British Columbia, and what we found there...

*Just a little hint on how to work the slide show, click on the main picture and read the titles. They're put in chronological order, and will help you navigate. Plus, if you don't I'll kick your butt! I worked hard on those titles. Oh, and do yourself a favor and turn on some music.

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to...."
~Bilbo Baggins




So, you're all in luck. Because today I'm going to be your personal tour guide and tell you all about our trip! We started our road trip off right by popping in a Creedence Clearwater Revival CD (of which you can listen to on my music list, a-thank you) and then drove up through Idaho, Oregon, and then spent the first night in Pendleton, Oregon. Pendleton is the proud birth place of the Pendleton woolen mill, and to this day they still produce quality blankets, clothes, and even stuffed animals. Some of you may be familiar with the brand name. We took a tour, some of which I put in the slide show. Besides the mill, Ashley's whole impression of the town was that it was freaky. And I have to admit that I've never seen a Walmart so empty, and clean...disturbingly clean. No kid vomit, nothing.

Then next morning we hit the road and traveled through vineyard country, and started getting into the trees. Believe it or not, up until this point, the whole landscape was pretty boring. It was flat except for a scant tree or farmer's field breaking the horizon. Our next stop was the blooming metropolis of Yakima, WA. What? You've never heard of Yakima? Neither had I, until we made a pit stop there to stretch our legs. I'm glad we stopped because they had a cool stone church. It had some interesting architecture and stained glass windows.

From Yakima we went to Snoqualmie Falls. This just happens to be an ASCE landmark (American Society of Civil Engineers). I can't help but feel proud and smug about this fact. From there we went to Seattle, and then took a ferry across the Puget Sound to Bainbridge, Wa. Upon reaching Bainbridge we drove about an hour north to Port Angeles. During our drive we stopped off at some cool totem poles and found some cute little birds that look possessed in our pictures. Cute, but possessed.

We spent the night in Port Angeles, and our hotel was just a five minute walk from the pier. That morning we woke up to the sound of a beautiful carillon. If we looked out our window we could look across Port Angeles, and spy it. Did you know that every year Port Angeles has a sand sculpture competition with 10 of the world's best sand sculpture artists? It was incredible! They held the competition on Hollywood beach which is right near the pier in downtown Port Angeles. They actually used riverbed sand, due to the fact that it's more angular, thereby more adhesive. We had to do a speed version of the competition because our ferry was coming soon. I didn't really see a lot of the town, but we did find a dough nut shop called Cock-a-doodle Doughnuts, which was pretty tasty. Now for my confession: don't think I'm a geek or anything, but the timing on going to Port Angeles was perfect, what with the release of the final Twilight novel coming out in a scant three or four days. How cool is that? I couldn't keep myself from looking around for a silver Volvo, the "Bella Italiana" restaurant, or a dark haired girl looking at bookshops along the boardwalk. And in my mind I kept thinking "Bella was here." Embarrassing, I know, but what would you have done? (Any guys reading this who haven't read the books don't count.) Our stay in Port Angeles was only a morning because it was just a stepping stone to get to Canada. But the town had a nice, artsy feel, with rustic buildings, painted murals, sculptures and quaint gift shops. I would recommend going there.

I took my second ever ferry ride out of the United States. The ferry ride was about an hour long. My dad feel asleep, my mother and sister were glued to the front, Don wandered, and I waved goodbye to America and watched in anticipation for Victoria all while snapping pictures of random objects and my family. We'd just gotten a new camera for this trip because I, uh, lostheotherone. Moving on...

Our condo was located just a short distance away from the Inner Harbor of Victoria, and in the Industrial part of town that is in the being developed. One of the newest developments is a biking/walking trail that is where the tracks of their old "Galloping Goose" railroad used to be. When we first drove up to the Gateway Condos, we noticed that they were painted in the same colors and order of the rainbow...was this a bad omen? Luckily, it was just that side, and on the inside, the condo was extremely modern, and European. Our balcony had a view that made both sexes happy. The men because they could sit and watch the car wrecking yard, and the women because there was a little arm of the inner harbor stretching out before us which was often animated with scullers and small boats.

Victoria was everything and more that I thought it would be. It wasn't as strange for me to leave the country this time. For one thing, English and French were the national languages, and for another thing, I was going to a nice city, not some armpit. The centerpieces of Victoria were the Parliament Building and Empress Hotel. Both were exquisite! Victoria is like a little slice of England. It even has its very own Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. The museum is really cool, but unsettling, once you learn it's history. Let me give you a hint: guillotine and death masks. Gross. However, don't let that deter you from going, the only other place you can find something like that is in London. There were also cathedrals and (like Port Angeles) a carillon, only much more grand. Of course there were other influences as well, like the First Nationalists/Aborigines, here we call them Native Americans. They had an entire park dedicated to totem poles. One of the things that was going on while we were there is that First Nationalists were also holding some annual games. There was also a China Town, which we didn't have a chance to see. We didn't get to was the Buchard Gardens either, which are supposed to be phenomenal. But we kind-of had a substitute for those because we toured the grounds of the Government House. Government House is supposed to be like the Butchart Gardens, but free and taken care of by volunteers. Victoria is, after all, known as "the City of Gardens". And there were of gardens everywhere! The restaurants and stores had gardens outside, I think even McDonalds had one. Walking down the street I swear that there were at least ten hanging baskets for each side of the street not a single one had a dead flower or was mis-matched.

We took a day trip to see the west side of the Island, and walked through the magnificent coniferous forests at China Beach. Believe it or not, that was my favorite part. It's like the redwoods, only with Christmas trees. Wicked. And there was green everywhere! Blankets of moss and ferns swathed everything in sight because the area gets so much rainfall. We hiked about a kilometer to China Beach. The China Beach forest was so incredibly tall! And extremely limber(...ha, limber lumber...hehehe...). The trees would contort with the slightest gust of wind. The wind caused the scent of pine to waft and weave around the roots and branches until it reached your nose. This made it easily to get lost in the whole place, to look up at the patches of turquoise sky and watch the trees spin around you. The trail slowly promenaded down the path and changed from emerald and jade polished leaves, to a place where the air was murky and the trees only had naked limbs at their bases. Just as we came over the rise of a hill, I could see brilliant, sparkling water dancing through the trees. The the closer we got, the more I could hear the rush of the ocean, which made my heart skip a beat. If I could pick my own personal heaven, it would be there. Sometimes in life, you have moments where you feel like you're looking at God, and he's looking back at you. How could a place be so beautiful that it made me want to root into the ground, and envious of the trees? I don't think I've seen anything more breathtaking. After heading down a wooden paneled stair case, and meandering through a maze of tall flowers and shrubs we came to the rugged China Beach. Don was like a little kid as he hopped from rock-to-rock looking for crabs. I think that he'd made a pact to himself to leave no rock unturned, and no crustacean in peace. It was probably one of the most relaxing parts of the entire trip...listening to the cadence of the waves, feeling the warm sun hit my face, seeing the indigo outline of the island in the distance, all while the tide slowly crawled up the rocky beach.

We also went whale watching. By "we" I mean me, Ashley, and my mother. Travel was provided via the Prince of Whales company. They supplied a motorized yellow raft that could fit 10 people, all clothed in red water-resistant suits. The entire trip took about 4-4.5 hours, I think. It was dang cold. I didn't realize until that expedition that my mother is insane. I repeat, insane. While Ashley and I had cinched our hoods so that only our noses were poking out, my mother had a serene smile on her face while the wind blasted us. Our expedition paid off. We hit a pod of 30-40 Killer Whales that entertained us with their graceful movements. The little babies were the funnest to watch. They'd surface, and playfully flap the tips of their tales until they disappeared back into the water. One of them even waved to us with it's little flipper, which caused it to raspberry when it went under. It was like the fourth of July in a blue world...a blue sphere below and above, separated only by a thin line of darker blue. Our fellow rafters would gasp, point and laugh excitedly as they saw triangles of black randomly appear. At times it was deadly silent as everyone held their breath waiting for a nearby whale to surface, hoping that it didn't overturn our little raft. We only dared to breath when it's heavy breath broke the quiet. Beautiful.

While we were whale watching, Don and my dad saw some more of the sites around Victoria. They went to the totem pole park, a Tudor style home, a cathedral, and the Craigdarroch castle. The Craigdarrcoh Castle is really a mansion. It was built by the most wealthy man in Victoria at the time, and cost roughly half the price that it took to build the Manti temple. In fact, they were built around the same time period. It had buttresses, glass windows, and an amazing checker board stone railing that wrapped around the front. It had once had acres and acres of gardens, but it was to expensive to maintain them, so they sold the land. The man who built it, a coal baron by the name of Robert Dunsmuir didn't have a son, and his wife couldn't bear to split the estate between the daughters, so the estate feel into disrepair. I heard it was once sold for a dollar, but the deal didn't go through because the buyer didn't have enough money to pay the sales tax. So it went from being a mansion to a military hospital, to a college, then a school board, then a conservatory of music, and has found it's final resting place as a museum. There's intricate wood carvings and Victorian-era furniture inside. Of course I've never been inside. I just drove to the outside and took a picture. But while I was looking at the building I couldn't help but think it was seriously twisted. For some reason I couldn't help feeling that something crazy had happened like some insane woman had jumped from the Romeo and Juliet style balcony.

The next day we left Victoria, and took a ferry back to America. This ferry kicked the crap out of all of the other ferry rides. Mainly because the water was more choppy, which made the ride more exciting. We also had to twist and navigate our way through the San Jaun Islands. Seeing these islands made me feel a variety of feelings. I was happy because I achieved a goal that I'd had all summer: to have an adventure. As I stood out on the bow of the ferry, I couldn't help feeling excited, like I was an explorer discovering the Islands (never mind the fact that some of them were inhabited). It also made me want to be filthy rich, or at least rich enough to buy my own sail boat so that I could come back and see all of the different islands and name one. I was pretty sad to get off the ferry and back on the road home. I only got over my anguish by eating the biggest piece of chocolate cake I'd ever seen--courtesy of the excellent and admirable Claim Jumper restaurant. The power of chocolate cake can do many things, including staving depression.

Unfortunately it can't make me forget all of the new places I'd seen and experienced. I have to be honest, I'm extremely depressed to be back. While I pride myself on being a "desert rat"-- I know that the sky is never more blue when it's against red rock, or that water never smells as good as it does on a hot summer day. I just couldn't help falling in love with the whole Olympic Peninsula/British Columbia area. What have I been doing all of these years depriving myself of rain and vegetation?? I found heaven, and now I have to come back to a place that's as hot as Hades! I still can't help glaring at the dried, brittle weeds and brown mountains as I drive around. I miss green so much I could cry. If I ever have my way, I will end up there,...or at least go back. It has everything! Mountains, forests, sea, flowers that grow wild off the side of the road....but, that's enough self-pity for now. And this is the end of our tour. Thank you for joining me and reading this obscenely long post, and goodbye!