Day in Victoria, Canada

The "international" part of our trip was a day in Canada. The boys loved going to another country.  Two passports and two birth certificates in hand and we were on our way!   On the CoHo ferry:

The morning ferry ride was very, very cold!

 The first hour of the ferry ride was so cold; then the fog lifted and there was a beautiful, sunny day ahead.

The port area in Victoria.  The boys loved looking at all of the airplane/water taxis.  From our vantage point, we only saw transportation via the air or water.

Victoria is covered in breathtaking flowers and gardens.  Every street corner was covered.

At British Columbia's Parliament.

D and I really liked the totem poles covering the historic district, also.  We learned a lot about the native Pacific cultures at the Royal British Museum.

We had a memorable stop at the Helmcken House, the oldest European residence in Victoria.  D was very interested in the historic piano. The house security guard invited him to play.  It was a big surprise!

The Empress Hotel is THE historic hotel on the waterfront in Victoria.  Notice those great trees sculpted to look like woolly mammoths.

We treated ourselves to lunch on the balcony.  Our view:

The chef made a special gluten-free pizza for D.  It was awesome.

The great "lunch-with-a-view" crowd! 











As the other adults were enjoying their third round and desserts during the "lunch-with-the-view" ... I raced the boys through the last museum on our agenda.  It was a museum of miniature worlds.  Very bizarre.  Thousands and thousands of little pieces making up these miniature places.  The boys thought it was pretty funny.

Try to zoom in if you can ... tons of little figures.

 Circus shows ...

Fairy tales ...

Gulliver's Travels ...

The Old Woman in the Shoe ...

Then, a very unexpected room of very detailed war battle scenes.  Such a bizarre museum!










We collected the "lunch-with-a-view" crowd and headed back to our ferry.

H was determined to see a whale.  We didn't spot a whale.  H did spot some dolphins ... although no one else spotted those dolphins.  (!)

 D looking at our hotel in Port Angeles.  The long, reddish, horizontal building behind the pier was our hotel.  The proximity to the ferry was awesome.

Watching the ferries from our balcony was also awesome.  From our vantage point so far West, we were some of the last people in the United States to see the sunset.