Day 13 - Port Angeles WA to Victoria BC

September 2017

Day 1 - Toronto to Chesterton IN
Day 2 - Chesterton IN to Rochester MN
Day 3 - Rochester MN to Lincoln NB
Day 4 - Lincoln NB to Denver CO

Weekly recap with more photos
Day 5 - Denver CO to Rapid City SD
The Curtis Hotel Denver CO funky themed floors
Day 6 - Rapid City SD Mount Rushmore City of Presidents
Day 7 - Rapid City SD to Billings MT Crazy Horse and Little Big Horn
Day 8 - Billings MT to Driggs ID
Day 9 - Jackson Hole WY and Grand Teton NP

Day 10 - Yellowstone National Park

Day 11 - Driggs ID to Spokane WA

Weekly Recap
Day 12 - Spokane WA to Port Angeles WA


September 17

Up early to catch the ferry, we have to be there an hour ahead at 7:30. Not quite bright as we drive to the ferry.

Our passports are checked, we pay for our return trip and are assigned a parking spot. Once we complete a customs form with name and date of birth we are free to wander. We go for coffee.

Art created by children called “Fish on the Fence” is located along the waterfront near the Landing Mall.

A closer look at the totem poles.

I'm not sure what this represents.

A gorgeous sunrise.

We board the ferry and take what we need as no one is allowed down on the car deck until it is time to disembark in Victoria.
It is a 90 minute crossing so we arrived around 10 AM.

Approaching Victoria.

Disembarking in Victoria, we easily clear Canadian customs.

We had decided on the ferry that we would go straight to Butchart Gardens, been on my bucket list forever and John is just perplexed as to why I am so excited to be finally going there!

The gardens deserve their own post but let's just say that John was impressed.

When the limestone quarry on the Butchart family estate was exhausted, Mrs. Butchart decided a bit of landscaping would spruce up the area. A few years later in 1904, the magnificent Sunken Garden was opened to the public. Since then the family has added a rose garden, an Italian garden and a Japanese garden. More than 1 million plants are displayed throughout the course of a year, including 700 varieties of flowers.

We managed to see almost all of the gardens when it started to rain so we scurried to the car.

Next stop was Sidney. It continued raining as we had lunch and then strolled.

.Banners on the main street.

Like many towns, the utility boxes are decorated with local decor.

A dark and gloomy day.

One of Sidney's first sculptures, the "Old Man by the Sea" has graced Sidney's waterfront since 1991.

A little girl placed this flower as we were taking photos.

Jake James Pirate

According to its plaque, the diver was carved from a single, 80-foot tall standing red cedar tree by Alan C. Porter in the mid-1980s, then donated to the town by the Hotel Sidney [now the Sidney Waterfront Inn and Spa].

A mural dedicated to the oceans.

B.C. wildlife

It's raining harder, we've been up since 6 AM, it is now 3 PM so we decide we should check if we can check in and relax. YES!

We are here for two nights!

This Is How We Vegas - Week 6.5

January 24 - January 30 - Las Vegas / Los Angeles

This is week 6.5 because we leave LV on Wednesday. We moved three times this week with the load getting smaller each time.

Saturday was a gorgeous warm day. We had bacon and eggs for breakfast and will use the remainder of the bacon and eggs on Sunday before we move condos.

We spent the morning organizing our suitcases for our two month trip to East Pacific. We start in Singapore, then fly to Bangkok Thailand, fly to Siem Reap and then join a tour which includes a Mekong river cruise ending in Ho Chi Minh Vietnam. We then fly to Australia where we spend a month touring Australia and New Zealand.
We also booked our flights home on March 26 from Auckland NZ to LA using points woo hoo!

As we sorted through what we needed for the next few days as we move to another condo on the 25th for three nights, John is golfing on Tuesday and then we drive to LA on the 28th, we decided perhaps we should get a bigger suitcase for one of us.
We went off to Wal*Mart and found a 25 inch for John. Picked up some other items like kleenex (I remember those hole in the floor toilets in China and Egypt!!), hand sanitizer (ditto) and various other sundries.
Back to the condo and we re-packed everything again. So we now have:
2 suitcases packed for overseas that must come into the hotel in LA as we are dropping the car off for long term parking.
1 bag for the remaining 3 days in LV - contains stuff that will remain in  the car.
Old suitcase (replaced) with stuff that we don't need until it is time to drive back east such was sweatshirts, jeans etc.


We had a lunch of chili (frozen from New Year's) and then headed out. First stop was the Mormon Fort Museum.
Will post more photos separately.

Then we went to the Atomic Liquors Bar. We had been there last week but it didn't open until 4PM.
Very cool place, will do a separate post on it. So named as people used to come here for cocktails and watch the atomic bomb testing that took place in the desert.

John wanted pizza for dinner so we googled and found great reviews for Pizza Rock but we had been there. We decided we wanted to get wings and pizza and take it back to the condo.
Naked City had good reviews and had been featured on Guy Fieri's Diners, Dives and Drive-Ins. This should have been a bad clue as we had tried one of his suggestions in Toronto The Lakeview and it was horrible.
We drove there, place our order and as we waited, we noticed that there was a Gay Nightclub across the street. A guy came in to eat, dressed in his high heels. John and I both made the same comment, he was so gorgeous, just beautiful.

I wish the same could be said of the pizza. The wings were good, the pizza not. We had asked for hot peppers, I think we found 1 strip of green pepper.

Sunday was another moving day, check out by 10AM. We finished the bacon and eggs. Then sorted out the food items.

One cooler with remaining food that we will use up or leave in the cooler in the car. A can of tuna that we can have for lunch, pork chops and broccoli for 1 dinner, potato chips, some milk, coffee, salad dressing, mustard, hot sauce and mayo (definitely not coming to LA).
1 bag with extras, not needed, paper towels, Tupperware, potato masher.
1 sports bag
1 bag boots and stuff
1 bag of techie stuff - laptop, cameras, e-readers cords, head sets etc
Case of water
Case of beer

This is what it looked like going into our car. Missing are the golf clubs already in the car as well as the heavier coats which are also in the trunk along with one lone coffee mug bought in Little Rock AR.

Mesquite was our destination for the Hot Air Balloon Festival. Mesquite is about 75 miles north of LV.
Heading out of Vegas.

I had read that Saturday's events were cancelled due to high winds but that Sunday was expected to take place. Nope, not to be, cancelled again.

We drove around town looking for somewhere to have lunch other than a casino. We settled on Peggy Sue's Diner. One of the best steak sandwiches we have ever had.

 

A glimpse of the Strip, as the day goes on around Vegas the dust creates a curtain around the city.

A painless check-in at Worldmark, owned by Wyndham, but they have a relationship with VI so we rented this unit for $20 a day.

Much smaller than Grandview but good for a few days. Fireplace and a balcony are nice added features.

Full kitchen is appreciated.

Good crisp linens.

We settled in for bread, cheese and pate for dinner.

Monday morning was spent mostly lazing around and backing up the laptop and getting posts ready.

We needed to get some travel documents printed. We had tuna sandwiches for lunch.

Monday evening, in the rain, we headed out for dinner at a Las Vegas institution, Battisa's,  I posted it here.

Tuesday John headed out to play golf with his Vegas buddies at Boulder City Creek. I hung around and we had pork chops and broccoli for dinner.

Wednesday, another moving day, we packed up and were out of the condo by 8:40 AM. We dropped into CVS (pharmacy) for a couple of things and then into Fry's for some batteries but they didn't have the size we needed. After a wrong turn ( in the wrong lane) onto I 15 North we were on our way.