Well, I made it here with no problems. So far the city is lovely. By the time I cheked in and relaxed a bit, it was 4:00. I set out on foot to explore and found--joy of joys--Jaffa Cakes. Life is so good.
And indeed that is what happened. But first, a few pics from the journey.
Right, in the map above, it shows, in red, the route I took on the ferry. Directly to the right is Port Townsend. If you go south of Port Townsend on the map, and find the Highway 104 sign--that's sort of where I live.
Anyway, I drove from Port Ludlow to Port Angeles on Monday morning. It takes a little over and hour, and I had very little traffic to contend with. I arrived in PA, parked my car in one of the lanes for the ferry loading, and left it to explore the town.
One thing about PA--this was my second visit, and it only confirmed what I learned the first time: it must be the most boring and depressing town on the Olympic Peninsula. It's a shame, really. It could be absolutely lovely. The Olympic mountain range is right there, and it's right on the Straigt of Juan de Fuca. It should be gorgeous...but it's dirty, economically depressed, and even the restaurants are all just tired old greasy spoons. I was needing lunch before I got on the ferry. My best option? Dairy Queen.
Yeah.
Anyway, I only wandered around for a half hour before buying a fatty old Dairy Queen burger and heading back to my car and The Da Vinci Code.
Before I knew it, the time to load onto the Coho had arrived. I was ready:
Once I had Rosie settled on the car deck, I went upstairs to look around and, of course, take some pics.
Leaving PA:
The Coho is not like the Washington State Ferries, in that it's not got controls, propellers and rudders at both ends. It has an actual bow and stern to it. This means that when it was arriving in Victoria, it had to turn around and "back it's thang up" to the dock before it could let anyone off.
Not one who likes riding backwards, I found myself wandering to the stern to see a distant Canada. I found it roped off temporarily while this guy did...whatever it was he as doing:
Then I did my "I'm King of the World!!" impression by standing on one of those little blocks at the front. Otherwise, I couldn't see. : P
Here's a pic of the Straight of Juan de Fuca, looking straight out west to the Pacific (it's a long way out--I never really knew how massive the Puget Sound is--it's quite impressive, really):
Of course, the land mass on the left of the picture is Washington, and the land mass on the right is Canada (Vancouver Island, to be precise).
We arrived in Victoria's Inner Harbour (yes, English-English spelling) at about 3:15. I didn't get to see Victoria in all of it's glory right away because I had to go back to the car deck and strap in.
I got off quite quickly and drove through Customs, where a very nice lady asked all kinds of questions, including:
1. Where do you live?
2. Where do you work?
3. What do you do there?
4. Have any tobacco, firearms or agricultural products?
The whole, "where do you work and what do you do?" threw me a little. But I suppose they have to be careful who they just let in.
Even with all that, I breezed through Customs quickly and found myself out on the streets of Victoria with one major question suddenly popping into my head: What side of the street do they drive on?!? Turns out they drive on the right (as in right-handed and correct...sorry, little jab for my English friends!) side of the street, much to my relief. There's a reason I never drove in England.
It was super-easy to find my hotel, because Canadians employ another thing that American's do: grid layouts in cities. My hotel was about 6 or 7 blocks from the Inner Harbour, so I found it quickly and with minimal driving stress.
I got checked in and found my room. I set off to explore on foot, finding my bearings and a little shop called English Sweet Shop. First thought through my head was, "Oh hell yeah... Jaffa Cakes!!!"
Yes, Jaffa Cakes. What are they? They're a shortbread cake with a dollop of marmalade, covered by chocolate (only one gram of fat per cookie!!). They're English, and I loooove them. And you can't buy them in the States. I bought two boxes. Happy, happy girl.
It was overcast and starting to sprinkle a bit, so I decided to find some dinner and then head back to the hotel for the night. I had dinner at the hotel restaurant, Syn. Then I went up to read a bit and get to bed so I could have an early start the next day.
To be continued...
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