After seven weeks of mostly nice weather, rain finally caught up with me
in British Columbia. I drove to Vancouver, the downtown of which is nicely
located on a peninsula, with a number of parks and hills scattered
throught the city. Unfortunately the waterfront is littered with a lot of
unimaginative and similar-looking residential buildings, and counting.
There's also a serious drug problem downtown which seems to be ignored by
police for the most part, and which results in large numbers of private
security guards all over the place. Across the street from my hotel is GM
Place, normally home of an NHL team, but one night host to a Guns'n'Roses
concert. Would have been I should say, because Axel Rose didn't show, the
concert got cancelled, and the fans started taking the place apart. But
since it was built for rough and tumble hockey, it survived. I extended my
stay by a couple of days -making use of the free highspeed Internet
connection in my room to catch up on my web surfing-, and also saw
Red Dragon
and the
Everest IMAX movie, but the rain just wouldn't flinch, so I did.
I took the ferry to Vancouver Island, and stayed a couple of days in
Victoria, the capital of B.C., where things are very British. Empire
traditions are held up capably in the Empress Hotel, where every British
monarch since Queen Victoria has stayed and dined. Lesser guests like
myself are also welcome. And even the room in my less grand hotel had a
fireplace ready for action, and tea was served at 4pm. Moving back to the US via
the ferry to Port Angeles -a small place on the Olympic peninsula- I made a speed
run for Portland. I would have liked to spend time in the rain forest of the
Olympic National Park, but it seemed to rain harder by the hour, so I
settled for seeing rain and forest instead, which can be done from the inside of a car.
In Portland I explored Powell's Books, reportedly the brick-and-mortar
bookstore with the largest selection of new and used books anywhere -I
believe it- and spent hours browsing, and ended up buying too much. Just
an hours drive up the Columbia is the Columbia River Gorge, where the
river breaks through the Cascade Mountains. Formerly the most miserable
part of the Oregon Trail, the rapids are now tamed, and passable streets
have been built. It's a great scenery, with many great views from the mountaintops
left and right, and plenty of waterfalls.
Just showing in town was the excellent ensemble movie 13 conversations about one thing.
No, not the one thing you think, it's about how to be happy in life. Very good.
Brewpubs
Links
Photos
TripPrologue - TripPart1 - TripPart2 - TripPart3 - TripPart4 - TripPart6 - TripEpilogue - Photos
