When Adventures Have Glitches. . .

You just have to grin and bear it! Or at least bear it. I'll admit, I wasn't grinning too much during my ordeal last Saturday that turned what should have been a 3-hour trip from Seattle to Victoria into an 8-hour trip!!!

Me and my awesome friend Miranda thought we'd have a nice little relaxing weekend getaway, so we booked tickets on the Victoria Clipper. It sounded so easy. . . catch the 8 am boat from Seattle, read a book for a couple hours, and arrive in Victoria on Vancouver Island by 10:45. Miranda's trip did go that smoothly, because she went on Friday. She was going to spend one day there by herself and I would be joining her on Saturday.

Saturday dawned. . . rainy, windy, and cold. I drove to the ferry terminal through sheets of rain, stood in the long line to check in for the boat, and then found out that because of heavy winds they had canceled the sailing. My choices were. . .

1. Cancel for a full refund, leaving Miranda there all by herself until Sunday
or
2. Take a bus north over the Canadian border, then take a different ferry to Victoria. The lady said it would add an hour and a half to two hours to the overall trip length.

So I waited for the bus, got on it, and my gosh, it seriously took all day to get there. I don't know what that lady was thinking, because it added five hours to my total trip length! The bus ride alone was three hours, not including the time it took to get everyone off the bus at the border, put our luggage through a scanning device, and be asked lots of ridiculous questions by the border patrol. When we arrived at the ferry terminal at 11:30, the next ferry didn't leave until 1:00. So of course we had to wait around for that, and then the ferry ride was another two hours, with another half an hour in the bus on Vancouver Island until we finally got to Victoria. I didn't get there until almost 4 in the afternoon! I was ready to pull my hair out!

I took this picture from the ferry, going between some of the islands. It was hard to get a good picture through the dirty windows, but it really did look pretty!

Miranda was really glad to see me, and I had exactly 24 hours to relax and have a good time in Victoria. The city was very pretty! Here we are in front of the city's Fairmont Empress Hotel, right on the water. We stayed at a Best Western, but it would be cool to stay at this hotel someday!

Here's some beautiful architecture, mixed in with a Pacific Northwest totem pole. We mostly walked around the harbor and went in lots of shops. It was so fun being with someone who wanted to browse through shops with me, because Stephen never would have gone for that!

Despite my long ordeal, I'm really glad I got to go and I had a great time with Miranda. Thankfully, Sunday was clear and sunny and we had no problem getting home the regular way, on the 3-hour boat. It was nice! Here's the view of the harbor from our boat.

The boat seats reminded me so much of airplane seats, it was kinda funny. It was nice to have some girl time, and now I can add Canada to my list of countries I've traveled to!