Month: August 2018

We left Canada after two months to spend a few days back in the Bay Area before heading east. We had an 11 AM reservation on the ferry from Vancouver Island to the mainland but we received a call shortly after 8 AM to inform us that it had been cancelled due to an equipment problem. We were all packed so we roared out of the condo and made it to the ferry terminal in time to catch the 10 AM departure. We had a wonderful buffet breakfast on board, looking out at the Gulf Islands as we ate. We crossed the border on I-5 and were greeted by a rather surly US border agent, quite a contrast to the friendly and efficient border agent who had welcomed us into Canada.

We decided to travel down the east side of the Cascades in order to see some different scenery. We crossed the Cascades in northern Washington, passing through the tourist town of Leavenworth. Of course, we also made a detour to Carnation, Washington, to visit a yarn store.

Along the way we spent the night in Bend, Oregon, and arrived early enough to take a walk along the Deschutes River, which passes right through the center of town. It was Labor Day weekend and the river was packed with kayaks, canoes, and tubes. Bend is a great town for all sorts of outdoor sports, both summer and winter.

We spent most of the next day in Crater Lake National Park. It is a spectacularly beautiful place, not to be missed if you are in eastern Oregon. The sky was rather hazy due to all of the summer fires in the northwest.

We traveled back to California on I-5. We later learned that I-5 was closed the very next day due to a fire in the Mount Shasta area. We settled into a small hilltop house in Port Costa overlooking the Carquinez Straight near Vallejo. We enjoyed watching the ships and trains go by, far below us.

On the weekend we took Andy and his friend, Jeff, to the USC/Stanford football game. Before the game we visited a new brewpub in Alameda that had a great barbeque food truck parked outside. Sunday was Carrie’s birthday so we celebrated with brunch at the Bull Valley Roadhouse, right down the hill from our Port Costa house.

One thing that really surprised us about Vancouver Island is the number of deer around. You see them everywhere – at the roadside, along hiking trails, on the golf course, even in front yards right in the middle of Victoria. There is a family of at least a half dozen deer that live along the golf course just below our condo and we saw them almost every day.

The local deer are very calm, as well, and they don’t spook easily. You can walk very close to them and look them in the eye and they might look back but then just resume eating their grass or leaves. They aren’t easily spooked by the golf carts, either. Perhaps they have become accustomed to living in close proximity to people but we had never before seen such fearless deer.

For months Carrie had been looking forward to Fibrations Victoria, an outdoor craft fair featuring vendors from a variety of textile arts. There were knitters, spinners, weavers, sheep and alpaca growers, basically everything you could imagine related to textiles. Most were local so it was interesting to see the local slant on the arts. There was even a local lady making tamales for sale for lunch. It was a beautiful cool and sunny day so the weather cooperated with a respite from the heat wave.

Carrie had previously signed up to volunteer at Fibrations and Sue agreed to join her. They worked for several hours selling raffle tickets for a huge array of fabric items that had been donated. By the end they were fully familiar with the colors and shapes of Canadian currency (or is it colours?).

While Carrie and Sue worked the raffle Charlie and Leo walked about a mile up the hill and toured Craigdarroch Castle. This Victorian mansion was built between 1887 and 1890 by Robert Dunsmuir, the father of James Dunsmuir who built Hatley Castle around 20 years later. The house is furnished in the style of the period and is open for self-guided tours.

On the way back to Fibrations Charlie and Leo walked around the grounds of Government House, the office and official residence of the Lieutenant Governor, the representative of the British Royal Family in British Columbia. Although Canada is a sovereign nation, Queen Elizabeth is still considered Queen of Canada and you see her portrait here and there in government facilities, always with a Canadian flag behind her. Canadians, for the most part, seem to value their benevolent relationship with the Crown.

Our friends Sue and Leo came to visit for a few days from California. We took them to some of our favorite spots (Hatley Castle, Butchart Gardens, the Inner Harbour) and we also spent a day wine tasting in the Cowichan Valley. We began the day with a stop at the Duncan Farmers Market to pick up a few things for a picnic and for dinner later in the evening, including a fresh berry pie.

We began our wine tasting at Enrico Winery near Mill Bay. We tasted some of their wines, bought a bottle of rose to enjoy with lunch, and then adjourned to their picnic area for our feast. Just as we were finishing our tasting a group of rowdy young women arrived, all with flowers in their hair. The proprietor told us they were a “stagette” party, which we would call a bachelorette party in the States. One of the interesting things about visiting Canada is encountering these little Canadian twists to the language. For example, a parking garage is a parkade, a term I have never heard used in the U.S. A garbage disposal is a garburator.

We then checked out a couple of more wineries, Cherry Point and Unsworth. The wines were not great by California standards but it is impressive that they can produce decent wines at all in their northern climate. The people at the wineries told us that there has been a lot of effort put into developing hybrid varieties that produce well in their region.

We made several trips to the Cowichan Valley, about an hour north of our condo. At the Lavenderfest we spoke with one of the vendors who raises mini-llamas on a farm near Cobble Hill. We learned that she gives tours during the week so we visited her farm to see the animals and her fabric products. Mini-llamas are just what you would expect – small versions of llamas. They are not used as pack animals like their bigger cousins but their soft wool makes them valuable. After the visit we had lunch overlooking the water at Mill Bay. Then, just for fun, we took the small ferry from Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay, about a 30 minute ride. Vancouver Island has an extensive network of small ferries to get people and vehicles around the waterways.

On another trip to the Cowichan Valley we went to the town of Duncan and took a look at their farmers market. Then we spent some time walking around and seeing some of the many totems in town. First Nations people have had totems on Vancouver Island for centuries but by the middle of the 20th century many were in disrepair. In 1985 the town of Duncan began a project to restore and display many of the totems. The Totems Tour now consists of over 40 totems displayed outdoors, mostly in the downtown area.

We celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary with a fantastic dinner at the Sooke Harbour House. Carrie has a friend who is from Canada and he recommended this restaurant on the waterfront in Sooke, a small town about 10 miles west of our condo. We had a window table and we watched the fog roll in over the water as the evening progressed. We had a delicious four-course meal with each course paired with local British Columbia wines.

 

We liked to vary our daily walks so we made a few trips into Victoria to explore the neighborhood to the southeast of the Inner Harbour, near Beacon Hill Park. Charlie enjoyed walking along the coastal walkway leading westward from the park to the breakwater at the entrance to the Inner Harbour. You can walk out on the breakwater and see the small lighthouse at the end, as well as the huge cruise ships moored nearby. On a clear day you can see the snow-capped Olympic Mountains to the south in Washington.

“The Trans-Canada Highway, uniformly designated as Highway 1 in the four western provinces, begins in Victoria, British Columbia at the intersection of Douglas Street and Dallas Road (where the “Mile 0” plaque stands) and passes northward along the east coast of Vancouver Island for 99 km (62 mi) to Nanaimo. Short freeway segments of the TCH can be found near Victoria and Nanaimo, but the rest of the highway on Vancouver Island operates mostly as a heavily signalized low-to-limited-mobility arterial road that uniquely (for the Trans-Canada Highway system) does not bypass any of its areas of urban sprawl, particularly Nanaimo and Duncan. The section of Highway 1 that crosses the Malahat northwest of Victoria has no stoplights yet, but is tightly pinched by rugged terrain that prevents comprehensive widening to four lanes and sometimes forces closure for hours at a time after a traffic accident. The Departure Bay ferry is the only marine link on the Trans-Canada system that has no freeway or other high mobility highway access, instead routing TCH traffic through downtown Nanaimo streets to reach the ferry to Vancouver.” (quote taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Canada_Highway)

Carrie preferred exploring the neighborhoods adjacent to the park. This part of Victoria was developed in the early 20th century and there are many beautiful old houses and yards.