Finding America

Had to get an early start today in order to catch our ferry to Victoria. We pulled the Fox and Kodi into the massive hull of the ship. Then took some stairs up to the passenger’s deck. They had a nice galley and we I picked up a paper and a coffee. We found some nice window seats and made a few cell phone calls before we got too far off shore.

It was a nice crossing. Very calm waters and the weather cleared and offered nice views of the Strait. We passed a lot of ships in this busy shipping lane. About 90 minutes after embarking we were pulling into the picturesque Victoria.

With no problems at customs, not even a declaration form, we drove off to our RV site only 5 minutes away across the bay. We got a site on the water and then drove back into the city for some exploring. We parked and walked around a few blocks checking out this ultra clean and trendy town.

We walked through Market Square and along the downtown streets. As it was lunch time we popped into the nicest and most elaborately decorated Irish Pub I’ve ever been in. Irish Times had great food. We had the sandwich, soup and salad special and a pint of Kamrin’s favorite beer from Ireland – Caffrey’s. The place has live music every night of the week and by the bustling lunch crowd showed that this was a hot spot.

We walked along the waterfront after lunch and stopped off in the Visitor’s Center to get some idea of the “must see” attractions and to nab a schedule for the ferry to Vancouver. We saw a pretty outstanding arrest on the way. A female officer had the hoodlum face down and held him down with a knee in his back while he squirmed and moaned about how he was innocent. Wow….I felt like we were watching Cops.

We re-parked the Fox near the Royal BC Museum and picked up tickets to tour the exhibits. They had a huge exhibit dedicated to the Titanic. It was really well done. Artifacts from the wreckage, docents dressed as passengers, replicas of the cabins and even a bus sized piece of ice shaped like an iceberg gave this exhibit a world class appeal.

We continued upstairs and toured through three other exhibits: BC’s Natural History, the First People’s Exhibit and finally an excellent exhibit on BC’s human history from it’s pioneering days to the present. There were full sized cityscapes, working grain mills and dank mine shafts. It was really cool…..unit Kamrin and I got separated from each other in this massive exhibit. I spent 20 minutes looking for her and since our cell phones didn’t work I couldn’t call here like when we got separated in Powell’s Books in Seattle. Fortunately before I resorted to having her paged on the PA, I found her patiently waiting at the end of the exhibit – LOL why didn’t I try that first.

We had a good laugh and really did enjoy the museum. Across the street from the museum is British Columbia’s Parliament building. We took some photos here and continued back into the downtown area for some shopping and relaxing. We had curry on the mind for an early dinner and had some time to kill before the Curry House opened up. So we stopped in some stores and did some window shopping. We took a spin through a book shop, listened to the street musicians and stood awestruck by the one artist’s sidewalk chalk drawing of Vermeer’s “GIrl with a Pearl Earing”. Then it was off to dinner. The meal was outstanding and everything we ordered was cooked to perfection. It is easy to see why it has won the award for best Indian restaurant in town.

We returned home after dinner and did a little reading before falling to sleep the second our head hit the pillows. Days like these are exciting, new places and people, new experiences but exhausting nonetheless. So it was Zzzzzzz’s the second the lights were out.