Barb and Dave's Western Tour: Washington State, and Victoria BC

If you're in Washington, of course you've got to visit Mt Rainier. This is it. 15 minutes later, it was in the clouds, and stayed there. Magnificent, anyway.

So, on along the north coast - this is Port Townsend

Big thing is Victorian cottages. The whole town had them, very quaint, beautifully maintained, lots of flowers.

Aand woodcarvings

Nearby, Fort Worden. This Persian rug was in the Commanding Officer's Quarters. The things that look like overdone h's in the middle are the date in the Islamic calendar, 3231 (1898 in ours). But I thought they would use Arabic numerals?

Near Sequim Bay, the S'Klallam Indian tribal center

A totem-pole studio. These are very popular; he carves mostly for other Indians but does them for palefaces, businesses, chambers of commerce etc. They run $2500-5000 per foot, so a fancy 20-foot tall one could run $100,000. This one was for a guy's living room.

Sequim Bay bills itself as the lavender capital of the world. Lavender is used for flavoring, and forsachets to make your clothes smell neat. This is the Purple Haze Lavender farm.

A Lavendar still, for distilling oil of lavender.

Next town: Port Angeles, where we took the ferry over to

Victoria, Canada:

I think these sculptures represent Japanese food -

They love Totem poles here. I understand the Indians had only rather small and crude totem poles, until the White man came along with steel tools.

A bike rack

Barb and Dave at the Butchart Gardens - very large and rather famous.

Brugmansia - these are BIIIIIG.

Lovely

Tree in the Japanese garden

The lamps for night illumination.

A 'Deer-chaser." Water pours into the end of the piece of bamboo, until it gets so heavy it tilts down. Then all the water pours out and it flips back down, hitting the rock with a loud noise which is supposed to scare the deer away. There weren't any deer there at the moment, so perhaps it works.

The British Columbia Parliament building, with Queen Victoria

Touring the Parliament building: Commemoration of a meeting/treaty between William MacKenzie and a Spanish Explorer named Bodega y Quadros. They agreed that the British got to claim all the land above the 43d parallel and the Spanish, all the land below. Wonder what the Indians thought about that...

Re-enactor of Sir Jamees Douglas, an early representative of the Hudson's Bay Company. He married and Indian woman and had 13 kids, among other things. The province's coat of arms bears the motto, "Splendor sine Occasu", 'Beauty without end'.

There were several re-enactors there, all very well-spoken, well-costumed, and knowledgeable.

The Mace, carried into the opening session of Parliament. They take being English very seriously.

A window commemorating the visit of Queen Elizabeth celebrating her Golden Jublee (50th anniversary). Sometimes having a king/queen seems like a neat idea...