{"id":495,"date":"2007-07-29T22:48:51","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T05:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/07\/29\/pacific_northwest_in_three_parts.html"},"modified":"2007-09-24T14:47:02","modified_gmt":"2007-09-24T21:47:02","slug":"pacific_northwest_in_three_parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/07\/29\/pacific_northwest_in_three_parts.html","title":{"rendered":"Pacific Northwest, in three parts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We returned from our ten-day trip almost a week ago, so I&#8217;d better get to it before it fades away&#8230;  The trip was supposed to be a surprise for Aimee&#8217;s birthday, but I planned it so long ago that I couldn&#8217;t keep it a secret forever.  We spent three days in Seattle, three in Victoria, and three in Vancouver, traveling between each location via a ferry.  We flew into Seattle on a Saturday afternoon, and Brent picked us up at the airport.  The highlights of the fortnight are as follows:<\/p>\n<p>Seattle: Seeing Brent, Amanda, and Darius, for the first substantial time since just after our wedding two years ago.  Staying at the <a title=\"The Ace Hotel - Home\" href=\"http:\/\/www.acehotel.com\/seattle\/\">Ace Hotel<\/A> in Belltown. Visiting the <a title=\"Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.greenwoodspacetravelsupply.com\/\">Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co<\/A>. Taking in a game at Safeco, and seeing All-Star MVP Ichiro work his magic at the plate. Tasting wine at <a title=\"Washington Wines and Winery | Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ste-michelle.com\/\">Chateau Ste Michelle<\/A> and beer at <a title=\"Redhook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.redhook.com\/\">Redhook<\/A>. Tracking down <a title=\"photobooth.net | Photobooth Blog: Photobooth crawl: Seattle\" href=\"http:\/\/www.photobooth.net\/mt\/archives\/2007\/07\/24\/photobooth_crawl_seattle.php\">ten photobooths<\/A> around town. And experiencing it all in three days of glorious sunshine.<BR><BR><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmeacham\/885690325\/\" title=\"Photo Sharing\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1369\/885690325_de28f7d8b6.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" alt=\"Greenwood Space Travel Supply in Seattle\" \/><\/a><BR><BR><a title=\"Seattle July 2007 - a photoset on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmeacham\/sets\/72157600981344320\/\">Photos of Seattle<\/A>. <\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday morning, we headed to Victoria, where I hadn&#8217;t visited since 1988, and Aimee had not yet been. The rain we had heard about finally showed up, and would stick with us for the rest of the trip.  We checked into our cute B&#038;B near the waterfront, and immediately went out to buy an umbrella.  Highlights from Victoria: Walking around the inner harbo(u)r and Fisherman&#8217;s Wharf. Checking out <a title=\"MINIATURE WORLD - Tourism Travel Attractions Miniature Dioramas Victoria, BC\" href=\"http:\/\/www.miniatureworld.com\/\">Miniature World<\/A>, in all its wacky detail.  The Rodin exhibit at the <a title=\"Art Gallery of Greater Victoria\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aggv.bc.ca\/\">Art Gallery of Greater Victoria<\/A>.  Browsing Antique Row, and visiting the B.C. Shaver and Hobbies Store.  The Titanic exhibit and B.C. history exhibits at the <a title=\"RBCM Main Site \" href=\"http:\/\/www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca\/MainSite\/default.aspx\">Royal B.C. Museum<\/A>.  And finally, a wonderful evening at <a title=\"The Butchart Gardens - Home\" href=\"http:\/\/www.butchartgardens.com\/index.php?option=com_frontpage&#038;Itemid=1\">Butchart Gardens<\/A>, wandering the stunningly beautiful grounds and enjoying the evening lights.<BR><BR><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmeacham\/891719261\/\" title=\"Photo Sharing\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1227\/891719261_007f8495ff.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Butchart Gardens\" \/><\/a><BR><BR><br \/>\n<a title=\"Victoria July 2007 - a photoset on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmeacham\/sets\/72157600995468731\/\">Photos of Victoria<\/A>.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, we took a combination of bus, ferry, and bus from Victoria to Vancouver, and more rain.  We met my parents, in town for a conference, at our hotel, and had a great birthday\/anniversary dinner with them at <a title=\"COAST Restaurant !\" href=\"http:\/\/coastrestaurant.ca\/\">Coast<\/A>.  Highlights of Vancouver: Walking the seawall in <a title=\"Vancouver Park Board - Stanley Park\" href=\"http:\/\/www.city.vancouver.bc.ca\/Parks\/parks\/stanley\/\">Stanley Park<\/A>. Eating delicious seafood for every meal.  Jazz and dessert at the <a title=\"Downtown Vancouver Hotel - Empire Landmark Hotel - British Columbia, Canada\" href=\"http:\/\/www.empirelandmarkhotel.com\/\">Fairmont Hotel Vancouver<\/A>. Walking through the markets on Granville Island.  &#8220;The Taming of the Shrew&#8221; outdoors at the <a title=\"Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival - Vancouver, BC - Christopher Gaze, Artistic Director\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bardonthebeach.org\/\">Bard on the Beach<\/A>.  Wandering <a title=\"Welcome to Gastown\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gastown.org\/\"> Gastown<\/A>, now with ultra-realistic accidental side trip through Skid Row!  Malaysian dinner in the West End.  And watching dusk over Vancouver from the slowly rotating 42nd floor of the <a title=\"Downtown Vancouver Hotel - Empire Landmark Hotel - British Columbia, Canada\" href=\"http:\/\/www.empirelandmarkhotel.com\/\">Empire Landmark Hotel<\/A>.<BR><BR><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmeacham\/906679260\/\" title=\"Photo Sharing\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1151\/906679260_932dd1a544.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" alt=\"IMG_8279.JPG\" \/><\/a><BR><BR><a title=\"Vancouver July 2007 - a photoset on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmeacham\/sets\/72157601022524629\/\">Photos of Vancouver<\/a>.<BR><BR>We arrived home on Monday afternoon, and waited with Earth, Wind, and Fire at the baggage claim for 45 minutes; the only reason we knew it was them was because one of them was wearing a shirt with the band&#8217;s name on it, and I looked up what they looked like on my phone. The trip was great, and despite my boot and my limited walking ability, we had a fun time and I was somewhat distracted from the fact that I wasn&#8217;t still training for the marathon.  Which was this morning.  So congratulations to Brent for running it, and I hope to get back into it sometime soon &#8211; or at least just out of this boot, which is no longer that cool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We returned from our ten-day trip almost a week ago, so I&#8217;d better get to it before it fades away&#8230; The trip was supposed to be a surprise for Aimee&#8217;s birthday, but I planned it so long ago that I couldn&#8217;t keep it a secret forever. We spent three days in Seattle, three in Victoria, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}