Hey there. Have gotten a bunch of feedback saying that folks are checking the blog on a regular basis. Now that’s cool. 
So we wrapped up our time in Vancouver Monday, and got up Tuesday to head out to Victoria.
This was taken on the ferry from a little town south of Vancouver to a little town north of Victoria:
Check out one of the streets near our hostel:
And, the historic Parliament building in downtown Victoria:
At the moment, I cannot remember the name of this place, and I don’t have my Lonely Planet book along to rescue me from my forgetfulness. When we got there, it was raining (imagine that!!) and when I got out of the car to put money in the parking thingy, I could hear a thunderous roar not far away. We got our gear together, got outta the car and took off for the noise. As good a photog as I am (ahem) these pics unfortunately do not do the place justice. The volume of water coming down off this mountain was absolutely astonishing.
Many times while we’ve been seeing the stuff we’ve been seeing I’ve wished that I could convey the sounds as well as the images. But that costs “real” money.
When we first rounded the corner, I saw thundering rapids. Even my brother in law wouldn’t dare take a kayak down this! There was a stairway to guide you along the way, and one of the first things we saw was this…
…and I still didn’t even register how enormous this waterfall was…thinking it was just a bunch of rapids…(dummy me)…
…until we got up to the “viewing platform”. Then I looked up, and up, and up……and way, way up there, Niagara Falls was cascading off the mountain. No kidding. It was like the Falls of Rauros in LOTR TT. (Lord of the Rings Two Towers…the second of three movies made about the famous trilogy.)
And, even yet more proof that Karen is here:
Hee. Enjoy!
The one time in my life (so far) that I get to Whistler, and it’s doing the “Hawaiian Punch” thing. That’s the phrase that the locals are using to describe the incessant and overwhelming deluge they’ve been dealing with this winter. (Same basic idea is what we were calling “El Nino” couple years back…) While we’ve been in Vancouver, we’ve had two of seven days of intermittent drizzle. The rest has been unremitting downpour. Wow.
Back to the Whistler thing. We actually rented a car for a day because that was cheaper (by far) than most of the other transportation options. Go figure. It was a 2 hour drive if you didn’t stop, but we stopped. There were two things that we wanted to see along the way that taking a bus would not have allowed. One was a spectacular waterfall, and the other was an eagle habitat. Apparently eagles congregate somewhere just north of Squamish (which is a small town that’s halfway between Vancouver and Whistler on the “Sea to Sky Highway” or BC 99) to pick off dead salmon from the river as they wash back out to sea. For those who don’t know about salmon spawning, it’s a huge deal around here (British Columbia), and the annual ordeal kills millions of salmon. Anyways, the upshot is that there are some 3500 bald eagles that make their home just north of Squamish for a few months during the winter to take advantage of this scavengers’ banquet. It was so cool that we stopped on the way up and on the way back.
Here’s what the place looked like:
Here’s an eagle (apologies for the resolution…my whole kingdom and my right arm for Photoshop…):
In flight:
Oncoming!
When we actually made it to Whistler, it was kind of a letdown after seeing a bunch of beautiful bald eagles and the waterfall I mentioned before. The drive to Whistler has the potential to be awe-inspiring. Unfortunately in this case, because it was pouring rain and foggy, we were unable to see any of the terrain. I didn’t even bother seriously considering skiing because the conditions were/are so bad. The place was still pretty busy though. And the one redeeming thing was that they had this rockin’ Irish pub, and they served me a couple pints of the “other” beer that is owned by the Guiness company: Kilkenny. For whatever reason, this beer is not available in the states. Go figure. Word is they don’t think there’s a market for it. Morons. Now for those of you who are Guiness fans, imagine a pint of beer that acts a lot like Guiness (great big frothy head, looks real cool right after it’s been poured) and tastes like a “bitter” version of Guiness. Now, I don’t mean that the beer tastes bitter, but that it’s like a “bitter” (name for a kind of ale) that you would find in an English (or Irish) pub. Anyways, bottom line is, it’s great, and it’s a good thing my wife was there, or I’d still be there drinking it. Heh.
So, midafternoon rolled around after our lunch at Whistler (you couldn’t even see up the slopes…the lift lines vanished into the fog after about 50 meters) and we got on our way back down to Vancouver. Wouldn’t you know, we got on the road and it pretty much stopped raining. Argh. The good news is, it was still light out and now on the way back we were able to check stuff out that we were unable to see on the way up due to fog. That night, we got back to our hostel in Vancouver, packed up our gear and got ready for another travel day (Vancouver to Victoria, which is the capital of British Columbia, on the georgeous Vancouver Island).
You can actually buy Cuban cigars here in Canada. Legally. And for those who care about such things, yes, it really, really does make a difference. Wow.
There is a neighborhood in Vancouver called “Gastown”. I know, I know, it wouldn’t have been my first choice either, but it was named for a guy they called “Gassy Jack”. Hehehe. Yeah, it gets better. He was called “Gassy” for the other reason men might be called such a thing: he had a habit of talking a lot. He was the first alcohol salesman in Vancouver. This picture is an experiment with me doing a handheld time-lapse exposure in Gastown. My kingdom for a tripod…
This cool item is called a Steam Clock. It runs on steam, and insead of chiming with bells as most old fashioned clocks might be expected to do, it “chimes” using steam whistles, kind of like you might expect to hear on a coal-fired steam locomotive.
Wednesday night Karen and I ate at a restaurant called “The Boathouse”, which overlooks the English Bay. We split an order of their fish and chips. My comment to Karen was: if I walk out of here tonight and get hit by a bus I can die a happy man.
Best. Fish. And. Chips. Ever.
Wow.
Something about rainy weather makes you crave English food. Funny how that works, huh?
So, as we were walking down Denman Street after getting lost in Stanley Park (which is awesome, and yes I have pics, and yes I will post them…but not tonight…) [edit: new pics posted below! 1/22/05] on our way to said fish and chips dinner, we passed AT LEAST a dozen restaurants that I want to try. I guess that seals it. We HAVE to move here now.
Stanley park pics (resembles the forest moon of Endor for a very good reason…they shot Return of the Jedi in a similar kind of forest in N. Cal):
And now the fun part. The restaurant at which we experienced this transcendant English cuisine? Recommended to us by an Air Canada pilot on a shuttle bus from plane to plane in Toronto Airport. (Frickin’ 4 degrees F in Toronto…blech…) Way to go Air Canada, eh? Heh.
