[slidepress gallery=”ButchartGarden2009″]
The day started off with a blessed amount of sleep and just the right amount of get up and go to get on the road after a late breakfast. It was with hesitation that I headed out of the Victoria West, KOA back towards the harbor at Sidney to head back into Washington state, we had on the plan to see Butchart Garden, a highlight of our trip but didn’t change the fact that we were as far from home as we were going to get and the next step was a return home to all of the normal things that life is built around.
Consistently today I attempted to take the time to remind Katherine and myself that we were on vacation and we should find a way to enjoy ourselves, even upon entering the garden I re-doubled my effort to provide that reminder.
Butchart Garden was, to me, more interesting than Disneyland and more beautiful as well, everything was green and manicured, with flowers nearly everywhere. The only negative to the garden was the simple fact that it was hot, and by hot I mean a hot in Canada that they haven’t seen in quite some time. It was as though Central California’s heat had followed us up the coast line and settled for our stent in Canada, welcoming us with it’s warmth. The gardens on any cooler day would have taken the entire day or afternoon to experience, we however nearly rushed through the entire garden to see the plants and had to relax at lunch and look through the plant identification booklet to see the things that we had missed and still wanted to see.
One of my remaining questions after seeing the Butchart Garden is, “Do they allow people to have their weddings here?”. The gardens have an amazing amount of open time to the public, their summer hours are from 9a.m. Р10 p.m. This is unlike any other garden that Katherine and I have ever seen, and on any cooler day than the day that we visited it would be a magical place to have a wedding ceremony performed.
Katherine and I spent every last moment that we could allow ourselves at the garden before heading back to the ferry port that would send us back home. Even spending as long as we had at the Gardens we still had some time before the ferry would arrive to take us home so we elected to spend it relaxing in one of the local, Sidney, Starbucks coffee houses enjoying a cool smothy.
When the time came to head to the ferry we did so with haste as to not be the last vehicles that would board, customs was a breeze, we again however didn’t receive a stamp stating that we were coming back to the United States, not so much as a welcome home or anything really. It is posible that according to the people at the border crossing figured that it’s just an every day thing for people to cross from Anacortes to Sidney, it was for Katherine and I the first of many such adventures to places outside the United States.
Onboard the ferry back to the United States, Katherine and I took time to ask a couple from Washington how hard it was to bring their dog’s with them to B.C. And found out that it was actually pretty simple. Fears about what it would talk to get our dogs across the border with us was almost the only reason that they hadn’t come with us on this trip. At least at the time that this post was written crossing the border with a canine took only proof of the standard vaccinations. Next time we decide to head to B.C. Our boxers may very well be going with use so that they have the attention that they are used to and don’t have to stay outside tearing up our yard for lack of attention.
Our return voyage to Washington started at just the right time for a photographer such as myself, the last two hours of any day are often the time to be out with a camera taking pictures, it was for this reason that I had booked this particular voyage. Not only was the time right for photographs we additionally we were very glad to find the heat of the day quickly melting away in the chill of the Alaskan waters, standing on the upper decks the boat we were warmed by the sun and cooled by the wind, a perfect combination.
Initially at least the photographs able to be taken aboard our return voyage weren’t as good as good as I had anticipated, we did however have quite a number of hours until the sun would set over the North Western horizon.