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Phase Two

Vancouver – Victoria – San Juan Island – North Cascades Park – Seattle - Mt. Rainier Park – Portland

August 21 – September 7

Stories of the massive forest fires in California have been big news, but most of you probably are not aware of how bad the situation was in British Columbia. So when we arrived in Vancouver, we were amazed at how poor the air quality was. Some people were walking around with masks on, and you could barely see buildings a half-a-mile away. When we went to retrieve our car, we found it covered in a thin layer of ash. Fortunately for us, we caught the tail end of the fire season, and by our third day the air quality was vastly improved.

On this trip we only spent one day in Vancouver. This was enough time to visit Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden and the Capilano Suspension Bridge. The garden is a focal point for the Chinese community which makes up 30% of the Vancouver population. It is interesting that even though French is the official second language of Canada, Chinese is the second language of Vancouver. All the stones, plants and craftsmen needed to complete the garden were shipped in from China. The garden is laid out according to the philosophy of yin and yang, bringing together opposite aspects of the natural world to reach balance and harmony.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge, just a half hour away from Vancouver, hangs 230 feet above a river gorge. I have a fear of heights, but was able to keep my fears in check long enough to get across. The gorge itself is not anything special, but the owners of the complex put a lot of energy creating an eco-wonderland with treetop walkways, gardens, and nature tours.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden

Capilano Treetop Walkway

Afterwards, we drove up the coast to Horseshoe Bay and took the ferry to Vancouver Island. We would eventually take three more ferries on this trip. In this part of the world, nearly one million people live on Islands, and the ferries are a critical part of these people’s lives. Most are fortunate to live on Islands like Vancouver with extensive ferry service, while others have to contend with sporadic service. There are also a number of lightly populated Islands that do not have any ferry service at all. We found traveling by ferry to be a total delight, while spending hours watching the various land masses slowly drift by. Compared to cruise ships, the interiors of these ferries were very spartan, however, being that our average cruise was only around two hours, they were quite satisfactory. Surprisingly, we found the Canadian ferries to be much nicer than the American ones.

BC Ferry

Washington Ferry

Victoria is a small city of only 300,000. However, it is very sophisticated for its size with lots of art, culture and great international restaurants. While in Victoria, the two main places we explored were the Butchart Gardens and the British Columbia parliament building. Butchart is a large, meticulously designed and maintained garden with a variety of diverse landscapes. Though we both appreciate more natural looking gardens rather than manicured ones, we were both in awe of the beauty of this place. By playfully mixing different cultivars they created a mesmerizing mix of textures and colors.

Whenever we visit a state capital, we always make a point to tour its capitol building. This was the first time we visited a provincial capital. The architecture of this building was very different than traditional American capitols. This neo-baroque building is filled with detailed woodwork, murals and stained glass making it a true gem.

We happened to be in Victoria at the same time as the local Fringe Festival. For those of you not familiar with these festivals, they started in Edinburgh in 1947, and are now taking place in cities throughout the world. A typical Fringe Festival consists of a variety of experimental small-scale theater productions preformed in multiple venues over the course of a week or more. So every night we were in town, we were able to take in a different play.

Butchart Sunken Garden

Parliament Chambers

Our next destination was San Juan Island. We had reservations on the only ferry that goes there from Victoria. Unfortunately, we later discovered that this ferry was out of commission for a week, totally cutting off San Juan from Victoria. This gave us a taste of what Island living must be like. We were forced to take another ferry back to Vancouver, then drive down to Anacortes in order to take a second ferry going to Sa n Juan from the east. What a pain.

San Juan Island is a very relaxing place to spend some time. For those of you from Wisconsin, San Juan is to Washington what Door County is to Wisconsin, though we considered San Juan to be far more interesting. The main thing to do in San Juan is to go whale watching. Whale watching can be hit or miss. Our trip was a big hit.

Shortly after departing the harbor, we came across a male and female humpback whale. Boats are not allowed to come within 100 of these whales, so we had to admire them from a distance. The whales would come up a couple of times for brief moment to get some air, After they disappeared, it was the job of the boats captain to guess in which direction they would be appearing next. Then around seven minutes later the whales would pop up again somewhere else. For over an hour our boat played this game of cat and mouse with the whales. At one point the whales popped up less than 30 feet away startling everyone. It was a very exciting moment. Afterwards, we left the humpbacks and continued out into the open water where we came in contact with a pod of seven female killer whales. For over an hour the whales participated in a feeding frenzy all around the boat. To top of the trip we also groups of Sea Lions an Cormorants.

Humpback Whale

Lime Kiln Point Light House

Killer Whales

Friday Harbor

From San Juan we took the ferry back to Anacortes and drove to Bellingham where we connected with my friend Mat Reitzug. Peace Corps LDAers see more on Mat at the end of this blog. Bellingham is a great small town of just 80,000, which appears to have a lot of culture for a city of its size. It is the type of community, that if we ever were to retire, we would consider moving to.

The next day, Mat and his wife Connie went camping with us in the North Cascades National Park. This park is not as spectacular as parks such as Banff or Jasper, but it still has its own charm. The campsite we stayed at was the prettiest we have seen so far. It seemed to be a backdrop for a fantasy movie, and I half expected to see a woodland spirit appear from behind a moss covered tree. While in the park, we did one hike to the Ross Lake Resort. The “resort” consists of bare dormitory style cabins. Resorts like this offer a unique way to immerse oneself in nature without having to go camping. There are only two ways to get to this resort. 1) Walk in two hours like we did and carry all of your gear, or 2) take a boat to a truck to another boat. Being that you have to carry in all of your own food and drink, most people select the second option.

Ross Lake Resort

Colonial Creek Campground

Diablo Lake

Skagit River

After saying our farewells to the Reitzugs, we drove to Seattle to visit with my friend Dana Guppy. I lived in Seattle for five years, so it was good to reconnect with the city. While in Seattle, we spent all of our time visiting my favorite parks and neighborhoods. When visiting one of these parks we came across a huge gathering of people dressed in fantasy outfits. Even though I am a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, I did not recognize any of the characters. The reason for this is that these people were attending the PAX convention, which is dedicated to gaming, which I know nothing about. Many of these participants were very creative and obviously spent a lot of time on bringing their favorite characters to life.

PAX People

Freemont's Lenin

Olympic Sculpture Park

Our next stop was camping in Mount Rainier National Park. Mount Rainier which stands at 14,410 feet is absolutely spectacular. Rainier is not the tallest mountain in the continental USA, it's just 88 feet short of that claim, but it is the most glaciated. In this park, the two major destinations are Sunrise and Paradise. We choose to spend most of our time on the Sunrise side of the mountain. We found that side to be much more interesting and far less crowded than the Paradise side. The Sunrise side was mostly covered in snow and ice, while the Paradise side was mostly exposed rock. At Sunrise we did two hikes. One through open tundra to a small peak offering a closer viewpoint of the mountain, and one through upper meadows filled with wildflowers to a cluster of Alpine lakes.

Mt. Rainier Burroughs Hike- Sunrise Side

Dinner Guest

Mt. Rainier Moraine Hike- Paradise Side

Hidden Lake Hike

Camping in national parks is a lot of fun. However, one drawback, is that a lot of them do not offer shower facilities. Usually this is not a problem, because there are often private facilities near by that offer showers for a few dollars. North Cascades and Rainier were the first parks we have been to where there were no showers available at any price. After almost four full days in Rainier of only wet wipe bathing, we were starting to get a little ripe.

Our final stop was Portland, where we stayed just long enough to do our laundry, get a much needed shower, and drop off the car.

For My Peace Corps LDA Brothers

We stayed a night with Mat in Bellingham and then two nights camping. Mat retired a few years ago and decided to move to Bellingham to be closer to his son and two grandchildren. Mat and Connie seem to be happy in their new life style there and are keeping very active. They purchased a fixer-upper, and have been spending the last few years converting it into their dream house. Connie is a playful master gardener, which you can see by the extensive work she has done around their house.