma, unless you’re getting gas on the way to San Diego. And even then, 20 minutes is more than enough time.

But back to Canada. We were stocking up on groceries to get us through a few days of camping, and we still had one more quick bus ride before we could really settle down. It was here that I learned the hazards of picking a campsite based on a Google Map icon.

We walked for about an hour (with multiple duffle bags and a full bag of groceries), and it was not looking promising. The directions I had printed out took us to the middle of a residential area, and we had no idea where they could be hiding a national park. And then we saw it, a converted home with a small sign out front: “Sidney National Parks Administration.”

Son of a bitch.

The Google Map pin was on the admin building, not the actual camp site. And to make matters worse, it was a Sunday, so we couldn’t go in an ask them where we had booked a night.

Thankfully, there was a stack of tourist maps on the front porch. They didn’t show distances, roads, or much of anything else, but it was enough to get us started.

We saw a local resident loading things into his car a few blocks away. I asked him about the park that we were headed to, but he didn’t know about it. I also hinted pretty hard that we could really use a ride back to the bus stop, but he didn’t take the bait. He must not have been Canadian.

Aimee took everything with her usual grace, but I was still cursing Google (I wasn't quite ready to acknowledge my lack of preparation).  An hour later, we saw a wooded area that looked promising.

It was the right park, and we couldn’t have been more excited to drop our bags and make camp.

We had everything set up by 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and it was time for me to break in my new fishing pole. There was a gated neighborhood across from our campsite, and we thought we'd take our chances at their private dock (I was wearing my nicest flip flops).

It didn’t take us long before we ran into some local residents who very politely told us to beat it. They were definitely Canadian. But they did tell us where we could find a public fishing pier.

Of course, fishing isn’t for everybody.

I'm on a boat

We got up pretty early to head out to our next stop: Sidney, British Columbia. And I’m going to blame the early hour for not being able to find the subway station, getting off the train at the wrong stop, and getting lost on the way to the bus station. Rough morning.

But we managed to make it to the ferry station with plenty of time. But before we get to that, let me show you what a metro train looks like in Canada.

Pay your taxes, people. We could have this.

Now to the ferry station. It was amazing. It had the similar, but vaguely different, feeling of Stanley Kubrick’s space port in A Space Odyssey. It was almost like an airport, but not quite.

Now, as a desert dweller, anything to do with the water brings out my inner 12 year old. I was outside in the rain snapping photos left and right.

The ferry ride itself was surprisingly nice. The boat lived up to the cleanliness and quality of every other mode of Canadian public transportation that we had seen so far.

And anybody from the east coast or northwest probably wouldn’t be impressed, but cars on boats? Mind blowing.

The scenery pulling into Sidney was amazing. 

We didn’t know a thing about the place, but we knew that we’d be just fine.