DAYS 16-17:
From Tofino, we headed southeast to Victoria, considered Canada's most British city. This small, charming town offered up idyllic streets for wandering, shopping, flea-marketing and more. Our hostel was by far the coolest hostel I've ever stayed in - in the middle of town, it had a teeny bar and restaurant that offered $5 dinners (veggie-friendly!), and was walking distance to everything.
Another favorite destination was Beacon Hill Park, where we were treated to expansive views of the coastline and the Olympic National Forest across the way in Washington state. In our day and a half in Victoria, we also managed to fit in a trip to Butchart Gardens, which were spectacularly lit up at night, and included a live concert by a fun local Celtic band. Hello, beer-drinking songs!
Another highlight of Victoria was high tea, which I had reserved six weeks in advance at a very popular local establishment, White Heather Tea Room. We felt quite British as we sipped the place's signature "Mad Hatter" tea blend and noshed on scones and jam, tea sandwiches and pastries. This was another fabulous stop along our gluttonous tour of western Canada!DAYS 18-21:
Following our whirlwind tour of Victoria, we caught an early ferry to Seattle. After close to perfect weather for most of our trip, we were not too surprised to be met with a downpour for the majority of our three days in Seattle. However it did nothing to hinder our enjoyment of the fabulous city. Within a day, Ben and I were entertaining notions of how to move there.
We stayed in Capitol Hill, the quirky yet chic gay district close to downtown. We rented an amazing condo with a large balcony (if we craned our necks a bit and squinted, we could see the downtown skyline and even a bit of the bay), a fab kitchen and modern decor.
One of the things that excited me most about visiting Seattle was the potential for good veggie food paired with yummy microbrews. It did not disappoint - I was in foodie heaven! For our first evening, we wandered around and ended up at a funky little spot called Honey Hole, where I pigged out on a vegan BLT and a top-notch margarita (or two), and Ben got a beef brisket sandwich - yes, the place achieved that rare combination of great veggie AND carnivorous options!
Our next day in Seattle we covered many of the typical tourist spots and some of the not-so-typical, like a rain-drenched flea market in the oh-so-funky Freemont neighborhood! Ben found some cool vintage cuff links and I drooled over supple, handmade leather purses that were way out of our price range! Freemont is also home to the Theo Choclate Factory, which we dedicated a not insignificant amount of time to exploring (err ... sampling!) What better way to warm up than with a thick, fudgey sip of chipotle hot chocolate? Apparently tours needed to be booked weeks in advance, but it was fun to visit nonetheless! Next we tracked down the Freemont Troll, a huge sculpture under a bridge - the troll is crushing a real VW bug in one of its hands.
Our next stop was the Experience Music Project, a super fun rock'n'roll museum, followed by a trip up the Space Needle for a sunset view, complete with a rainbow. Lucky us!Another day meant another chance to eat and explore - and drink coffee, of course! (We of sampled as many different coffee spots as we could squeeze in.) It was downtown and to the harbor, but to get there we took a meandering walk through various parts of town. I found a great vintage leather purse (this one I could afford!) at a girly boutique in Capitol Hill, and we warmed up with a hot, spicy lunch at a vegetarian noodle house, my first noodle house experience. Then, once again, foodie heaven at the Pike Place Farmer's Market!! We hopped into the massive line at Piroshky Piroshky (not sure if this is the same as a pirogi?) and boy was it worth the wait! Just the smells coming out of the tiny bakery had me drooling before we got inside.
And we could not skip a coffee from the original Starbucks. We tried food samples galore, sipped a beer overlooking the water, then walked along the coast through the Olympic Sculpture Park. We learned the hard way that the next part of town we wanted to explore was not exactly walking distance - after about 30 minutes into an industrial section of town, we lucked out and found a taxi to tote us to the up-and-coming Ballard neighborhood. We started at a beloved local cupcake shop for espressos, then found a true gastro-pub and sampled some unusual beers. After walking around for a while longer, we found space in our bellies for pizza from another cozy local spot, Snoose Junction Pizzeria. Then it was home to rest our overloaded tummies before meeting Ben's cousin and her husband for a few more beers (sheesh, I promise there was more to this trip and beer-drinking!)
On our last morning, we had coffee and breakfast at Cafe Presse, which had been voted one of the best new coffee spots, and was touted as a very French-style cafe. We sat in front of the window and for a moment convinced ourselves we were actually back in Paris with baguettes and Americanos. Yum! We walked off the carbs at Volunteer Park, also in Capitol Hill, where we could view some great angles of the city, as well as the Asian Art Museum, home of the Black Sun sculpture that inspired Soundgarden's 'Black Hole Sun' song! Also in the park was a wonderful greenhouse - a nice place to spend a rainy morning! We took a quick jaunt downtown to visit the architectural wonder that is the Seattle Public Library, and just as we were getting ready to leave town, remembered that there was one more restaurant Ben had been dying to try after seeing it on the Food Network: Salumi, a cured-meat shop owned and run by Mario Battali's father. We literally got there just as they were running out of food for the day - Ben got the second to last sandwich - and it was a good thing, because he was definitely in sandwich heaven with that salami, Gorgonzola and artisan bread combo.Phew, so that was Seattle - it was our sort of town, we felt right at home there!!
DAY 22 - 23:
As some may know, we stopped in Spokane, as I had considered it as a possible place to live eventually. Ruled it out quickly - enough said! We left quite early with plans to drive straight back to Calgary in a day.
We stopped in an adorable town - Bonners Ferry - in Idaho of all places, for lunch. Much to our surprise, we tried wines from local vineyards that were quite tasty. It was a wonderful break from our hours of driving. After crossing the Canadian border, we quickly made it back into the Alberta Rocky Mountains, which felt strangely familiar and warm to me after being away for several weeks. Bad weather began rolling in, it was getting dark out, and I was not yet ready for our adventure to be over.
Again, luck was on our side and we stumbled onto some adorable cabins in Kootenay National Park. The woodsy, rustic restaurant was just closing down, but the owner and chef could not have been more gracious, offering to prepare dinner for us anyway and hooking us up with exactly the kind of cozy cabin I had imagined holing up in in the Rocky Mountains! Though it got chilly at night, Ben started up a fire and I couldn't have been happier or thought of a better way to spend the last night of our trip.
Before hitting the road in the morning, we did one final mountain hike on a glorious sunny day, then headed on to our brand new rental home back in Calgary.
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