Oct. 24 - 28: Anacortes, again...

 OK, so let's get this segment started off right - with tuna juice!!

 Well, now that we've started things off on a happy note, I'm going to backtrack for a short, unhappy detour - the trip back to the states...  Our Vancouver (Surrey, actually) RV park was virtually right on the border - so close that we had to be careful coming and going lest we end up at the border crossing by accident!  So that morning, we turned the corner and got in line...and stayed in line for about an hour.  Then we were directed to park.  Finally border guards came to our rig and told us to remove all our critters to an outdoor kennel they had.  Dogs and cats on leashes, we led them to some cages that would hold our dogs OK but certainly not our cats!  They would be out and flattened in no time!  After unsuccessfully trying to impress the border guards with the difficulty of the situation, we finally ended up having to lock the kitties in the RV closet.  All of this so that the guards could go through our RV without animals escaping, etc.  The easiest way would've been for us to just hang on to them, but that was NOT allowed!  We had to stay in a separate building the whole time!  And in that building, there was complete disorganization and a whole lot of (bad) attitude!  We were not the only ones who didn't know exactly what we were supposed to do or where to go, and I'm sure we weren't the only ones who were utterly disgusted to be made to feel like vicious criminals for the unforgivable trespass of having certain veggies on board and not remembering about having them, etc.!  Not knowing the nationality of the others in the building, I can't say if we were the only ones so completely embarrassed by our own country's border crossing methodology!!!!!!!!!  After two hours and a lot of unnecessary harassment, we were pretty infuriated!  We will never go through the Blaine, WA, border crossing again!!!!!!!!!!!!  At least not south-bound!!!!

OK, now back to our regular programming - and happier scenes!

  Like...   Happy Halloween!

Just down the road from the Burlington Ford dealership was this cute pumpkin lot.

 Halloween ballerina!  :)

 Grand fall colors!  Even if they are just planted and in a parking lot!

 Very cool church building!!

 Too clever!!

 Point & shoots aren't very good for zooming-in!  But I still had to give it a go with this bald eagle!

 Lots of oil shipments and refineries in Anacortes,

which look kind of cool at night!

 And a few weird/interesting houses...

 Another foggy (and kind of pretty) beginning to another cold, wet day...

Anacortes introduced us to several things (some of the best clam chowder and fried oysters - well, for Bill, anyways, and some of the worst dreary, cold fall weather,...).  At our first Five Guys Burgers and Fries experience, I fell in love with a soft drink machine!  This is awesome!!!  Just touch your choice on the screen and discover tons more choices - regular, diet, fruity, plain, whatever!  What fun!!!

Oct 22 - White Rock

True to its Pacific NW nature, on the 21st, it rained.  The 22nd brought mixed weather - initially good enough to go out in (even for us San Diegan weather weenies!).  So we ventured out to the nearby town of White Rock, just daytripping with Tractor & Scratty.

 First, we stopped for a little shoreline walk with the kitties.  We assumed that signs like this meant cats were OK!

 We were really enjoying ourselves (and entertaining passersby) until the rain came back...

Time to run for it!

 Driving a little further along, we ran into a Halloween celebration - with some cool pumpkin-carving going on!

 Love him!

 Afterwards, we drove through some upscale housing and then on to another town with more shoreline paths (and unpicked-up dog poop that yours truly found the hard way...or should I say, the soft, squishy way?!).

But Billy and the cats were ready to go home, so as they say, "once the poop is off the shoe, it's time to go!"  Isn't that how the saying goes?  No?  Oh well, close enough!  On the way home is when the truck decided to somehow limit itself to 2nd gear, so we zoomed back at around 35mph...  And that, my friends, was the end of any major exploratory outings in Vancouver!  And...time to go back to Repair Central - or, aka, Anacortes and "our" Ford dealership.

Oct. 20 - Victoria

Special Note:  Nowadays, if you click on a photo, all the photos in the entry will come up and you can just go through them  (enlarged & slideshow-style) and not bother with all the other gossipy/complainy tripe!   :)

Note #2:  This is a long entry - LOTS of photos - so better go get that coffee/snack now!

So before our truck came down with another flu, and on one of our few pretty days in Vancouver, we made tracks (or waves) for Victoria.  We were shocked at the ~ $77 ferry fare, but whatcha gonna do?  I had such great memories of our one trip there so many years ago - from the Olympic Peninsula.  Butchart Gardens filled with rain, gorgeous flowers, and matching umbrellas.  A cute town/marina with the pretty, ivy-covered landmark hotel.  So we loaded up the dogs (since our outing would be too long for the pups to hold their bladders) and made our way to the Tsawwassen terminal, hoping the rather gloomy-looking morning would clear up as promised.

We paid the outrageous fee, waited in line for the usual hour or so, and boarded.  Here we're just getting underway, looking back at the terminal.

 Exploring the upper decks.

 Touring between the islands.

 Billy and neighboring traveler watch as we dock at Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island.

 First stop:  Butchart Gardens, an old (1880s/early 1900s) limestone quarry reclaimed by the owner's wife and transformed into an incredible, world-renown botanical paradise.  And to our doggies' delight?  They were welcome into the gardens too!  Too cool!!

 And now for the Longest Snout Competition...

(Mommy snapped the photo while Daddy was in the men's restroom - doggies eagerly awaiting his return)

 Lucky dogs!

 Bill and Friends in front of outrageous dahlia display.

 Mommy gets to pose too.

 Beautiful posies!

 And another beauty...!

 A neon blue salvia!

 OK, I knew coming here without the aid of my real camera was going to be painful...  I was so grateful to at least have my little point and shoot, but there was no way for it to do this place justice!  Esp. in the sunken gardens, where the trees were going off with their fall colors.

 Guess who???

 Amazingly dog-friendly!

 The quarry pond/fountain.

 Somehow, a fancy place like this with so many pretty plants and green lawns, seems like the last spot where dogs would be welcomed,...  But how wonderful for our pooches to be able to walk around instead of stay in the car!  And they weren't the only dogs there either.  Hopefully everyone else is as reverent of this place as we - and careful with any potentially destructive canine behaviors/deposits!

 Yeah, I think this must be one of the places they take those jigsaw puzzle photos...!!

 Bye-bye piggy!

 Gotta love their parking lot mnemonics!

 God Save The Queen!

 The famous Empress Hotel.

 And cool water fountain.

 Love all that autumn ivy (or creeper, or whatever it is)!

 And check out the two crazy, leaning "weeping sequoias" at the entrance!  These two trees nearly parallel the ground!

 Billy and a couple orcas.

 Go abstract - go crazy!  Weeeeee!!  (it would be too easy to guess what these were if the photo was right side up...!)

 And some more crazy...!  I LOVE these lights!!  Just hanging in a little cafe/coffee bar.  Super awesome!

Victoria is the capitol of British Columbia - and has the magnificent Parliament buildings to prove it!

 After a wonderful (and wonderfully "cheap!") dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory (yup, not just in the US!), it was time (or actually past time - would mean a late night!) to get back to the terminal and ride back.  To our horror, our ticket coming over was only one way!  You got it - another $77 to get back!!!!!!!!!!!!  Wow.  Ouch!!  I'm glad we went, but those price tags mean that will be the last time, no matter what.  We felt completely ripped-off.  Should've paid more attention, but we made the mistake of assuming the ticket would be round-trip like in the US.  Ooops!

Look past our truck in this photo.  See all those big rigs??  That big white thing behind us is a semi.  Yup, we were right in there with the big boys!

Poor Ouray.  What a long day this was for him (and for us).  And the puppies couldn't get out of the truck and walk around during the ferry rides like we could.  Again, I'm glad we did this trip, but we were all bone tired by the time we got back to our RV (I think we were about an hour away from the terminal, and the ferry ride was 1 1/2 hrs).