Day 11: Victoria

We're back home! We arrived in Canada just after midnight Sunday morning. My apologies on not keeping up with the regular adventure sharing. The last week of the trip was wonderful and full. It was a great experience but made daily blogging challenging. I plan to share two more posts (after this one) this week to sum up the last part of our trip. There might also be a follow up article with Dad's pictures. He had the better camera.

Last Sunday we were in Victoria, BC, Canada. This was our last port of call before returning to San Fransisco. It was to be in Canada, even if it was only for a few hours.

We had booked an excursion tour with two destinations the Victoria Butterfly Garden and then Butchart Gardens. We didn't see much of the actual city or the island; mostly passing buildings from the bus, seems like a beautiful place.I am still thankful for the places we went. I loved both gardens for different reasons.

Victoria Butterfly Garden was a tropic paradise. The moment you enter it is like stepping into a dream with butterflies fluttering about. I tried to capture a few flying about but they were too fast and my camera was too slow. Thankfully a few posed for us:

 

Dad made a friend and then introduced him to me.

 

 

Our next stop was Butchart Gardens. The place had five different styles of gardens that I can remember: sunken, rose, Japanese, Mediterranean, and Italian. We had two hours to explore. I think we could have spent a whole day.

   

 

It was a place you could help but stop and smell the roses.

Everything was beautiful, so vibrant, and full of colour. Everywhere you looked was something worth taking a picture of. I am not sure I could have a favourite section. I did get very excited when I saw the sign for the Japanese Garden.

 

 

 

I've only shared a few of our photos. There are at least a hundred more on my computer. It was a perfect afternoon that ended with ice cream. You can't complain on a day that ends with ice cream.

It was also about this point in the trip that the time on the ship began to blur together. It was hard to remember when things happened. We would refer to events in relationship to ports of call, "did the concert happen before or after Skagway?" With that I think my next to stories happened the day or two before Victoria.

First, it was a day at sea and Mum and I planned to meet up in the afternoon for the craft activity. We were going to make paper stars or maybe it was cards. I wandered over to the trivia game. Sister and I had played a name the Disney movie trivia a few days earlier. The host would play a bit of a song and you had to guess the movie. We had 19 points and the winner had 20. We felt good about ourselves.

This time I was alone and sat in the back next to a group of three. The game was moving onto the third question. The theme was "The Top Five." The host would give the question, something like what is the most popular fast food chain in the world. Then give you four a the answers and you would have to give the missing one. I don't remember the question, but I blurted out a guess. The lady playing was, "do you think so? Those two [pointing to son and daughter-in-law] don't want to play." So I said I would play with her. We had a lot of fun. My best memory of it was a question about the country with the longest coast line. I just new the missing country had to be Canada. Her non players by this point were interested and we had a fun debate and finally agreed to put my suggested down. During answer time it was awesome to learn I had that one right. Not just that, many of my suggestions and our groups guesses where right. We got 16 out of 20 and WON! I got a nice wine stopper as a prize (ever so useful for me). The host also informed us no one had ever gotten more than 12 correct. So that felt really good.

This next story might have happened earlier or the evening after Victoria. Since Juneau, Mum has hoped for me to see a whale. She had seen some whales breaching and wanted me to have a similar experience since the sea kayaking had been cancelled. So on the evening I'm having a rest in my room. I had been reading a book till my eyes closed when I hear a knock at the door. Mum had spotted a blow-hole spay while walking around the deck and rushed to get me. We walked and walked but the whales she saw were gone. Instead we got to witness this amazing sunset.

 

 

Then walking back we saw just a spray of water and I think a fin waved at me. It was far off, could have been porpoises but I like to believe it was an orca (killer whale).