It's Great to be Back in Canada

As much as we travel around and admire the beauty of other places, there's no place like home and the beauty of home too.  Both in terms of our home home, and our country.

We had booked the 12:45 crossing from Port Angeles to Victoria.  We were all ready to go and drove the 15 minutes to the ferry terminal.  We parked the RV and then went off for a stroll around Port Angeles.  Here's our RV in line.



Some street art we found.  There were several of these in various poses all down the street.

At 12:10, we were back at the truck all ready to go.  The ferry arrived right on time and unloaded.

We left right on schedule.  Here we are being escorted out with the pilot boat.  We're crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

You can barely see the mountains we're leaving in Olympic Nat'l Park.  More cloud cover today.

We arrived in Victoria around 2:15 - there was a cruise ship there.



We went back to our vehicle to get ready to leave the ferry.  We plugged into our GPS the directions to our next stop.  It was funny seeing our "car" in the middle of the water.  It knew we were on a ferry.



Victoria really is a beautiful city.  So many cafes, flowers, greenery.  Just gorgeous.  We've been here a couple of times before, so not on this trip.  This is a shot of the Parliament Building as we drove by.



We drove immediately to Butchart Gardens.  The last time we were here was 28 years ago when the kids were young.  We thought we were due for another tour.

The famous sunken garden.  This used to be an old limestone quarry back in the 1920s, or maybe even before.

Everywhere you look is beauty.

 And the famous rose garden.



I thought this sign was cute.

Tibby got tired of walking, so we carried him in our bag.

We arrived at our RV park about 20 minutes after we left Butchart Gardens.  We're just here for the night, and it's a simple park on a bay on the east side of the island, just north of Victoria.  This is from the back of our lot.

And the sunset tonight.

Tomorrow we're heading north on the island.

Flattery Will Get You Nowhere

Or, maybe everywhere.

We awoke this morning to some rain, so we knew going into Olympic National Park would almost be pointless.  There would be very little in the way of views, which is part of the majesty of the place.

So, we decided we would drive up along the coast of the Strait of Juan de Fuca...see if we could see any seals, whales or otters.  All the way to Cape Flattery.

We didn't see any of these critters, but we saw some great ocean views.  This ship is probably heading into the port of Seattle.

OK - you pronounce it and don't laugh.  There was a village by this name too.

The tide was out, so a good opportunity to stroll the beaches, and take a selfie.

Some of the trees were literally growing sideways off the side of the hill.  This picture doesn't show it as well as it could.

We got to the end of the road, literally, and walked out to the cape.

Beautiful area.  This is the most northwestern point of the contiguous U.S. -- Cape Flattery.

The ocean has pounded out these caves in the rock.  I expect the land we were standing on had a cave or 2 just underneath us.

Tomorrow we head back to Canada for most of the rest of our trip.

Port Angeles

Port Angeles is quite a bit further north than Los Angeles - and very different.  We drove from Bothell (hehe) to Port Angeles today.  We waited until most of the rush hour traffic was done as we had to go by Seattle.  Traffic is pretty brutal here.

Wait...what?

Mount Rainier is in the distance.  We got close to it, but it's a little further down the highway and we turned off.  It's a little hazy today too.

When we turned off the main highway, we drove up to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.

I thought we left Brothell behind!

We arrived at our RV park around 2:45 pm.

 

After dinner, we took a short bike ride and hike to the old Elwha Dam site.  They took the dam out a couple of years ago and the area is slowly returning to its former state.  You can tell the water behind the dam was probably up to where you see grass, but below the trees.

This is the Elwha River below where the dam was.

This was the trail we were on.  It was like walking in a jungle, or rainforest.  Big trees, ferns and lots of greenery.

Tomorrow we are going to explore Olympic National Park, which is right next door.

Seattle Mariners

It was a leisurely day today.  We hung around our place, just taking it easy until mid-afternoon.  It's been quite hot the last couple of days.

Tonight we had tickets for the ball game at Safeco Field in Seattle to see the Mariners vs the Cleveland Indians.

We drove by downtown Seattle.  We're just approaching the city here.  You can see the Space Needle across the bay.

We've been to Seattle before, so we didn't actually go into the city this time.  It's a great city though, if anyone should be so inclined.

So we arrived and parked our truck in the parking garage across from the stadium.  The street is aptly named.  A great ball player for the Mariners.

And the Mariners are excited about the "Countdown to Cooperstown".  Ken Griffey Jr. is being inducted into the hall of fame.  He was at the game tonight too - just above us (in a box, of course).

Safeco Field from across the street.

We went to a pub around the corner for a burger and beer.  Great burgers.  Beer wasn't bad.

And we're at the ball park.

Here's Robinson Cano at bat.

And Adam Lind batting.  He used to play for the Blue Jays.  You can see the ball mid-way.

Unfortunately, the Mariners lost 3-1.

Well, tomorrow we move on.  This has been a very nice RV park here in Brothell.

Great Weekend in Vancouver

We left our RV late Friday morning, and made the trek up to Vancouver to see Frank and John.  We stopped off at Camping World at Burlington, Washington, to return the bike rack.  (That's another story that I won't bore you with here, except to say that if I had taken a picture of the bumper of the RV to show you what the bike rack did to it, you would understand.)

We then continued on to Vancouver.  Frank was kind enough to suggest I do our laundry at his place instead of doing it here in the RV park.  So we took that along as well.

We arrived at their place around 2:30 pm.  I did the laundry and had it hanging on the line by the time they came home from work shortly after 5.  They had a nice surprise for us in that we were to have dinner at Garth's place in downtown Vancouver.  He's a very dear friend of Frank, and has become our friend as well.  It was great to see him, and he made us a delicious chili meal with Caesar salad and a dessert and port wine later.  He has a terrific view of English Bay from his balcony.

This is the Burrard St. bridge.  If you don't know Vancouver, there are 2 main bridges to get to the downtown area.  This is one of them.

This is English Bay as the sun is just about disappearing.



It was an absolutely beautiful night, and sight.  There is a little "joke" we have between us and our BC folk.  When Frank was arriving to visit us in Ontario one summer, he asked that the BC flag be flying.  It had been shipped ahead of time with this request.  We hung it upside-down until he saw it and insisted it be corrected.  After that, when we visited them a couple of years later, the Ontario flag was flying from his house.  Well, lo and behold, that flag found its way to Garth's balcony.



Here we are relaxing after dinner at Garth's.



And some crazy people on the balcony.

All in all, a terrific night.

The next day we went out with Frank to run a couple of errands.  One of those was a stop at the Granville Market to pick up a few things.  It was sure a bustling place Saturday morning.

The market area has some unique shops as well.  Fun to just stroll around.  This place is a concrete plant near the market.  I loved how they had done up the silos.

We returned to Frank's and when John had come back from his 2-3 hour bike ride, we had a great lunch on the back deck.  The weather was absolutely outstanding the whole time we were there.

So the 2nd surprise for us was happy hour at Joe Fortes, a great restaurant.  Actually, happy 2 hours.  We all hopped into a cab (yep, we're crammed into the back seat), and headed to downtown Vancouver.

We had a great time there.  John has a special relationship with the wait staff, so we had the perfect spot on the rooftop patio and took advantage of the happy hour menu and drinks.  We didn't need to have dinner afterward.

 

Part of the rooftop patio is a garden area they can use for special events.  Here we are - Gerard is peeking out from behind an olive tree.  Well, I guess we all are.

Before the sun went down, we went out for a walk around their neighbourhood.  This is at the end of one street.  A view of downtown Vancouver.

We had such a terrific time.  Frank and John are getting ready for their trip to Australia, leaving Tuesday night.  So we got out of their hair and left after a yummy waffle breakfast.

This is the Peace Arch at the border - front and back.  If you zoom in, you can see the words printed on each side.

 This is Mount Baker, which you can see from southern BC.  It's in Washington State.

We arrived back at our RV and found it, first of all, there...and intact.  All was well.  After dinner, we took a bit of a walk around.  This goose was sure eyeing us while I was taking the photo of her goslings.  Any closer, I'm sure she would have hissed and possibly attacked.

 

 Great weekend with great fun!

We're in Brothell -- uh, I mean Bothell

This morning we left Spokane, Washington, and arrived in Bothell, just north of Seattle.

On route, we followed along the Columbia River for a while, and then crossed it.

A very majestic river that comes from Canada. 

It was a little foggy today...well, at least higher up.  And it did rain a little on the way.  We drove through several mountain passes on the way to the coast.

Is that snow???

No, it's just a plastic sheeting to cover earth along a newly-constructed embankment.  Haha.

So we arrived in Brothell (I keep calling it that too) - Bothell, this afternoon around 3 pm and settled into our RV park.  Nice little spot.  We're backed onto this pond.  You can see our RV just across the pond.

It's a very nice RV park with a couple of ponds and lots of hiking trails and a lovely waterwheel feature.

So tomorrow we are leaving our RV here and heading to Vancouver for the weekend to visit Frank and John.  It's only a couple of hours from here.  I won't be blogging again until either Sunday night or Monday morning.  Until then...

We're Definitely in the West

Our last push to the west coast is here.  This morning, we left Montana, and after about 2-1/2 hrs we were in Idaho.  

We also crossed into the next time zone.

There's a section of Idaho that sticks up between Montana and Washington, called the Idaho panhandle.  It took about 1-1/2 hours to cross that.  Then we were into the State of Washington.  We arrived at our destination around 2:00 pm, Pacific Time.  We're just to the east of Spokane in Spokane Valley.  The Spokane River divides Washington and Idaho.  (Didn't get a picture - wasn't fast enough.)

We're just here for 1 night and will be on to a place tomorrow, just north of Seattle.

Another town - Might be a nice place to live?