Canada Weekend - aka Sleepless in Seattle

Weekend in Canada - aka Sleepless in Seattle

I don't know if it's me; whether I jinx things, sort of a bad luck
charm; but almost every trip we went on during my time in Oregon was
very nearly a disaster. In Las Vegas I was stranded on Lake Mead with
Dan. At Yosemite I sustained a foot injury. At Thanksgiving we were
plagued by bad weather. Our long awaited jaunt to Canada was no
different. To begin with we had planned it for a holiday weekend so we
would have more than two days. Unfortunately several of us came down
with the 'flu on the appointed weekend so we had to push it back. It
ended up being a random weekend in May, and we had the use of Dan's
parents' minivan again. The same one that took us to Vegas and back.
This time there were five of us on the trip. Dan and Helen of Spring
Break fame; James, the sleeping Hawaiian from Thanksgiving; Matt (Dan's
roommate) and myself. We would not be able to leave Corvallis until
early evening which meant that we would be arriving in Vancouver
incredibly late. James suggested we alter our plan. He knew of someone
at the University of Washington in Seattle and said he could probably
fix it so we could stay there on the Friday night, explore Seattle a
little, then drive to Port Angeles to catch a ferry to Victoria on
Vancouver Island on Saturday. We had our hearts set on Vancouver, but
this meant less driving and less travelling time so we agreed. On the
Thursday night before our trip we had all planned on an early night.
Dan, Helen and I were the last to go to bed, still working on the
details of the trip. Late in the evening who should turn up but Dan's
sister and her husband. They had been driving to Portland from
somewhere or other and insisted on taking the three of us out for a
late meal at Shari's (thank God for Shari's, what would night owl
college students do without you?). We went and consequently didn't get
to sleep until the small hours. All of us had class at ungodly hours of
the morning, as a result when we finally got into the car Helen, Dan
and I were dead tired. Fortunately Seattle was an easy drive, straight
up Interstate 5. We still managed to arrive in Seattle fairly late at
night to discover that James' friend had forgotten we were coming and
had gone out. We left a note and went back to the city to look at the
sights of Seattle. The skyline of Seattle, immortalized in the opening
titles of 'Frasier', is a wonder. Twinkling lights blink on the
skyscrapers that are huddled together and the Space Needle that
dominates the night sky. It looks how American cities are supposed to
look. We drove around, too tired (or too lazy) to walk. We passed a
bizarre looking skyscraper at one point. It looked like it was upside
down. The tower block was perfectly normal; it was the lower part of it
that was odd. The base of the building was very much narrower then the
rest and it tapered up to meet the tower block above. I'm sure this is
architecturally clever, but I felt compelled to point out that surely
it wasn't too smart. The Pacific Northwest being earthquake country, I
couldn't see this building holding up to one. As it turned out I was
wrong. When the earthquake hit Seattle in February 2001 no building's
collapsed to my knowledge. Presumably including that tower block
perched on it's tapered base. We drove on to the Space Needle, we were
too late to go inside it but we were happy to stare up at it. The
clouds were low that night and the lights at the top of the Space
Needle were reflecting up on them, creating a disc of light hovering
over the city. I wonder how many UFO sightings were reported that
night. We left this remarkable sight and returned to UW where James'
friend was waiting for us. Another late night for everyone since he
insisted we join him for a drink and a tour of the university.

After another night of very little sleep we woke early to drive to Port
Angeles where we would catch the ferry to Victoria. Again fate
conspired against us in the form of traffic and we got into Port
Angeles just in time to wave at the departing ferry. The next of the
only two departing that day wasn't for some hours so we wandered around
Port Angeles. It isn't much of a town. We ended up watching a movie and
almost missing the next ferry. We left the minivan in Port Angeles and
travelled by ferry across the awkwardly named Strait of Juan de Fuca
towards Victoria. We hadn't booked a hotel, we hadn't thought we'd need
to. We were wrong. Victoria was inordinately busy. We saw lots of the
hotels of the town as we traipsed from one to the other finding no
rooms. Finally we found ourselves at the sympathy of one of the
hoteliers. A friendly woman who told us there was some big festival in
Victoria that weekend, and a marching band or cheerleader competition
or some such thing. She, very kindly, offered to ring around some
hotels for us to find a room while we sat in a foyer, feeling stupid.
Why didn't we book a room? How idiotic were we? Very. The lady found us
a room and gave us the directions. We thanked her profusely and set off
across town. We booked the rooms, found a quiet bar and collapsed into
it, exhausted. It seemed that we were destined to get hardly any sleep
for the entire weekend. The rooms we had found were above a nightclub
which didn't quit its thumping bass beat until dawn was
approaching.

Reluctantly we woke early to look around Victoria before we were forced
to catch the 10.30 ferry back to the USA. We were flaked out and
irritable because of our many short nights. Victoria is a beautiful
city, but in an extraordinarily dull way. The harbour is ringed by
magnificent buildings. Statues of Queen Victoria abound and are more
well cared for than most I've seen in England. Horses trot along the
road dragging pretty little carts. And the streets are clean and tidy.
But the city doesn't have a soul. Or maybe it was because I was in such
a bad mood. Probably a lot of how people perceive places is due to
state of mind. I live in London now, and when I'm in a good mood I love
London, it's a great city. But when I'm in a bad mood (usually due to a
bad commute on the tube in rush hour traffic) I hate London, it's
crowded, smelly and dirty. So, Victoria might be lovely. Or I might be
right. We didn't see any Mounties which I was more than a little
disappointed by. Maybe I should have done something illegal. But, no, I
refrained and we took the 3-hour ferry crossing back to the States,
watching as Washington's impressive Olympic mountains crept ever closer
shrouded by snow and cloud. An interesting aside here about the
Olympics that I found on the Internet (so it's got to be true, right?).
Apparently a group is looking for funding to support a research project
in the Olympic mountains looking for the Sasquatch. And I'm sure
they'll get a federal grant or something, it being America. Another
long drive and we arrived in Corvallis utterly shattered.