Dragons, and Butterflies, and Flowers, Oh My!

Our adventures today took us to the limits of our abilities to deal with each other (we've decided all future trips will institute required "alone time" on the third day), followed by a jaunt on public transportation to the Butterfly Gardens and Butchart Gardens, both north of downtown Victoria.

Before leaving town for the day, we separately watched bits and pieces of the Dragonboat races that were being held all day in the harbor and did a little shopping.
As a gay couple said to the proprietor of the Woofles store downtown (in which we found nothing for Ripley), town was "Messy with tourists," so we didn't watch long. After leaving the crowds behind we headed out of town.

The Butterfly Gardens were very cool. Actually they were quite warm and muggy, and filled with not only over 3,000 butterflies, but several types of tropical birds and ginormous goldfish.

We were dive bombed by several butterflies, and I and a couple other folks I noticed were actually landed upon.

This is a butterfly incubator of sorts.

The crysalids that the gardens import get placed here every week, then the butterflies hang out here until they're ready to fly out.

These guys are eating bananas in the tray, and the ones on the left have beautiful blue tops to their wings, but are very shy about showing them.
This is my favorite picture of the entire trip.

The Butchart Gardens were 2 km down the road and were built on the site of an old limestone quarry. Rubbing the boar's nose in this statue is supposed to be good luck (which is why it's so shiny).

Walking into view of the Sunken Garden took my breath away. This was the actual quarry, and in the upper right of the picture you can see the stack from an old cement factory.

This is looking back up to where I took the picture above.

I was drawn to the unusual plants - the black leaves,

and the hanging flowers of the Fuschia plant.

This hole in a huge bush looking out to the water was unfortunately the last picture I managed to take before my battery died, but the entire garden and the fireworks display were amazing.

Everyone told us this was a must-do in Victoria, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Day 2 in Victoria

Our day got started around 11ish, and we headed to the Empress Hotel for tea at noon - about four hours too early, but hey, we're Americans. We can eat whatever we want whenever we want it.

Our finger sandwiches and sweets were excellent (Kerriann while munching: "What do they do with all the crusts?"), we were given two canisters of the house blend of tea to take home, and will be instituting our own tea services on special occasions soon. Too environmentally conscious to ask for a to-go box for the only sweet she couldn't manage to eat while we were there but couldn't bear to leave, Kerriann smuggled the strawberry preserves jar into the bathroom, washed it out, and stuffed her little chocolate truffle-like thing into it. (She's been very happy about the four chocolates we get on our bed for our turndown service every day too.)

Kerriann struck up a lengthy conversation with an older couple sitting next to us, also having tea, who have convinced her that her next trip should be a ferry ride (NOT a cruise) to Alaska, where she can pitch a tent on the deck of the ship instead of paying for a cabin (this may be another one of her traveling alone escapades).

We then decided to rent some bikes to burn off some calories (Kerriann's still in training for her triathalon, folks) and headed to Craigdarroch Castle, home of the Dunsmuir's, Victoria's coalmining/railroading millionaires of the early 1900s. The place was gorgeous, full of dark woods, stained glass windows, and rounded doors.
At the bottom of these stained glass windows is an organ, all on a landing in a stairwell.



Can you believe people once painted over this amazing handpainted ceiling and made it plain white? It's being restored.

Kerriann was in heaven. One of the stranger items in the house was a wreath made from human hair, supposedly a lost art. Did we need to keep that one found?


Our bike ride home was a bone of contention as Kerriann was content to feel her way around, while I was unhappy about the potential of getting lost without a map. We did find a lovely set of gardens around a government building by accident (there are so many beautiful flowers planted all over the town, it's amazing), and asked about which way to go to get back to downtown at just the right time. Thanks to Kerriann for being so understanding of a comparatively unadventurous nontraveler the likes of me.

Our evening was rounded out by a phone call home to some close friends who just welcomed their baby boy into the world, of course while we were out of town. Congratulations to the Double D!

Victoria, British Columbia

Kerriann is calling this our first vacation ever since: 1) it's longer than 3 days, 2) it's not in conjunction with a visit to family, and 3) we're traveling alone. I guess with all those qualifications she's right...

I had very little to do with planning this trip. I asked Kerriann to make the all-important decision of where to stay and promised she would get all the credit if it were nice, and that I wouldn't complain if it was lame. The Delta Ocean Point Hotel is awesome. We've had some bad hotel luck in the past, but Kerriann hit the jackpot with her choice this time. We can to downtown Victoria from the hotel by walking five minutes across a bridge,

or by taking what we like to call a "water taxi" for $4. This is a view of our hotel from our boat (below).

We wandered downtown today and around the harbor (the building over my left shoulder is our hotel from downtown),

took a peek at the Empress Hotel and gardens,

where we'll have high tea tomorrow, and spent some time in their miniatures exhibit, one of K's biggest pleasures. Check out the window washers in the upper left corner of this huge city/circus scene.

Blackwell's Boatshed

There are tons of totem poles around the Royal BC museum where K's leaning - and other places in town. The super tall one is near our hotel.

We also wandered around the Fisherman's Wharf area and along some floating streets between several very humorously decorated house boats.

There's so much to do here, and we had no plans when we arrived. Now we wish we had another couple days. Of course, with all the available excursions, we ended up going to a casino tonight. It was, however, the most fun I've ever had gambling. Kerriann was on fire tonight and she actually doubled her money, and to top it all off, you can't smoke inside. God bless the Canadians.

And after all of this, the absolute highlight of Kerriann's day was opening her Kindersurprise package to find a fire engine. Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Blackwell Family Reunion

Here's a quick post from the Tampa, FL airport parking lot. I'm waiting with the grandparents to pick up Nikki who's coming to town for a conference. I've been stealing internet access from Nana's driveway all week (it's hot out there!), and now from the airport. I guess it's not stealing if they're giving it away...anyway, haven't seen the fam in awhile, so I'm looking forward to dinner.