We stayed in the Bellingham, WA area for a few days so we could shop in the USA to avoid the high Canadian costs of fuel and food. We caught up on laundry and the last blog entry.
On June 17th, we left the USA and crossed into British Columbia, Canada at Blaine. This was an experience. Tim brought a rifle with him and had all the paperwork that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told him he would need once he declared it at the border. So, he declared the rifle and was asked why he would be bringing a rifle through Canada into Alaska "because", they said, "you know a rifle won't do anything to protect you from bears you know." He answered that he knew that and he would be doing target practice with it!
We had to exit the RV and give them our keys. Two of the border patrol guards went through every nook and cranny of the tow car and the RV including the refrigerator! We had to wait inside the building for about a half an hour while they did their search. They took out the firewood we had brought with us and fresh strawberries from the refrigerator which we had to discard into the trash can while they watched us do it. Talk about feeling like some kind of criminal! They were certainly polite enough, but they were serious about their search!
That finished, we traveled about 15 more miles and settled on the river in Surrey, BC outside of Vancouver for a few days. We exchanged money into Canadian dollars (loonies) and two dollars (toonies) and larger denominations. Tim researched the public transportation for the area and we made our plans to visit Vancouver Island to see Victoria, which is the Capital of British Columbia, and Vancouver City.
To get to Vancouver Island, we drove to a park and ride, got on the bus to a transfer station, took another bus out to the ferry. The ferry ride was about an hour and a half each way and we passed through some beautiful islands along the way. On the way home, Tim spotted the USS Nimitz which is the largest aircraft carrier in the world. We're not sure what it was doing in Canadian waters, but there it was!
When we arrived in Victoria, we took the public bus out to Butchart Gardens. I don't think words can really describe how magnificent the flowers and trees are there. It is a National Historic site in Canada and is over 100 years old. It sits on over 55 acres with hundreds of different types of plantings trees, shrubs and flowers. In the rose garden alone, there were 250 varieties of roses and over 2500 individual flowers! Everything was bright, blooming, and beautiful as the pictures try to depict.
After our garden tour, we again used the public bus system to return to Victoria where we had lunch on the harbor,watched the seaplanes take off and land, walked the downtown and visited the famous Empress Hotel. We didn't have "high tea" but we did tour the building. The city is lovely and the people very friendly.
We were able to catch the 7 pm ferry back to the mainland and the last bus back to our exchange station to get back to the park and ride. Very easy to get around in BC and much easier than driving in a city you don't know.
The following day it was back on the bus but this time at the exchange we took a train to downtown Vancouver. There we rode the Hop On-Hop Off bus and enjoyed the history and the scenery getting off only at Stanley Park, the Library and had lunch in an Irish Pub in Gastown. From there we walked to the Harbor Center and had drinks in the rotating lounge at the top taking in 360 degrees of the city and the harbor. Highly recommend these two areas and maybe spending a little longer in Vancouver and its surrounds than we did. A long two days of walking.. we're sure we got more than our 10,000 steps in each day! |
| Totem Pole in Stanley Park |
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| Sidewalk in Gastown |
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| The Steam Clock |
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