Victoria BC

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Our journey into Canada with 3 other rigs began with a stop at Mount Saint Helens in Washington, site of the enormous 1980 volcanic eruption. Visiting the site and seeing the extent of the devastation makes one realize the overwhelming forces of nature. The side of the mountain literally blew out, creating blistering winds, enormous mud flows, and tons of volcanic ash that drifted around the world--a very sobering reminder that we are just a speck in the geologic timeline of our planet.

From there, we traveled north to Port Angeles, Washington. All four rigs were driven (very carefully) onto the Coho Ferry for a ride across the Strait of Juan De Fuca, into Victoria, provincial capital of British Columbia. We stayed at the only RV park in the city, with a great view across the Inner Harbor. We saw cruise ships, Canadian naval vessels, ferries, and lots of seaplanes taking off and landing.

One day, while visiting the Parliament building, we were given special visitor badges to the legislators’ private dining room—we sat at a table next to the mayor of Victoria and a delegation from the Philippines. Lunch was good and more moderately priced than elsewhere in Victoria, because the dining room is probably subsidized by the government.

Victoria is a very clean, easy-to-walk-around city, with a real British flavor, and gorgeous flowers all over town. Although we benefited from the favorable US to Canadian dollar ratio, prices seemed a bit high--especially in the grocery stores where we had some difficulty translating ounces and pounds into liters and grams. (Should have paid more attention in school when the metric system was taught…)

Alan took a seaplane tour with 3 of the other guys, and they got an aerial view of the entire city, surrounding islands, and city of Vancouver as well. We visited the magnificent Butchart Gardens, created out of an inactive quarry—by far the most magnificent public gardens we’ve seen anywhere.

We then took one of the BC Ferries across to Vancouver, chosen as the site for the 2010 Winter Olympics, where we spent a few days exploring--details in the next installment.

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Photos

Mount St. Helens
Top of volcano way up in the clouds, utter devastation for miles, but some vegetation coming back

Coho Ferry
We're driving the bus in here?

Coho Ferry 2
Here we go!

Coho Ferry 3
Packed in like sardines....we're the one way back on the far left

Victoria Inner Harbor
Coho Ferry in the harbor

Victoria Water Taxis
Cute little taxis for crossing the harbor

Butchart Gardens 3
Created out of an old quarry