Date Night in Victoria, BC

Best waffle ever this morning.  Somehow crunchy and soft,  made with real butter and drowned in Canadian maple syrup. All carbed up like that it’s no wonder I nodded off as we drove to the Bill Reid art gallery in Vancouver.  The exhibit woke me up!  First Nation art (in the US we call them Native American) is truly fascinating and sometimes frightening to look at. But I loved this piece of carved white jade that tells the Haida Guaii version the creation story.

You can Wikipedia more if you are interested.  But you can see that the raven, attracted by a shiny white clam shell, opens the shell and the “first people” work their way out, head first and butt first.

A short visit to Stanley Park convinced me that I wouldn’t mind having my remains put on top of a mortuary totem carved with important events from my life.  If John can be in one of the urns on the church cupola then certainly I can find someone to carve me a nice mortuary totem something like this.

See the cute little child peeking out the side?

Tough decision choosing what to eat for lunch in the Granville Island market.  I thought these fiddleheads looked like they might be tasty until I read the description on the basket that explained you have to boil the toxicity out of them before eating.  Wonder who was the first person to discover THAT?

The ferry ride to Vancouver island was about one and a half hours, a twisty route through lots of small inhabited islands.  

Our traveling companions, Pat and Eric

And these two.

In Victoria we wanted beer/wine and chocolate, in that order. Found a cute place on the harbor where Pat and I let “the boys” have the view.  It was Date Night at the Milestone Restaurant so we chose a 3 course meal at a very reasonable price.  Started with

and ended with chocolate ganache torte.  Followed by an animated discussion about who’s hotel room had the best view.  Eric said they had a balcony and could see the harbor if they leaned over it and looked left.  I pouted because our room didn’t have a balcony and it wasn’t fair.  Upon returning to the room I opened the drapes for the first time and, voila, a balcony with an even better view.  No leaning required.

So fired up to see Buchart Gardens tomorrow morning, even though rain is expected.
Good night