Caching in Canada 3

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, we spent about two hours taking in the sights at Butchart Gardens. This was the day it rained on us a bit, but the showers were light and intermittent. BG had stands of small, clear umbrellas everywhere. Later Dave suggested they probably did that so those who used umbrellas did not block the views. Made sense since the paths were often jammed with people.


As you begin your tour, you walk a bit and then come up to this large wall. When you look over it you see the Sunken Gardens. Turns out the Butcharts made their megamoney on a quarry and cement factory. Once the quarry was no longer used, Mrs. B, a horticulturist, wanted to make the area beautiful again. So the Sunken Garden was born and hence why it's down so far. It is quite a breathtaking view, especially to take in from above. This picture is just one portion of it.

Although I do like color in a garden, I also appreciate landscaping that primarily makes use of a large variety of greenery. Somehow it seems to take more skill to make an area like that look so pretty.

The deepest part of the quarry was sealed off to form a lake. Years later a grandson added this ever-changing water feature.

One of my favorite spots was the Japanese Garden. This bridge was in an especially picturesque setting, I thought.

I could have taken hundreds of pictures of blooms but limited myself. Can you tell what my favorite color is? :-)

The property borders the coast at some points. I like the layering in this scene.

There was a virtual cache inside Buschart Gardens. Turns out you had to send info about the year this statue was brought over from Italy. It's a copy of a famous statue in Florence, Italy, one thought to bring luck to those who rub its nose. I kept thinking all of that sounded vaguely familiar, and then it hit me that I had rubbed the nose of the original while on a week long middle school trip to Italy during our last stint stationed in Germany. Quite a co-inky-dink.

Did you notice all the men sitting on benches behind the statue. Where are the women you may wonder? Well, the souvenir shop is just to the left. ;-)

Once we returned to downtown Victoria we ate, hit the wax museum, and then did a bit of caching on the Inner Harbor. Was a fun day.

Caching in Canada 2

Day two of our stay on Vancouver Island brought just a bit of rain as the droplets in this starfish picture testify. Saw lots of these critters and their purple cousins along the shoreline.

Naturally we also saw lots of boats.

After caching along the coastline, we headed to Butchart Gardens where we spent nearly two hours. Because I have so many pics for that, I'll put those in a separate entry. After Butchart we headed back to Victoria where we had dinner and then did some virtual caches along the Inner Harbor, which was within walking distance of our hotel.

With a virtual cache, you email a picture of yourself in front of the location or send the answer to a question about the local history that might be on a nearby plaque, etc. This type of cache is common in heavily populated areas. Since there's not an actual container to find, there's no chance of the cache getting muggled, or taken by non-cachers. Yes, all of you Harry Potter fans, that's Rowling's term for those who do not belong to the magical community, and it has made it's way into the GCing lingo.

While strolling along the Inner Harbor, there is no way to miss the Empress Hotel and the Parliament Buildings. The Empress opened in 1908, has 477 rooms, and has hosted royalty and celebrities from all around. Afternoon Tea is still a tradition enjoyed by so many tourists that the hotel claims to serve more tea than hotels do in London, England. We passed on that activity--not really our cup of tea.

If looking at the Empress and then walking to your left, you'll see this picturesque courtyard. The pic is crooked because there were so many people walking by I had to snap quickly.

I only recently learned about the madrone tree with its distinctive red bark. We have a few scattered here and there in NW Oregon, but we saw lots of them on Van Isle. Very pretty and unique looking.

Victoria has been the capital of British Columbia since 1868, and the Parliament Buildings opened in 1897. Was funny. We took lots of shots of the buildings, and in two, there are transportation methods indicative of the period the structure was built. You could hardly turn around without seeing either a horse-and-carriage tour like the one below or a bicycle rickshaw giving a tour of the city.

Well, I'll end part 2 here. More coming soon.

Caching in Canada 1

Dave, Sara (Dave's cousin), and I spent 3 wonderful days in and around Victoria, British Columbia, Canada over the 4th of July weekend. I got off work a bit early on Thursday, July 3rd and once home immediately jumped in the car with Dave to pick up Sara who lives in Portland proper. The ride along northern Washington's coast was beautiful; I especially liked passing through parts of the Olympic National Forest. We arrived at our hotel in Port Angeles, Washington around 11:00 pm, just in time to catch some zzzz's before catching our 8:00 am ferry to Victoria.









The ferry ride took about 90 minutes despite only traveling just over 20 miles. I slept for most of the crossing after the late nights spent prepping for our vacation. Was interesting driving our car onto the ferry.

We stayed at The Regency, an older boutique hotel in the heart of downtown Victoria. Since they had overbooked, we were bumped from one room with two beds to a suite with a queen bed and a living room with a sleeper sofa. Turned out to be perfect as it afforded Sara some privacy in the evenings. Our room had many nice features like recessed ceilings with pretty molding along the edges; European-style windows that opened outward to a faux iron-gated balcony with pots of geraniums; a distorted glass pocket door for the bathroom; and a wardrobe instead of a closet in the bedroom.

After lunch we set out for our first round of geocaching. Wound up in Esquimalt, a small town just west of Victoria. Many of the place names were derived from the heritage of the First Peoples, what Canadians call Native Americans. I thought this spot was scenic with all the greenery, the yellow flowers on the hill, the craggy rocks of the coastline along the bottom, and the Canadian flag.


Another cache had us walking along some beautiful trails that led to the water's edge. The theme of that cache was "tell us your wedding story" because so many people get married in that park. Nature did seem to provide a beautiful staging area for such an event.

Everywhere we went we saw gardens, hanging baskets, lush greenery, and beautiful landscaping. This whale art and landscaping were at the entrance of the park with the wedding cache.

The next shots are of Sara and Dave after finding the wedding cache. I was below them taking pics of the coastline, and when I looked up they both had their heads down focusing on their technology. Seemed funny so I called to them, and they wound up waving in unison.

One thing that struck me about the northern Washington and southern Vancouver Island coastlines is that neither had very much usable beach. Small stretches or pockets like in this picture were common sights.

I'll end here for today. Stay tuned for the next installment. :-)

GeoCaching on the 4th of July

Dave, Kara, Zach, Sara (Dave’s cousin), and I went geocaching in Canby and Estacada. Despite the heat, we had a great time.

At the 2nd find of the day, we met a fellow GCer who told us about the Canby Challenge. Those who find 9 caches in Canby and then visit the site of the first cache ever hidden can earn a beautiful Canby-themed geocoin. Challenge = competition = Dave and Sara are in! We more than met that goal as we found 21 total caches for the day, a new one-day record for us.

This is a shot of Dave, the kids, and me sitting around the plaque commemorating the first cache ever hidden.

The first cache was stashed in May of 2000. It's rather impressive to me that in only 7 years something that started right here in our own “backyard” has become a worldwide phenomenon.

Encountered this red junker not far from one of our finds. I love K’s short hair. So cute on her. Z was Mr. Eagle Eye, spotting several caches right away.

We cached until about 9:00 and then headed back to Canby for their fireworks show. That turned out to be the only disappointment of the day. Kinda wimpy.

Hope you had a great 4th!

GeoCaching in Hood River 4

After a stop at Wal-Mart for a pair of shorts, a shirt, and some socks, we kept caching. These were some of the views for the rest of the day.

Actually while on the way to WM, we stopped to take this shot of Mt. Hood.


This picture of Mt. Hood was taken while driving to the 4th and final cache of the day. Darn those power lines for messing up my shot! ;-)

At one point we hiked along a pipeline that was bringing water from a dam to some turbines. I read the historical info and found out that when the dam was completed in 1924, that area was noted as being one of the “most electrified farming areas in America.” Cool. No luck finding that cache since the gate at the end of the 'plank' was locked.



It was an easy ½ mile hike high above Indian Creek to find the last cache of the day. Along the way we saw tons of these tall purple wildflowers.

Was a great day!

GeoCaching in Hood River 3

After enjoying the view of the Gorge on such a clear beautiful day we decided to head back down the hill. I’m not sure if you can see it, but look for the very light rocky ledge towards the center of the picture. That’s what we had to get around to hit the trail back down. Dave did fine. I had to force myself to think about flat places.

Our 2nd cache took us to a nice park with access to Hood River. Supposed to be a great place to catch trout. We only had to walk 5 minutes down the trail to find the goodies. This was our view just 5 feet from us.

The notes for the cache mentioned that the rocks on the trail could be slippery if wet. Not wet. No problem. However, when Dave decided to see how cold the water was, he had a problem. He put one foot on a rock in the river and was immediately half submerged in the water—his entire left side and then some. His foot slipped on moss on the rock, and he wound up with moss all over his jeans and shirt. Although his knee and palm were bruised, he was pretty much OK after shaking off the shock of it all. Thank goodness the GPS unit is waterproof because it was totally submerged as it hung from his neck. Got lucky in that his PDA/phone was on the hip that did not try to go swimming. You can tell Dave was able to laugh about it all as this was a posed picture to capture the memory of his misadventure.

GeoCaching in Hood River 2

I figured that putting all the pics in one posting would make for a very long blog so decided to break it up.

To the west: I don’t like this picture of me, but it’s the only one looking back toward Portland from Mitchell Point.

This is the view behind us as we stood high on the rock at Mitchell Point. So many layers of green. The yellow wildflowers were everywhere in the meadow-like area.

We hoped the cross wasn’t indicative of a previous cacher’s adventures up there.