The Pacific Northwest
Its July 2003 and I've been travelling soooo much this year. I've been to Vienna and back five times! But finally we got a chance for some fun--Caro was going to Seattle for a meditation workshop with her friend Barb and Karl was going to go along to catch up with his old college friend Paul McGoey. Then Karl and Caro were going to take the ferry to Victoria to see the gardens. Not only did Travel Schlepp get to go, but William and Nani Pei, too.
The first thing McGoey did was get Karl in his car and head off for a roadtrip. Here we are looking at Mount St. Helens, a volcano that erupted with a huge explosion back in 1980. There still are places were nothing grows and logs from entire forests litter the ground.
From St. Helens we drove on through the woods to the Columbia River gorge on the Oregon border. On our second day we passed through Wishram and we saw this old steam locomotive. It was huge!
After Wishram we went to the Mary Hill Museum, an ecclectic art museum on a hill above the river. Here we are having lunch on the grounds while tame peacocks wander by.
Also on the Mary Hill grounds is a replica of Stonehenge that's a memorial to soldiers who died in World War I.
We took the most round-about way back to Seattle. Here we are at the Bonneville Dam looking at the huge turbines that convert the flow of the Columbia River intoelectricity. We stopped a night in Portland and then went to the coast. If we had turned south, we could have gone to Newport and the Cookie Den. But we took a little ferry north back into Washington and eventually back to Seattle.
Our second ferry of the trip was the Victoria Clipper, a passenger ferry that goes from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia. It reminded us of the ferries at Willie's home on the Isle of Wight.
Here we are in Victoria. We took a long walk along the Inner Harbor and found these totem poles.
When we got done with the hike to the far end of the harbor, we thought we would have to walk back. But Karl had checked the map and took us to a dock where the little harbor ferries came. We got to ride our third ferry of the trip back to the Empress Hotel.
On the next day we toured the museum and then had an hour before dinner. We went to the Crystal Palace, an old conservatory (a kind of greenhouse). There were amazing plants and animals there. Most amazing of all were the lemurs! They look like teddie bears with hands instead of paws. They were very friendly and very interested in me. I think they need a teddie bear to keep them company.
The next day was beautiful and sunny so we went to the famous Butchart Gardens. Here Willie and I look out over the Sunken Garden, an old quarry that had been turned into a beautiful garden.
There were fountains, a Japanese garden, huge trees, and lots of roses. Here Willie and I enjoy the sun in the formal Italian garden.
Of course, after all that walking around, everyone was tired and hungary. We stopped at a cafeteria and had a snack. Here is Nani Pei enjoying all the tropical plants. She felt almost like she was back in Hawaii.