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Totems
Part of the Pacific Northwest cultural heritage, these poles are scattered throughout most towns and cities. I had a "where the heck am I?" moment last night.
We had gone out for a night on the town in Duncan, BC. We went for the "famous" wing night at the Oak & Carriage Pub (at 35 cents per wing, and too many flavours to choose from, how could you go wrong?), followed by a movie at the 80's era Duncan movie theatre.
When the movie ended (we had seen
21) and the lights came up, I had no idea where I was. I was in a familiar setting...a movie theatre. But it was an unfamiliar theatre with some people I didn't know all that well. A moment of utter confusion.
That's when I remembered...we were travelling. We actually have started the next chapter. We've been "tourists" for a couple weeks now. Odd. Especially odd because we've made the
Iguana Ranch just outside Duncan our camp for a little while. We've gotten comfortable here, and we're leaving in just a few more days. After about 10 days of pulling weeds, sanding wooden tables and benches, babysitting (Hi Ginger!), cooking and various other chores, we've "paid" for our accommodation at the Iguana Ranch. Anita and Paul have a lovely
Vancouver
A view in downtown Vancouver place on a wonderful piece of property, and it has been a great place to stay. There were a couple of other workers there, so we had people to work with and enjoy the hot tub and sauna with. It was quite the busy place. It's in a bit of a transition now, as they move away from the guest house business towards being a wedding venue. The transition meant there was often lots of confusion over what needed to be done, so although Anita insisted that we were very helpful, we didn't really feel like we worked very hard. Part of that was also the weather.
While we were in Duncan, we had all 4 seasons. We had the drizzly, expected B.C. weather, but we also had several snow falls, warm sunny afternoons, breezy cool autumn-like days, and fresh spring-like mornings. The snow caught everyone off guard, as apparently it hasn't snowed in mid-April for the past 20 years.
But despite the crazy weather, we loved working at the Iguana Ranch. It will be great to see it once the transition is finished. It would be such a lovely spot to be in the summer!!
So other than
Springtime!
Daffodils and tulips greeted us everywhere we went! 10 days outside of Duncan, BC, what have we done? We spent a few days in Vancouver, met up with friends and spent our time wandering around downtown in search of a decent coffee (and blowing a good chunk of money doing so..oops), and getting lots of sleep at the Urban Hideaway Guesthouse, which I will highly recommend as a place to stay. We watched sea planes land from our bench at Canada Place, watched an improv show on Broadway with friends formerly from Montreal, ate whole-wheat crust pizza on Commercial Drive, and spent hours in outdoor shops. It felt good to be back in Canada, even if only the subtle differences were noted: the familiar accents, the queues for the bus, the politeness of the beggars on the street (as noted by Dave). The weather was fantastic, and we were lucky to have missed most of the rain.
We also got our night photos of the Parliament in Victoria and watched seals swim by the house boats in the cute town of Cowachin Bay (which according to the Lonely Planet should not be confused with Cowachin Lake...we did have lunch there too, and it's not terribly exciting).
Bike-friendly cities
In the Victoria markets Having spent a month in the Vancouver area, we really haven't seen all that much...we haven't been very good "tourists", as we haven't had a checklist to check off nor have we paid for a single museum or tourist attraction. I suspect we won't really start acting like tourists until we get to New York...although we will have a few days in Seattle first.
But I have definitely discovered that I would really like to thoroughly explore Vancouver Island. I'll put that on our "to-see" list.
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