Disclaimer: i am still trying to figure out the blogging from a tablet thing. Paragraphs and spell-check have yet to be mastered. copying and pasting blogs from the word processor from when I write them offline is what I am doing at the moment.
So I am in the ferry bulding waiting for the 8:30 ferry to Sidney British Columbia. It took me quite some time to figure out my new Bluetooth rolling keyboard but I think I am finally figuring this thing out. I slept for about 3.5 hours agaian last night, the second night in a row. We got to the Ferry Terminal in Anacortes last night around midnight. We assembled the bikes in the terminal and had them ready to go by 12:45. After this we had to find a spot to camp. We decided to run up by the upper parking lot to find a spot. We found one, but it was very hilly and right off of the parking lot (I don't know if they appreciated us camping there) In the morning, which at this lattitude happens around 4 AM, I woke up to find lots of wild rasppberries in the area. I tried one and it was a little more wild than I thought it would be. We had the camp up and packed before any security personnel compassed the area. I had co-workers imagining that I would get arrested in a spectacular fashion, but that hasn't happened ... Yet!
We are on the 8:25 ferry to Sidney BC this morning and they are starting to call our loading groups. There are many posters here in the station which feature orca whales (the ferry even passes Orca Island). I want to see Shamoo in the wild. I hope he remembers me! I was really friendly and waved a lot last time I saw him at Sea world. I will blog more once I get on the Ferry.
The ferry trip was uneventful, but beautiful. Shamoo was too afraid to show his face but maybe he will show his face tomorrow as we take the Ferry to Port Angeles. Like I just said, the ferry was amazingly beautiful. It made a quick stop at Friday Harbor on the Island of San Juan. The Ferry had special ropes for bicycles to tie up on a ramp for the voyage as well. The charge for the bicycle was $6. The Ferry had several large Korean families on it that seemed very excited to be in North America. I chatted with them for a while and they were happy that I enjoyed Seoul 4 summers ago. Being short on sleep I tried to doze off, and succeeded for about 10 minutes when a crewmember woke me up to make sure that I was not supposed to get off at Friday Harbor. I wasn't able to fall back asleep again. Once we landed on Victoria Island, we had to go through a particularly grimm border patrol agent. We succeeded and immediately after we disembarked the Sidney Ferry Station, we found signs directing bicyclists towards Victoria on the Lochside bicycle path. It was fairly well marked for the 20 miles into town and it was absolutely georgious. We were told by locals that it followed an old rail bed so it was particularly flat as well. There were some areas that were on dirt paths, but they were really well mainttaianed and smooth. Neither Brandon or myself had bike difficulties because of it. We easily found our hostel tonight despite both of us rejecting the huge $/mb charges on our data plans for roaming in Canada.
For lunch Brandon wanted to try what I think is spelled poutin, which is like a french canadian version of chili fries (Brandon served his mission in Belgium/France). We found a place called "The Pig" that served it, and it was delicious! This particular location was a barbeque joint that loaded fries with pulled pork, cheese and a gravy type sauce. I also tried the establishments mustard barbeque sauce and was instantly taken to another level, it was very good. I am sure we will have further adventures with Canadian Cuisine in the next 24 hours.
The hostel we are at is pretty nice and provided a warm shower/place for a nap that was greatly appreciated. It looks like we have one Canadian and one German roommate for the night. We need to decide what we are going to do for breakfast, but they have a full kitchen that we can use if we want to cook in the morning. I need to buy some stove fuel (TSA frowns on white gas in checked luggage) and allergy medicine. I am absolutely dying with allergies, which is funny because when I went to seattle this time of year 3 years ago, I had absolutely no problems. Off to explore the city!
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