Road Trip Story #2

Hmmm... I thought I was supposed to be the blogger of the day, but I see that that spot's already been filled. Hey, pressure's off - I can't even keep my own blog current.

But, I will contribute a short road trip story to add to the collection. Well, not really a road trip
since we were on a boat, but you get the point.

Way back in 1999, I was about to graduate from the college I attended near Vancouver when I realized that in the entire 4 years that I had lived on the West coast, I'd never been to Victoria. Joy, being the good sport that she is, agreed to take a little weekend trip with me. Fortunately, we picked one of Vancouver's four sunny weekends of the year, so the 2 hour ferry ride was fantastic. Clear blue skies, mountains in the distance, endless ocean. After a while, all that endless ocean gets a little boring so we went inside to explore the boat.

As usual, the first stop was the food court where we had the Ferry Pak for lunch. I think it's really meant for kids, but the packaging was so cute I had to have it. Chicken fingers and fries all stuffed into a little cardboard replica of the ferry we were on. I was hoping for a little paper sailor hat to go with it, but no dice. After our deep-fried feast we were too stuffed to move, so we spent a large chunk of time (and money!) on the massage recliners that were all over the boat. I think Joy was enjoying the kneading a little too much... I really wish I could find the photograph of her in the chair with the most ecstatic expression on her face.

Once we finally got off the ferry we headed into the city of Victoria. Victoria, for those of you who haven't been there, is located on Vancouver Island and is the capital of British Columbia. It is very British in flavour and there are a million places where you can go and have high tea. We went to Murchie's for a cuppa and a scone. We chatted with a bagpiper outside the Victoria legislative buildings. He posed for some pics with us, but drew the line when I asked him to lie down on the sidewalk. ("We have a piper down. I repeat, the piper is down!")

After a full day of fun, we headed back to Joy's aunt's house and spent the rest of the evening talking in the sun porch with pillows in our shirts, pretending we were pregnant.