Vancouver Island - Day 8

We spent the day wandering around Victoria, which was much busier than I wanted it to be, especially once you got downtown.  We first drove to Craigdarroch Castle and toured it.  Then we drove to Beacon Hill Park, ate lunch and walked across the park to the Mile 0 marker for the Trans Canada (Evan complained that both Victoria and St. John's have Mile 0), and the third Terry Fox statue (the other two being where he started in St. John's and where he stopped in Thunder Bay - we visited those two years ago).  We then briefly visited a nearby garage sale, where we were able to buy a new, unopened snowball thrower, since, as the homeowner pointed out, we'd have more use for it than her kids did.

Then it was in to downtown Victoria for the rest of the day.  It was pretty busy downtown, but we managed to find a parking spot in a lot by the marina.  We then went through a miniature showcase, which was a bit of a tourist thing, but we all really enjoyed the miniature scenes that had been created.  Alex would have loved the couple of World War 2 ones, I enjoyed the numerous trains, Sandra liked the intricate interiors to some of the miniature buildings, Evan liked the airplanes and the younger two loved that you could press buttons to make things move in the scenes.

At this point, we were all pretty tired and it was hot and we still had a few hours before we could get in line for the ferry.  We walked to the legislative buildings, but the kids were worn out, so we ended up deciding to go and find some supper.  Government Street in Victoria is like Scarth Street in Regina, in that it is open to people and not cars (at least on weekends) and is full of shops and shoppers (which I guess is unlike Regina).  The kids are getting tired of fast food and want different things, so I ended up taking Bradley to Subway while Sandra took Evan and Jonathan to A&W.  The Subway was far enough away from the main area of downtown that it was starting to get a little scary, but we made it there and back with only a couple of brief encounters with upset people.

After supper, we headed back to the van and drove the short distance to the ferry loading area.  As this is a ferry to the US, you have to wait in lines in your car for the customs officer to visit and check passports.  Then it was on to the ferry and the one and half hour sailing across the straight to Port Angeles.  It was a nice ride until we neared our destination, when the waves picked up and the ferry started swaying a lot and some of my family started to not look very good.  However, we managed to get off the ship and through a second customs and to our hotel.

I am always amazed at the culture shock I get when I first arrive in the United States.  They live in such an isolated bubble - the room charge wouldn't go through on my credit card because it has a PIN, which the attendant could not comprehend, despite what I would assume is a non-zero number of Canadians that come across and stay in this hotel.