P-town House Party

One weekend in winter Maggie and I traveled to P-town to visit some friends of hers. It was the first time meeting them for yours truly. It was a grand time. I will not present the entire story of the adventure here, but merely throw out some details and photos of the event, mostly for the benefit of those actually involved:

So we begin,

Jammers begs for some naughty time. Dream on kiddo,...

This was no dry party. The only thing Smiles is missing here is a beer.

Orienta was unaware of proximity of my pelvis. I get happy when I am fed jalepeno poppers and totinos pizza.

Forky looks like he rolled off the street for an impromptu hold-em' tourny.

NEVER play cards with a guy who wears a sponge-bob band-aid!

Orienta, Maggie, and Jammers. This the only picture on record to have captured Jammers in a 'normal' pose. Maggie seems to be reaching for Orienta's naughty bits.

Jammers tried to walk off with Orienta's hot sauce. She had to raise her Pimp-Spatula and put him in his place.

Jammers claims he made this face because he had just sipped a cranberry-vodka, but I think he accidentally sat on one of Forky's Star Wars action figures,... light saber fully extended.

Vancouver Island, Day 6 (final day)

We checked out of our motel, and made our way to the ferry docks.

After boarding, getting under way, it was a 90 minute sprint back to the states.
The only thing of interest on the return trip was this couple, obviously lovers.

We stopped to visit with the respective parents on the way home, and I recall having an excellent clam and crab breakfast with Maggie's parents after spending the night with them (Portland).

That's it. Finito. An epic journey, that much is certain.

Oh, here is a bonus picture of Maggie's cat (named Maggie too,....hmmm). She was getting tangled and matted hair so she got shaved. The lion cut.

Vancouver Island, Day 5

It was our last day on the island, and we were going to take advantage of every second.

First, it was off to the famed Butchart Gardens. We spent over three hours there, taking almost as many pictures as the hordes of Japanese tourists surrounding us.
This fountain,...
An old man took this. He was the most skilled stand-in cameraman of the day in my opinion.
Concrete can also be a reliable cameraman, with steady hand to boot.
To be honest, we saw somebody else take this same shot, but it was too cute to pass up.
The bumble bees were quite tame, as this one allows Maggie to pet it.
In Canada, we do what we want
I made Maggie point like this
This was the "Formal" garden, with an Italian theme
I made her do this also
Ridiculous

We retired to the motel to shower and prep for a night on the town.
After wandering around for an hour or so in China town and perusing possible restaurants, we ended up at a place called Pescatore's. She had blackened halibut with crab and hollandaise sauce on top. I had trout stuffed with bree and crab. It was outstanding. We both agreed her meal was the absolute best. We also had a bottle of some local Okanagan Gamay Noir.

After the dinner, we strolled the town, stopping at various pubs, making random friends in the food services industry, buying/stealing beer glasses of interest, and ultimately stumbling into a taxi (it was a hybrid, I remember that at least) to go back to the motel. The famous Empress Hotel might be pictured behind us here?

Vancouver Island, Day 4

Day 4, sadly, bears almost no visual documentation. We drove north out of Port Renfrew, into the mountains that split the island into east and west halves, and ended up on the east side of the island, about an hour north of Victoria. The weather was wet, and indoor activities looked to be the order of the day.

Turns out Maggie and I don't know of very many fun indoor activities, at least not on Vancouver Island. Instead, we decided to play a sort of game. We decided to make an arbitrary rule that we had to stop and have a beer in every pub we passed on our drive back towards Victoria. This turned out to be great fun, even though we were (and still remain) vastly disappointed with Canada's selection of draft beers. Apparently, if the color of the beer strays too far from the color of urine, it is deemed too dark, and is disposed of or scorned.

The end of the day found us in a cheap motel about a mile from downtown Victoria.

I'm back (PLUS, Day 1 of Vancouver trip!)

It's been awhile, I know. Never fear. I've amassed a grip-load of stories and pictures to tell you all!

The following few blog entries will be as follows: One entry for each day of my recent vacation to Vancouver Island with Maggie. There is a lot of photos and one blog post just isn't going to be enough.

So,…. Day 1. Maggie decided we needed to go on a trip. Canada seemed like an OK choice. It was close, familiar, and could be reached by car. Due to our time limit, we knew we couldn't see everything, so we decided a surgical strike onto Vancouver Island would be a good use of our time.

I set up the truck for some possible camping adventures, even laying down some carpet underneath the canopy should the weather take a turn for the wet and we wanted to sleep in the truck.
On the drive north, we stopped at Maggie’s parent’s house for a quick visit, then it was up to Pleasant Harbor on the Olympic Peninsula to visit momma-blog and step-father (we'll call him Wolfman).
We spent the night on their 37 foot cabin cruiser in the V-berth. Decadent.

Vancouver Island, Day 3

We arose on day 2 to the afore-mentioned cougar warnings. We took some goofy pictures of some goofy trees with goofy people in them, and then continued up the rugged coastline highway. We stopped at the end of the main road, at a place called Port Renfrew. We had fish and chips at the cleanest looking pub in the spread out village, then drove up to Botanical Beach Provincial Park to catch a glimpse of the tide pools.
On the way to Botanical Beach, this black bear seemed perfectly content to chomp on some grass as we parked next him and snapped photos. Maggie had never seen one before, so she was very excited. I don't think it was his first time on the catwalk,... show-off.
The 2km walk down the beach took us through a rain forest. Quite beautiful.

The tide pools themselves were quite expansive and beautiful. I won't bore you with all the inherent sea-life we bore witness to. Rest assured that most everything there was so pretty and glorious, that Maggie wanted to "wad them up into a ball and pop them into (her) mouth".

We drove back to Port Renfrew for showers. The young man operating the shower facility informed us that he also had campsites. We altered plans right then and there as he introduced us to his most popular (and rarely vacant) camp spot. With a glorious view of the bay, we were sold.

Two things you should know about Port Renfrew:

1. The people look a little scabby, but seem to be nice, and are not mutated.

2. In Port Renfrew, if you think you can get those hot dogs with the cheddar already in them (Better Cheddars is a name you may recognize), you will be sorely disappointed.

Vancouver Island, Day 2

We took a group photo the morning of day 2.

Maggie and I continued towards north end of the peninsula to catch the ferry out of Port Angeles, arriving at Victoria, BC mid-afternoon.

A quick stop at the grocery store and liquor store, and we were on our way up the southwest coast of the island, in search of a nice place to camp. French Beach was where we ended up. We were the only ones in the campground (except for a marauding cougar the next morning, but we never saw it), so we pretty much had the run of the place.

We had a pleasant walk on the nearby beach before supper and witnessed a most serene sunset out on the Straight of Juan De Fuca.
Of course we made a mockery of the magical occasion with some grotesque antics.If you didn't know any better (and the evergreen trees weren't visible) you'd think this was tropical, eh?