THE Trip - Day 13 (Victoria)

With the Olympic Peninsula behind us as the ferry crossed into Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, we had done what the National Parks recommend…leave only footprints; take away only memories.   As with meeting any goal – such as achieving a particular timing in sports; making par or less; collecting all of something – there is a little sadness after the feeling of “oh gosh” “oh wow” “I did it” “I saw it”.

The sunshine and pleasant ferry trip helped to minimize that feeling of having met my goal of walking in a rain forest.   And, I will have the memories.

I had been to Victoria before, but for Dennis this was a new location.   It is a lovely city.  It makes you want to smile at everyone.  The street lamps have flower baskets on them.  There are horse-drawn carriages to take you on a tour.  The government buildings look solid and important.  This is a tourist town – but not the “tacky tourist” type.  It is filled with wonderful shops selling fine, quality items.  Okay, there are a few souvenir shops – but way, way less than we encountered in Niagara Falls with the grandchildren in 2008. 

But what I quickly realized is that, in my opinion, this is a town geared and ready to cater to women.  It’s pretty.  It feels like you should be dressed up – as if for a nice dinner out.  There is a certain gracefulness in the layout of the streets and the (cute) corner parks with statuary and landscape plantings.  Flowers are in bloom everywhere.   It just feels good - like after you have had a massage at a nice spa and you want to sit and sip tea, coffee, beer, wine, or champagne (maybe more than one of these) in a shop overlooking the harbor.

Dennis, good sport that he is, wandered the town with me; but when his eyes glazed over after an hour and a half – I knew it was time to plan a change in the activity.  So it was wine on our balcony in the late afternoon sunshine, then a nice seafood dinner…not a bad ending for the day.