Victoria and Beyond!!!!!

We took a little vacation the week before Thanksgiving this year.  Our friend Susan visited us from Provo so we decided to have a little adventure.  We headed North on Sunday with our luggage and a bag of goldfish crackers.  Good thing we had them or we would have starved!  First we caught the Edmonds-Kingston ferry and drove to the Hood Canal Bridge, which was closed for about 25 minutes due to weather (we think).  Even with the delay we made it on the Black Ball Ferry that left from Port Angeles to go to Victoria, BC.  The ferry ride was really rocky and I even got a little sea sick along the way.  We arrived in Victoria just as the sun was setting.  My Mom and Dad were nice enough to let us borrow their time share for the trip.  The time share is located right down the street from the ferry terminal, so we didn’t have any trouble finding the place.  Once we got all settled we cooked dinner and just relaxed for the rest of the evening. 

Monday morning we went to breakfast at this “hippy” place near Chinatown.  It was pretty good, they had these really good pesto potatoes.  After that we just walked around Market Square and Chinatown.  Supposedly, Victoria’s Chinatown is the first Chinatown to be built in Canada.  It seems like winter is downtime in Victoria and there weren’t many people there or many stores open.  After we finished up there we headed to Craigdorrach Castle, which is a mansion that a wealthy family built in the 1800’s.  I wouldn’t call it a “castle”, but it was pretty fancy and it was interesting seeing how people lived back then.  The furnishing are mostly from the original family that built the house, so that was pretty impressive.  Next time we visit Victoria, I’d really like to visit Hatley Park, which is the house built by the oldest son of that family.  The pictures make it look like somewhere Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice would live…After the Castle we headed home for a little break, but headed out again later in the afternoon.  We set off on foot from the time share and saw the Parlament Building, Empress Hotel and walked to Victoria’s downtown which has a lot of little shops and resturants.  We got fish and chips at this little place, they were pretty good.  After exploring a little we headed back to the hotel since it was getting pretty late.  We did a little FHE at the time share then we caught dinner at a Japanese place then went to watch “The Blind Side” (that football movie with Sandra Bullock).  It was a pretty inspiring movie.  Showed that some people still have good hearts and it’s always good to try to help others out when you can. 

Tuesday morning we headed out to catch the morning ferry back to the US of A.  We drove through Port Angeles a little, but then we headed to the center of Twilight-dom and drove to Forks, WA.  Home of the Cullen vampires etc.  Forks was as small and bleak as the books described…I think there were like 20 buildings in the whole town max.  We ate lunch in a little diner, checked out the local high school and some Twilight stores…that was about all there was to do there.  After Forks, we headed back home. 

Overall, the trip was pretty nice and relaxing.  Victoria was very quaint and peaceful and a perfect Christmas town.  Maybe next time we’re up North we’ll visit the National Park and Victoria’s other sites.

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