Victoria

In the morning, I found myself in Port Angeles with no real plan to speak of.

The town is one of the ports for ferry travel to Victoria, British Columbia. I hadn't really planned to head into Canada at this point in my trip. But it was right there.

Honestly, at this point, I was feeling a little bit tired of being in the wilderness. I was also tired of moving every day and just crossing my fingers that I'd find a place to sleep. I wanted a room reserved for me for the next night.

I got online, found a backpacker hostel in downtown Victoria only a few blocks from the ferry terminal, booked a room for me, and found a parking lot for Rusty to stay behind. I packed a backpack, took my bike along for some urban transportation, and boarded the next ferry.

After about an hour on the water, we floated into the Victoria harbor. It was clear that this place was much more interesting than the port I had left. A cute little mini-ferry tooted by; A seaplane zoomed out of the sky and splashed in the water; Nicely architectured hotels lined the coast. I had a good feeling about this.

You need a passport now to travel to Canada. I knew I'd have some international formalities to attend to, but I didn't expect the full-on customs regimen. Something about me always seems to be a target for the special examination. A Canadian customs guy pulled me aside (of course) and went through every zipper of my bag, and picked through all my toiletries. He also pointed out that I had a bike but didn't have a helmet (I forgot it in the van), asked me what I do for a living, where I was staying. He was friendly enough, but I was starting to feel a little overly scrutinized. I am the tourist you are trying to attract, right?

The ferry lets you off right in the middle of town. Victoria is the capitol of BC and the legislature building is right there on the water, along with museums, hotels, and everything tourists love.

I was a little overwhelmed. I was a little nervous now that I might get a ticket for no helmet, but noted that the bike taxi guy didn't have one. Good enough for me. I rode to the hostel and checked in, then headed out for a bike tour.

Only having spent one day in a town puts me in no real position to judge. But at first glance, the downtown section seemed to be mostly dedicated to tourists. Hotels, horse drawn carriages and bike taxis, people selling activities, etc. I'm sure there's more to it if I were to get further out of downtown, but there you go.

I can recommend the place I ate there though. The Noodle Box cooks up some very nice stir fry. It's not super cheap, but I gained confidence watching the crack staff working hard in the display kitchen, and was rewarded with a tasty dinner. It sure beat the camping food I had been eating for the past few days.

One curious thing I noticed was an unusual proportion of fancy old hot rods driving around in the streets. It seemed like they were cruising the streets showing off their rides, Hollywood Boulevard style. Little by little, I suspected there may be some kind of car show in town. It sure is a nice place for one.

The hostel had it's own bar inside, so I bellied up to see if I could glean some wisdom about some local spots to check out. This is where I started to lose more faith. The folks that had been around town the longest chose to remain at the hostel bar rather than the other offerings in town.

That was ok though. I wasn't planning to stay long. My main goal of the evening was just to give Victoria a look and then decide where to head the next day. Rusty's parking was only paid through the next day so I didn't have any choice but to ferry back anyway.

I chatted with folks and mulled my next move.

I was still feeling tired of moving every day, and kind of missing Seattle. I looked over the other options in the region, but really there was only one thing to do. Go back to Seattle and stay a few days. It might not be cheap, but I'd be doing what I wanted. It was settled. I couldn't call for a reservation anywhere yet though, because my phone wouldn't work until I returned to the US.

The next day, my suspicions were validated. There was indeed a car show in town called Northwest Deuce Days. I noticed that almost all the cars had stickers indicating a model year of 1932. I asked one of the proud car owners about it, and he informed me that "Deuce" is a slang name for the Ford Model B, the first mass produced vehicle with a V-8 engine, which spawned the world's love affair with the muscle car.

These are the classics of classics.

The show was impressive. They closed several square blocks of streets downtown and lined them with over eight hundred of these mint condition museum pieces. Each one cared for, restored, customized, and actually driven by individual owners. I'm sure it was great for them to all have a place to hob nob and trade tips and stories. But for me, it was a spectacle I felt lucky to catch by accident.

Ok. Back to Washington!