Alaska Vacation Part Six--Seattle and Victoria

I'm glad I didn't panic and cancel my ferry ride to Seattle. Everything worked out and I had a nice time. The city is very much like San Francisco, lots of hills. I thought it would be an easy walk from the port to my hotel, but it was a cardio workout of a climb. I had a reservation at an inexpensive hotel next to a hospital, so my view was of sick people, lying in their beds. I took a bus tour which gave me an overview--the only thing I knew about it was that TV show from the 1960s called Here Come the Brides and the theme song---"The bluest skies you ever seen in Seattle/Like a beautiful child/Growing up free and wild." And I would run around and act like a savage and say, "I'm the beautiful child in Seattle." Anyway, it's a nice, charming city where everyone drinks coffee all the time. I saw the original Starbucks and the famous space needle--immortalized in the famous issue of Adventure where the Legion of Super-Heroes visits an anti-gravity restaurant on Jupiter, which is modeled on the space needle. (This was the one where Superboy, Ultra Boy, Chameleon Boy and new Legionnaires Chemical King and Timber Wolf disguise themselves as super-outlaws to infiltrate a school of villains.) Next to the space needle is a museum specializing in science fiction and rock music. They had an exhibits on Battlestar Galactica and Avatar as well as the futuristic car Harrison Ford drove in Blade Runner. (pictured)

Then I had a great seafood dinner on the wharf, walked through the Market Square and went back to the hospital-hotel. Then next morning I got up early to take the ferry back to Victoria where I would have about 90 minutes before I had to get on the bus to Nanaimo where Jerry was having his conference. I had rushed through Victoria at the other end in order make the ferry to Seattle, so now it was nice to have some time there. It had a pretty harbor and some quaint shops.

I got back to the hotel in Nanaimo and watched some episodes of Horders and decided to clean up once I got home. The next day was our last on vacation before flying home. We wandered around Nanaimo which was having a car show and I bought some old sci-fi novels at a used book store. Will Kindle eliminate those stores? I still love getting old books for a dollar and reading cheesey s-f.

Rather than taking a ferry all the way back to Tswassen and then a long cab ride to the airport in Vancouver, we took a tiny float plane and stayed in an airport hotel since we had to get up quite early for our flight. That was fun. (pictured) But the trip from Vancouver was a pain. We were supposed to take a small plane to Seattle and transfer to NY. But our plane had a mechanical problem and we had to get a new one which meant missing our connection. We had several problem booking a new flight and worred we'd have to stay in Seattle, but it worked out and I watched Design Star on the TV in the set in front of me while drinking wine from tiny bottles.

Alaska Vacation Part Five--Vancouver and Beyond

As Hurricane Irene slowly leaves NY, I finally have a moment to finish the wrap-up of the Alaska vacation. After our cruise ended in Vancouver, Jerry and I got in a cab and realized we had made the mistake of booking a hotel near the ferry to Vancouver Island where his conference would be held in two days. The ferry was a $70 cab ride away from downtown Vancouer where we wanted to hang out before the conference. We hadn't realized it was so far away. We cancelled the reservation at the ferry hotel--the woman at the desk was nice enough not to charge us for it even though it was less than 24 hours before check-in time--took a bus and a train back to central Vancouver, checked in at our new hotel, and walked over Vancouver. Very nice city with a big seaport where float planes fly in and out. We had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant--there is a very big Asian population and saw Captain America at a movie theatre not far from our hotel. (Picture: me in Vancouver)

The next day, we got back to the ferry in the afternoon and took it Nanaimo on Vancouver Island where Jerry's conference was to be held. The plan was for me to get the ferry from Victoria to Seattle and stay over night in the Rainy City while Jerry attended his conference. Just as we didn't realize the long distance between Vancouver and the ferry, I didn't take into account the long distance between Nanaimo and Victoria--a two-hour bus ride and there were only four a day. The first one arrived at the harbor in Victoria just 20 minute before my ferry left for Seattle. Plus would I make it back in the other direction the next day?

After panicing like a baby, I decided to just run from the bus station to the ferry terminal. I had a map of Victoria and figured there were only a few block apart. I just made it and was the last person on the ferry. The ride was nice. Isat next to a Canadian couple who were going to see a Seattle Mariners' baseball game and drank three rounds of vodka and grapefruit juice--and it was only 11 in the morning.

I'm really glad I didn't chicken out because I was able to get on the right ferry the next day in order to make the bus back to Nanaimo. More in Seattle (space needle pictured above) in the next blog.