Today is Karma Day!
- Steve's razor (purchased last week) fell apart on the floor
- He broke the Kleenex dispenser in the hotel bathroom
- Carol went to three different outlets to purchase all day travel passes so we could go out and hike this suspension bridge that is 250 feet over the Frazer River and all three outlets were out of passes
Not a good sign, so Carol made an executive decision that Karma says "You guys are supposed to take it easy until your train leaves this afternoon for Winnipeg." So here we sit in the sitting room at our hotel updating this blog, reading and responding to email and generally enjoying the beautiful sunshine and a down afternoon..
We found this restaurant here called Tom and Jerry's and it is our newest, latest hangout! No sign of the cat or the mouse but the place has a great hockey bar and the food is very reasonably priced and extremely good and it helps that it is near an "Adults Only" bookstore. Carol keeps telling Steve the restaurant is the door next to the bookstore!!
Actually we have found that everything except taxi rides is very reasonable here. However, we have not rented a car as yet which is a good thing as gasoline is about $4.20 a gallon. The Canadians are obviously a great deal smarter than the Americans, as Vancouver is crawling with hybrids, smart cars, and electric cars. The weather forecast earlier this week was for rain but it has been either just partly cloudy or pretty clear since we got here. With temps in the high 50's and low 60's. T-shirt weather for Steve and light sweater weather for Carol.
Yesterday was a truly fabulous day. It started at 0-dark hundred and ended at 0-late hundred (for those of you not in the service it was dang early and dang late) but it was worth every minute. Our driver, named Gordy, was an Irishman who was full of lousy jokes but he was a really nice guy and made a very long day easy to pass. We truly had an international crew of 14 people joining us on the trip, inlcuding folks from China, Isreal, way up north in Ontario, and some people from Alaska.
After everyone got picked up (which was a tour in itself) we headed out to the ferry terminal to catch a BC Ferry. You would not believe the number of cars, trucks, busses, and other assorted vehicles that go back and forth between the island and the mainland on this ferry, which we guess was about the same size as our cruise ship will be. There were literally two full decks of 18 wheelers and buses, plus another two decks with 200+ cars. The parking was still jam-packed for an outbound trip when we arrived in-bound at 9:00 p.m. last night. And this was a Wednesday! Gordy told us that it costs $65CAN each way for a car and anything that is not a car was $12CAN a foot. After a really neat 90 minute cruise through the Gulf Islands, we arrived at Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island (Check out all of the photos on our Google Picasa Photo website.)
And of course, Carol needs her coffee! It isn't Starbuck's but it is organic. It was very good and I'm thinking of going to the other side...naah...don't think so. Starbucks is everywhere in Vancouver! I'd probably be laughed out of the country.
We then drove to Butchart's Gardens, where we had 90 minutes to walk the gardens. For those of you who like Steve and I love anything that grows, 90 minutes was about 1/10th of the time we wished we had to investigate the three main gardens. Neither of us have seen such amazing fall colors, and if this is a preview of our fall colors cruise next week, we don't have enough memory sticks for the cameras! We are thinking about volunteering next year to come work in the gardens!! We were told that a lot of college students and retirees (300 people) volunteer during the high season to keep this magnificent place in top shape. Carol took tons of pictures and will begin working on her own "Pollock Pines" garden next year. Brecks look out!!!
Vancouver Island has a large number of retirees for good reason, reasonable property costs, fairly low taxes (compared to the US), 250 days of sunshine a year (it is nicknamed the Sunshine Island), and a laid back sort of British lifestyle. This fits right in with us.
Then it was off to highlight of the day, Steve remembered his mother going to HighTea at the Empress Hotel (part of the Fairmont chain) in downtown Victoria and raving about it. So this was one of the things he promised me would be on the agenda. So...we sat and stuffed ourselves on all sorts of delicacies, and some really interesting teas. Some of you might recall the movie "The Shining" (one of Steve's all time favorites "all work and no play makes a Jack a dull boy"). All of the indoor hallway scenes with Danny Torrance on his big wheel were shot in the hallways of the Empress Hotel. So Steve found a way to beat the card code access system and took his camera up to the third floor and got a few shots.. That's our Steve, never one to miss a camera shot. Meanwhile, Carol was being watched in the gift shop by the snooty employees who thought she was going to rob them blind. And, I wouldn't even buy their "White miracle tea".
After walking around the city centre (that's center for you Yanks) for more photos and talking with the locals, it was time to head back to the ferry. We have found the people here to be very friendly, extremely polite, and most helpful. They really enjoy talking with us about the country, the customs and will answer any question we have.
Well, it is time to go to the train station and catch the Canadian through the Rocky Mountains and on to Winnipeg. We'll be in touch!
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