Bye-bye Canada; Hello Yakima

Bye-bye water and clear skies.

Bye-bye ubiquitous seaplanes.

The minute I stepped onto U.S soil my sinuses began to act up. I must be allergic to the U.S.

Hello, Yakima. We found this restaurant in our guidebook.

These are hops. Who knew that 45% of all the hops in the world are grown in the Yakima valley? So hops brokers from all over the world come to sample and buy hops.

This is Ed's slow-cooked pork loin in jalapeno sauce with apple-pork mole , prepared with chocolate and cinnamon. Who knew?

Parliament House

So the guy who designed this building also designed the Empress Hotel and another building on this center of the waterfront. He was only 24 at the time he won the competition to build this building.

There are free tours every half an hour and it is very well done.

Here is Ed with the actress who plays Queen Victoria.

Another great window.

It's a very impressive building.

The Empress Hotel

They love their orcas. This one is topiary.

This is the Empress Hotel. This is the place where you are supposed to go for "high tea."

This is the breakfast room.

The ceiling.


The mezzanine.

Craigdarroch Castle (pronounced craigderek)

This is a very fine house that Victoria is very proud of. It was built by a coal magnate named Dunsmuir between 1887 and 1889. His coal mine was located up by Nanaimo where we landed from the ferry.

He had a lot of children. The females all were sent to Europe to marry impoverished royalty. Many of the children came to sad ends. One of his sons went down with the Lusitania. One of his daughters (or granddaughters) was the companion of Tahlula Bankhead. (I loved that.)

The woodwork was all made in Chicago and sent in 5 railroad cars. The woodwork alone cost $45,000 back then.

A private foundation is restoring the house and trying to retrieve the original furnishings.

This was a very modern bathroom at the time.

This is one of the must do things in Victoria, so we did it.

Whale Watching

This is the sign that greets boaters as they enter Victoria Harbour.

This is the boat we went out in. It's a Scarab, 60' long with 2 500 hp diesel engines. The boat can go 45 mph and we did!!!

A lighthouse built in 1860. It looks very much like the lighthouse on Tybee. This is a working light but it has been mechanized. The lighthouse keeper's house is being used by students from a local university to research all the sealife out there.

These are elephant seals. They are males. The females don't come here.
The females stay in the rookery with the babies.

There are a lot of bald eagles up in these parts. Our captain was a marine biologist and he told us that an eagle can lift his own weight in prey. So if he weighs 13# he can pick up a 13# dog or cat. An eagles' next blew out of a tree and in it were 40 dog and cat collars!!!

These are harbor seals. They spend 70% of their lives lying around.

Whales sighted!!! It was really cold out there. Note how lots of people have hats on.

We saw a lot of whales. There are 3 resident colonies of orca (killer) whales who live up in these waters between the U.S. & Canada. The captain said the best whale watching is in U.S. waters. Each whale has a name and each whale has been identified as to its position in the pod; i.e., the matriarchs are over 80 years old and make all the decisions. The males only live to be 50 because of all the pollution in the salmon they eat. The females live to be twice as old because they lose their pollutants in their breast milk while they nurse. When a baby is born, it stays by its mother's side for 10 years!!! Each one of the whales eats 300 lbs. of salmon a day. If we ate that much salmon, we would be polluted too.

Butchart Gardens

This place is very famous so we decided to visit it on our first full day in Victoria.

This is a snail fountain.

Originally, this was a quarry. The wife of the owner, Jennie Butchart, came up with the idea of turning it into a garden on the scale of the great European gardens in 1904.


The views and vistas are magnificent.

Everything that should be in a garden is here.

As a result of this place being so famous, it is unbelievably crowded. I have chosen pix that don't have too many people in them, but, believe me, it was a zoo.

Gorgeous trees.

These are topiary rabbits.

The rose garden was over the top.

Of course, there was boat access to
the water.

A copy of an English garden. This reminded me of Powers Court in Ireland.

This is part of the Italian gardens.

Mercury, the messenger.

A riot of color.

The Mediterranean garden.

Parliament Buildings at Night

We arrived in Victoria and took a day to scope out the city.