Honeymoon Day 15

Day 15
August 15th, 2004
Seattle, WA to San Jose, CA

She Says

Woke up early to pack our things & say goodbye to a life supplied with maid service.

It took a while, but we did eventually find our way down the Seattle streets to find Pike Place Public Market. It looked like a farmer’s market/street faire.

We would have liked to have stopped, but we couldn’t find parking anywhere. When we did find parking, it was so far away that we wouldn’t have had time to park, walk the market, & walk back without missing our flight.

So, now we’ll have something to do when we come back.

I’d really like to come back to Seattle sometime & finish the city, take a ferry to Victoria, see more there, & then ferry back again to Seattle. Next time we’ll just leave the car in the US & spare ourselves the wait & vehicle ferry fees!

Driving south to SeaTac Airport, Bryan kept asking me to try to get pictures of the Qwest Ballpark…

The wait at the airport wasn’t too bad. At least we found the rental car return in a timely fashion & were able to get to our flight without having to run for it!!!

Bryan’s folks were nice enough to pick us up and we got home where my mother was there to meet us with open arms & a condo that she cleaned for us & the chance to open all our presents!!!

He Says

Got up early in the hopes that we would be able to check out Pikes Place Market for at least a little while before we had to speed off to the airport. But, unfortunately, by the time we navigated our way down too Pikes Place (we stupidly left the map in the trunk), we did not have enough time to park and check it out. Not that there was anywhere to park anyway. So we headed off to the airport.

Airport and flight were uneventful.

My parents picked us up from the airport and took us home. Kryis’s mother had cleaned up some of the mess we had left in the mad scramble the few days before our wedding. There were a slough of feral cats and kitties waiting for us when we got home. All eager for some food, no doubt. And a plethora of unopened presents just begging to be relieved of their confining wrapping.

Seattle Underground Tour

Seattle’s underground tour is half comedy routine and half history lesson. The story of how the underground came to be and the way the tour guides tell it is a lot of the reason to see the underground tour. So as not to spoil the tour if you ever plan on going, I will give a very short capsule version. Seattlites a long time ago made a lot of stupid decisions. They decided to raise the level of the town (above the mud) and the city and townspeople had a slight disagreement about it. The city raised the streets to ten feet above sidewalk level, and chaos ensued. Eventually, the sidewalk was raised and the second level of the buildings became street level. The old first levels are still there, underground.

Ghost Stories

I have found a lot of references to the Seattle Underground being haunted, but the only source I could find is the book Ghost Stories of Wasshington by Barbara Smith. In it there are reports from a tour guide named Janet having seen a man in period clothing. There are a few other references to sightings in the book, and a more detailed description of this one if you want to check that out for further reading.

Our Review

Cannot really say much more about it than I have already in the about section, except to say that it was fascinating. I loved the lecture/stand-up routine that starts off the tour, and I loved the tour itself. I highly recommend seeing this if you are ever in the Seattle area.

We went on this tour as part of our “Haunted Honeymoon.” You can learn more about our visit by checking out our honeymoon page day 14.

Official Website for Seattle Underground.

Honeymoon Day 14

Day 14
August 14th, 2004
Seattle, Washington

She Says

Lazy Saturday morning… We spent so much time rushing about yesterday, it was nice to rest a bit.

When downloading pics from the digi-cam to the computer, I plugged in the camera, which jammed up the whole thing. We did eventually get it all straightened out.

Breakfast was at this nifty little coffee shop at the bottom of the Westin. They make German pancakes…yum.

We managed to find my cousin Jasun and Tanya’s (his wife of 1 year come this September!) place without problem, but parking is a bit of an issue. Glad we managed to not get the rental car towed!

Off we headed for the Underground Tour, but parking was an issue there as well. We found a place that was $3 for 2 hrs and went to join the tour. Unfortunately the 1pm tour was booked and we had to take the 2pm. We wandered the local galleries (art, glass and Japanese prints. The glass one was playing “Lovecats” by The Cure.) and street faire in the mean time. I managed to not buy anything, but the velvet shirts were tempting. Back to the car meter to insert more $

The underground tour is part comedy act/part historical(hysterical) fact.

Apparently the seattl-ites don’t think much of the Tacoma folk. Something to do with the train being built to go to Tacoma and then when Tacoma making up the map, they left Seattle off the map.

Seattle seems, per the tour version, to be a comedy of errors. Building a town in an area where the tide comes in, so they had to build the town on wooded planks above the water level. Later, the “crapper” was invented and the wood pipe that came down from the cliffs would flow into the bay (and south to Tacoma) but at high tide, the lower cities toilets would spout about 6′ high of refuse.

Later the city suffered a great fire. It was rebuilt, but the city streets were made 12′ – 34′ higher than the sidewalks. (With ladders at intersections). The business owners later put doors on the new street levels, but the underground exists to this day. The purple glass in the sidewalk acts as a skylight to some underground sections. Nifty, eh? Our tour guide, Eric, was very informative, but cracked really bad puns the whole way through. Which I suspect is part of the routine and it kept the tour from being a dry boring history lecture. See book: Sons of the Profit.
After, we needed to get back to the car before the meter ran out.

The Blue Bistro. Since Jasun and Tanya are vegetarians and Bryan has a touchy stomach, it took a while to some to a conclusion. The Blue Bistro filled all the requirements. Dimly lit and eclectic, a large menu (and larger liquor menu) lots of bamboo and private little nooked tables under stairways and wherever. It was neat. It had character.

The Onasiss Pasta was wonderful. Portabello mushroom marinated for 2 days and served on pasta w/ tomatoes, roasted garlic and herbs… Bryan got the wrong meal (tomatoes, olives, garlic, and feta on pasta, instead of a Chicken dish) delivered to him, so they boxed up the error and let us take it with us. They also gave us a pass for a free drink some other night. I think this was good karma for Jasun and Tanya for buying us dinner, they get a better value this way! (They also bought our tour passes, ironic, since Bryan and I had talked about buying them passes to the Music Experience, but we wouldn’t have had enough time to go through the whole museum. )

We wandered by the space needle and music museum. There was a really neat fountain in the park that kids would run and play in. Around the corner was a carnival.
I heard around the corner the strains of “Poor Bela…Bela’s dead) I kept walking and burst out laughing. There’s a carnival ride the is on a coaster track that just goes faster and faster in a circle that is playing a Bauhaus song…and 2 “homie” looking kids are there running the ride. It was hilarious. They probably had no clue what music as playing…the song was probably older than them. Bryan recorded a bit of it for posterity.

Since the sun would start setting soon, we went to a park off of Queen Anne and got a really great view of the city and its skyline. Mostly we just sat and chatted away until the sun was almost all the way down and the city lights came on. A few more pics and we left. And found another great picture spot.

The street lamp was fizzling a bit, but when Jasun touched it, it completely died out. The after a moment, Bryan touched it and it came on again…until Jasun touched it again. Also, on the inside of the frosted globe was a spider, we could see its shadow crawling on the inside.

By Aurora (st?) there is a troll under a bridge. It has an old VW bug in one hand. Most cities put up statues of dead politicians. This one put a troll under the bridge. Cool.

After all this 10pm rolled around and it came time to part ways. We have to wake up early to pack up, see the fish market, and get to the airport so we can return the rental car, check in and get through security before the plane leaves!

Its sad. Our honeymoon is almost over. (and getting time off from work is like getting blood from a stone lately, so I know its going to be a while until the next Great Adventure. )

On the upside, I get to visit my mom, see our pets, have double-family get together and finally open our wedding gifts!!!

He Says

We did not rush out of bed when we woke up in the morning. It was nice to be a little more relaxed in the morning for a change.

Met up with Kryis’s cousin Jasun and his wife Tanya at their apartment in the Capital Hill area of Seattle… not really too far from where we were staying.

Headed down to where the Underground Tour sets off from. It was a little difficult to find parking, but we eventually did. Walked over to the underground tour and found out that the 1:00 tour was already full so Tanya and Jasun bought us all thickets for the 2:00–which was very nice of them. We wandered around for a while checking out art galleries and stores in the area before wandering back to the car to put more money in the meter.

Go to the underground tour, and it was very interesting AND entertaining. I enjoyed the history lesson that was presented in a very humorous way. Even Kryis was entertained by it, and its HISTORY!! Wandered through the underground and heard more of the stories. Still good. I recommend the Seattle Underground tour to anyone. I wished there were surviving pictures of when the street level and the shop level were 20 feet different.

Finish the underground tour and head back to the car. We were all hungry so we started talking about where we were going to eat. Jasun and Tanya are both vegetarian (and Tanya is a full blown Vegan), and I am fairly picky, so it was not an easy decision.

Finally we decided to go to this place called the “Blue Bistro.” And it was fairly scary. Very mish-mash, throw-a-table-where-ever-you-can-cram-people-in-a-booth-under-the-stairs. Not what I would exactly call my favorite place to try to eat.

When I first picked up the menu, it had nothing but alcoholic drinks in it, which was the furthest thing from my mind in terms of ordering, especially considering of the four of us, I was the only one who could drive. Found out there was supposed to be food in the menu, so Iooked on with Kryis in another menu. Slim pickins for what I would be interested in. Most of the items on the menu had ingredients in them that I am either unfamiliar with, disturbed by, or do not like the taste of. I finally found something that I liked, but when the food came, it was the wrong dish. I had to wait a little longer for my food, which was okay. Tanya and Jasun paid for this as well. Which started to make me feel bad. I felt Kryis and I should treat them to something, so we decided, if we could, we would pay for them to come to the Music Experience with us. Afterwards we headed to the park near the space needle and the Music Experience.

Unfortunately, by the time that we got there, there was not enough time to go through the Music Experience. We wandered around the park for a while, until we had seem most of everything.

Next we headed to a park on Queen Anne hill and saw a great view of the Seattle skyline. There was a wedding party taking pictures at the park. We sat on a park bench there for a little while until the sun had set and then got back in the car. We drove around the neighborhood some more, and found another neat overlook. We stopped there and checked it out. Took a few more pictures and headed out again. Jasun and Tanya mentioned that there was a statue of a troll under a bridge, so we went to check it out.

It was cool, but there was an annoying kid climbing all over it making it difficult to take a picture of it. Afterwards we decided it was late. Kryis and my honeymoon was ending the next day, and we had still hoped to get up early enough to check out Pike’s Place Market before we had to head to the airport.

More information on the Seattle Underground tour can be found here.

Honeymoon Day 13

Day 13
August 13th, 2004
Victoria, BC, Canada to Seattle, WA

She Says

Woke up early so we can get breakfast this time and drop the car off at the ferry so we can be certain to get a space on the 3pm to Port Angeles. Tired…food should help.

Sitting up in Vista 18 for breakfast looking out I come to the conclusion that Victoria is what you get when you mix the brighter points of SF and Monterey, then throw in some castles. Some tall buildings, but fairly flat. Has a Pier 39 feel to the street life, but more Monterey bay relaxed attitude. Not too Steinbeck, not too city. I’d like to come back sometime.

They weren’t kidding about the getting to the ferry early. The 10:30am just left and we got in line at 10:45 as a stand-by!!! But we’re first in the stand by line, so we have a 99% chance of boarding the 3pm…good odds, but still… There are already people parked for the 7:30pm ferry!!! (Apparently Fridays are very busy as per girl at ticket desk.)

Wandered through Thunderbird park, the Fairmont Empress hotel lobby, and more of the shops by Yates and Douglas. Doubled back to see the Dragon Boat Festival tents start to open up at the inner harbor. Dropped by the Gatsby mansion, but since its a B&B, we didn’t go in. Also didn’t have a chance to go to:
Parliament
Under sea gardens
Hatley mansion
Royal BC museum
Helmken house
Emily Carr house
Bastion square
Bent mast pub- supposedly haunted
and 4 other Ghostly Walks

But hey, we get a good view of the ferry building since we have to be in our car by 1:30pm for customs check. Then we get to load up, hopefully at 3pm! I think the ferry folks should invest in a shade tent.

Thousands upon thousands of my skin cells have revolted and declared war and will not be appeased until freckles are formed. Great.

Finally, on the ferry. It seemed like there was no way possible that so many cars could have fit on the boat, but we made it, as well as about 12+ others…

Pulling away from Victoria was sad. It was saying like goodbye to ignorance of the world. A reminder that we only have 2 more nights to our honeymoon…

Oddly, the ferry, The Coho, announced that there were orcas in the nearby waters and we actually veered off course, as per 1 regular, to see them.

While trying to park to get gas at Port Angeles, a car with Oregon plates was just sitting in the middle of one of the entry ways. Bryan asked ” why are they just sitting there?” I said:” because they’re waiting for someone to come out and pump their gas. ”

Just a little bit away from Kingston is the Norwegian village. Too bad we don’t have time to stop.

It took until 5pm to get out of Port Angeles and another 2 hrs to get to Kingston. We made it in time to catch the 7:15 ferry to Edmonds, but the ferry is running a little late.

I’m just glad that it won’t be another case of waiting in a parked car for 2 hours. This trip is only 30 min, and it should be about another 30 or so on Hwy 5. Maybe we will get to eat dinner before 9pm???

He Says

Got up early and had breakfast in the Chateau Victoria’s restaurant. It was nice. And an even better view than in our room that is only 10 floors further down or so.

Went to drop off our car for the 3:00 PM ferry and were only first in the stand by line. Fairly likely that we are going to be able to get on the ferry.

We got out of the car and started to explore the area around the ferry dock. Saw and awesome condominium complex that was right on the water, the unit on the top floor looks awesome. I wish I could live there. We got a closer view of the Parliament Building and Thunderbird Park and then on to the Empress Hotel.

Wandered through the lobby and checked out the area where John Adams had told us a ghost story about the evening before. Wandered through the attached conference center and then on to some shops.

Went to a shop that specializes in Bear paraphernalia and bought a present for my mother.

Started heading back towards the ferry. A lot more walking today even though everything is close, our car was holding our place in the ferry line.

Checked out the Gatsby House B&B and had some ice cream at a nearby ice cream shop. They did something I have never seen before. They put a jelly bean in the bottom of the sugar cone so that the melting ice cream would not leak out the bottom. Interesting.

Got back to the ferry and waited for the ferry and watched all the cars that were there even earlier than us go by, and go by, and go by. I was starting to worry that we were not going to get on this one, but we did.

When we were just starting the crossing, the captain announced that there were Orcas in the water, and actually turned the ferry to get closer to them.

The rest of the trip to Seattle was fairly uneventful, but we did not get there until late. Had a little trouble finding the Westin. Parked and waited longer than we should have at the front desk to check in. When we finally got into our room, it was very nice. Not a suite, but still a nice room.

Kryis called her cousin, Jasun, to see if we could hook up tomorrow. We watched some TV and went to bed.

Ghostly Walks with John Adams

John Adams is a preeminent storyteller and historian in the Victoria Area (and all of the pacific northwest). He has been guiding Ghostly Walks in Victoria since 1970.

Ghost Stories

Since part of the point of the ghostly walks are the stories, it would be a shame to ruin them by retelling them here. Suffice to say, they were good stories, and well told. There were numerous stories on our tour about the Empress Hotel, St. Anne’s Academy, and the Helmcken House.

Our Review

Kryis and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. John Adams in an excellent storyteller. It does not matter if you believe in the supernatural or not. The pacing and tone of his voice add beautifully to the carefully constructed stories. There is no doubt that the tour was worth it, although we did not see any apparitions on our tour.

We went on the tour as part of our “Haunted Honeymoon” you can get more information by visiting our honeymoon page day 12.

Official Website for Ghostly Walks.

Honeymoon Day 12

Day 12:
August 12th, 2004
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

She Says

Woke up too late for breakfast so we headed out for Bouchardt Gardens. Very large and very lovely. The gardens would be quite peaceful if they weren’t so crowed. Its a Thursday and the place was packed.

It makes the whole relaxing stroll through a wondrous garden into a push shove, wait for someone to take their picture, and then have people who speak another language just Stop in front of you and block the walkway as you try to progress in a carefree stroll through these historic gardens…

Unfortunately the Dining Room (in the Bouchardt home) was closed for a private party when we first got there and we had to wait until 1:30 before we could sit and eat, so we went to the Italian and Japanese gardens and gift shop. We rushed through the rose gardens, but there were so many people, it was hard to move anywhere quickly.

The gift shop had lots of odd maple sweets. We bought sugar candies, lollipops, cookies and maple butter.

High tea was neat. Little finger sandwiches, quiche, Cornish pasties, scones, tart, cookies, chocolates and Teaberry tea. Bryan had water and chicken breast with hoisin sauce

After, we left Bouchardt and went to the butterfly gardens. Ok, so I took lots of pictures and used a lot of the camera battery, but the butterflies wouldn’t sit still and pose properly. There’s a lovely waterfall and “river” that runs through it for the koi to swin in. Koi are always nice to watch.

Very peaceful. The whole place could have been a wonderful zen if, again, it wasn’t so crowded, but I did get to see lots of other pretty flutterbys.(Not as tattered as the ones at the Crystal Conservatory) I found a few stuck to a t-shirt, so I bought that for my mother.

Next stop: Craigdarroch Castle Its not wide, but it is 5 floors tall. Owned by the Dunsmuir family. Lovely wood paneling and stained glass. I got a book on Victoria’s Castles and candies and postcards. Too bad we ran out of space on the camera’s memory stick. Would have liked more photos.

I also wish we had more time so we could go to Hatley Castle…

For some reason blackberry has registered my handheld 4x today??? Go fig.

7:30: haunted tours. Ghostly Walks by John Adams. Man has real personality and a sense of show. For his stories see other notes. Bought his book “ghosts and legends of Bastion Square” from him. Talked about places Bryan and I have stayed at along our trip. I gave him the flyer from my purse on Winchester Mystery House. (He hadn’t been there yet)

Back to the room, eyes burned by mild winds and heat, legs sore.

He Says

Got started late, and we had a lot to do so we hurried and drove to Bouchardt Gardens with the hopes of being able to eat there. Got there, parked and went inside looking for someplace to eat.

Kryis did not want to eat at their cafe type restaurant, she wanted the fancier one, but when we went there, even though the hours said it was supposed to be open, there was a sign on the door that said “closed.”

We wandered around a little hoping to kill some time so that when we went back to the restaurant it would be open and we would be able to eat.

We go back and are told that the only opening is in a few hours… How could they go from being closed to being booked for the next few hours in only about 30 minutes? Apparently, the first time that we got there they had had a big party taking up a lot of the restaurant and put the closed sign out.

By the time we got back they had taken down the sign and started taking reservations for later. So, as hungry as I was I needed something to eat to tide me over. We went to the Coffee Shop and I had something to drink and a Rice Crispie Treat. We checked out the gardens while we waited.

They were beautiful. It is amazing that this place used to be a rock quarry. I think I liked the Japanese Garden the best out of all of them. The biggest problem was how crowded it was. The number of people and the noise that came with them detracted from the serenity and beauty of the gardens. Oh well, got to pay for their upkeep somehow.

Afterwards we went to the Butterfly Gardens that is just a little ways down the street. There were a great many different types of butterflies and some tropical birds and koi as well. It was pretty.

It was not as big as I had imagined based on the descriptions I was given from other people I know that had been here before… but it was still very cool. Kryis took a lot of pictures both here and at Bouchardt. It was a good thing we had all of our memory sticks empty at the start of the day.

Afterwards we went to Craigdarroch Castle. It was very nice, but we were running out of space on our memory sticks. I conservatively took pictures of the house. Rationing them out as best I could so that I could get pictures of most of the cool rooms in the house.

I enjoyed reading the history of the family and their rise and fall from fortune in the room that told the story of the house and of the family. I spent a while in there while Kryis went and wandered off somewhere as I continued to read. After we explored the house, we dawdled in the gift shop for a while.

We headed back to the hotel to vacate some space on our memory cards for the night. We went on a “Ghostly Walk” with John Adams. A local haunted story expect. He had a very good presence and delivery as we walked around downtown Victoria. He pointed out different places where ghosts are said to inhabit and stories of how and why they were there. It was very good. But being so late, we did not really take many pictures. ShruG.

After a long day, it was nice to get back to the room and collapse. Had to be prepared for the next day when we were going to be waiting for the ferry.

 

More information on Ghostly Walks with John Adams can be found here.

Honeymoon Day 11

Day 11
August 11th, 2004
Vancouver, BC to Victoria, BC

She Says

Woke up in the Opus and decided I really like the comforter and duvet. It was like sleeping in marshmallow creme! Its nice and fluffy inside, but the outside fabric has a nicely textured rayon/poly like feel. The only problem? Its white! I don’t know what is the filling to the pillows but they were very comfortable. Not too hard, not too soft. It doesn’t feel like down or feathers, but after dismantling the layers of pillow cases, I found a contour feather sticking out.

Breakfast at Elixir, the Opus’ restaurant. fluffy pancakes with caramelized peaches and vanilla whipped butter. The hot chocolate was overflowing with whipped cream. It looked much like a volcano in a huge white coffee cup.

The people in Canada have all been very friendly and helpful. Our waiter at the Marriott, the waitresses at Elixir, and the Opus staff…

We drove about Vancouver. The Chinese gardens were not very interesting, and china town was small compared to SF. Stanley Park was impressive. We drove thru wishing we had had more time to get out and hit the trails. Lots and lots of big trees to see and museums and such as well. (Imagine Golden Gate Park with less meadows and more trees.)

After, we drove east to find Playland, the nearest amusement park. Small and county fair-ish, but the way there took us through a very…interesting part of town. So this is where they put the crack dealers and prostitutes…

Running low on time, we went off to hunt ferries. We managed to catch one. I took a picture. Whilst waiting in line, I watched a raven chasing a seagull, it was funny.

The view from the ferry is beautiful. After about 40 minutes of open ocean, we get another 45 minute mini tour of the islands on the way to Schwartz Bay on Vancouver island.

Remind me that I need to tell people that we are honeymooning every time Bryan and I go on vacation!!!

We got upgraded to a suite here as well!!! No extra charge, just regular room rates and we are on the 14th (13th) floor with a spectacular view.
The kitchen is ok, a living space is nice, but the View…WOW!

They even left a note on the dresser to congratulate us on our marriage and little boxes of chocolate!

All because when I booked the rooms, I told them it was our honeymoon!!!

So Bryan and I broke out a bottle of Jones Green Apple Soda, 2 wine glasses and the chocolates and we toasted to our honeymoon…

Only being about 6pm, we hit the nearby streets. I find it interesting that a lot of signs are in English and Japanese. French I could see, but apparently there is a large Asian culture here according to travel guides.

The Crystal Conservatory has bats!!! Indian fruit bats. Also in the nocturnal section: Short tailed leaf nosed, Egyptian and Jamaican fruit bats. They’re all so cute…

Miniature world was interesting if you realize how much work must have gone into all the models. There was a working model of a lumberyard (that they couldn’t run due to fire regulations) that had a video to show how it worked. Nifty.

The harbor area is much like SF, it has street performers and vendors. Lots of touristy places and restaurants.

Dinner was teppanyaki at Japanese Village. The plum wine was very good. Takara brand.

He Says

We had breakfast at the restaurant attached to the hotel. It was a good breakfast. After breakfast we tried to drive by some of the other attractions in the city. We went to the Chinatown and checked that out, and drove around a little more of the town.

We drove though Stanley Park but did not get to stop and walk around or explore. We knew going in that we would not have enough time to do Vancouver in one day, but we got a nice sampling for when we come pack some time

There was something about Vancouver that made me really want to play Sim City

I was really was tempted to go and check out Point Roberts… a small little peninsula not attached to the rest of Washington, only to BC that is still part of the U.S, but figured we did not really have that much time, so we just headed strait to the ferry.

The crossing was nice. Going through the San Juan Islands was beautiful.

When we got to the outskirts of Victoria I was wondering why people said that it was so beautiful, it did not look all that beautiful to me. But when we got to the more touristy part of downtown, I could definitely see why. Our hotel did not look all that impressive from the outside, and getting there was interesting due to an odd arrangement of one way streets near the hotel. But…

We were upgraded to a suite here as well, just because we were on our honeymoon. Great! Room was nice. Separate living room and even a kitchenette. It also had a great view of the Empress Hotel.

After relaxing for a little while in the room and checking out the tourist pamphlets and such we headed out to explore some of the local attractions. We went to the Crystal Conservatory and Kryis got to tell me how “cute” bats were. I think they are ugly. They might be fascinating creatures, but “cute” is definitely not a word I would use to describe them.

After that we went to Miniature World, which was interesting. The best model was the one of the sawmill that was actually functioning, but they were unable to have it running due to fire regulations. Too bad. The video of the model being operated allowed us to see what it all could do though.

We walked along the harbor and saw some of the street performers before deciding to get something to eat. We went to a Japanese restaurant and then to bed.

Honeymoon Day 10

Day 10
August 10th, 2004
Bow, WA to Vancouver, BC Canada

She Says

Missed the breakfast at Skagit’s buffet, so we’re waiting for lunch. Bryan turned $20 into $90, so he’s down only $9.50, but I gave him a $20 to stop playing his money and let me keep the winnings. The machine won my $20. So I’m down $13.25.

Driving through customs was uneventful, which I think is fine. Our border guard acted as though we were a nuisance. He was probably the most unhappy employee I’ve seen in a while. Any weapons, how much money etc. Of course the man is sitting in a box on a hot day watching cars go by and getting a good daily dose of carbon monoxide. I suppose that can ruin anybody’s day…

The Opus is kinda hard to find, and parking is even harder to find. Had to have their valet park the car in the underground hotel garage.

Opus has 4 styles of rooms depending on the color. I chose Blue. Soothing and sophisticated, contemporary.

Red was my 2nd option. Modern and minimalist. I hear green is eclectic and funky. I think they use the term “artistic.” Yellow is “Tony” and traditional. Taupe is dramatic and daring.

Wandering Vancouver with no clue where we are going is frustrating. We did go to the library. Absolutely awesome architecture. Sadly, being tired, means poor Bryan has to deal with me being cranky and slow. Its harder for me to breathe here. I think I got spoiled in the redwoods/little cities.

We wandered thru the centre mall. It looks like someone took Vallco and Eastridge and made them into 1 mall. 1 floor underground, 1 at street level and 1 above.

Dinner at Marriott hotel’s “Showcase”. Salad and asparagus for me, steak for him. They cut the potatoes into rectangular “logs” and put 4 of them together in Lincoln log fashion as the platform to present the steak. Nice presentation… (I seem to be getting a lot of fruit and veggies on this trip. Esp. Berries and asparagus.)

Speaking of berries. Our waiter brought us a plate of chocolate covered strawberries to congratulate is on our wedding! (The waiter’s name tag said Emerson or Edmunston or such.) It was a really nice surprise. He also helped us find a few places to go check out since we are on a tight schedule. He recommended Robson St.

Apparently all the food places were on Robson St. Walking down the streets we’ve seen several pan-handlers. One just walked up and asked for a dollar. One was a clean cut looking college aged boy who was just sitting down and setting up a “homeless” sign and a cup. Clean clothes, clean, pale skin, crew cut. Go fig.
The last memorable one was a boy about 14-15 sitting and shouting out “buy me some food” as if he were at a ren faire…

Getting back, finally, to our room, the staff had come and turned down our bedding. Chocolates on the pillows and all that. But getting a card with tomorrows weather forecast(in both F and C!) was a real classy touch!

Nice tub. Its extra deep. It might be a bit longer too. And there’s actual water pressure!!!

Speaking of water. Its been nice to find that so far only the Valencia had soft water. So I suppose there’s something to be said for small hotels and B&B’s.

He Says

We got up too late for breakfast at the casino buffet, so we waited around a little while for the lunch buffet to start.

While we were waiting, I played some more video poker and was doing very well. I kept going up and up until Kryis told me I needed to stop.

Lunch buffet was okay. Nothing to write home about.

Drive up to Canada was interesting. The border guard was probably the most unhappy person on Earth as we drove through. But I suppose asking the same questions over and over again in a tin can could get boring.

Vancouver is an interesting city. Very eclectic. Seems to have European, North American, and Asian influences. Has a lot of the feel of San Fransisco as well. Some of the architecture I did not care for, but some of it was great.

The hotel was a little hard to find. No big sign or anything, but once we got there it was nice. A smaller hotel with a very modern feel. We were in a “blue” room which has a very freaky feature. The bathroom has a window in one wall, with curtains and blinds to block view of the inside from the outside… except the person not in the bathroom gets to control the blinds. Guess you can be too bashful around other people in this hotel.

I liked the room, and the hotel, although I was constantly having problems getting the card key to let me operate the elevator.

After we checked out the room for a while, we left to go get some Canadian currency and then walk around the city.

I knew of some places that I really wanted to check out based on stuff I had read in some of the tourist books from the hotel room. As we were walking, we were looking for someplace to eat… and we were not really finding any. We seemed to be going down all the streets that only had fast food or scary looking places to eat.

We eventually found our way to the Vancouver Library, which I must say is the most beautiful library I have ever seen in my life. Granted… I have not been in very many libraries.

Afterwards we continued walking around. Wound up in a “Centre” apparently the Canadian word for “Mall.” Not too terribly interesting food wise… the architecture was fairly ugly and most of the shops were the same as you get find in a mall in the bay area.

We eventually made our way to the Marriott hotel and decided that the restaurant there was acceptable (it was actually much more than than acceptable) Good food and they gave us a complimentary dessert because we were on our honeymoon. Nice.

Kryis was pretty tired and whiny by this point so we limped our way back to the Hotel and to bed.

Manresa Castle

Manresa Castle was originally completed in 1892 as the home of Charles and Kate Eisenbeis. Charles Eisenbeis was a prominent member of early Port Townsend (He was the first mayor), when the port was the most active in the pacific northwest. The twelve inch thick walls of his 30 room mansion were made of brick from Charles Eisenbeis’s own brickworks. Locals came to call the building “Eisenbeis Castle.” In 1902 Charles Eisenbeis died, and the mansion was left empty when Kate remarried. In 1925 it was purchased to function as a vacation home for nuns. In 1927 it was purchased by Jesuits who turned it into a training college and renamed it Manresa Hall. It is the Jesuits who built the large extension to the original building and covered the brick walls of the original section to keep it more in line with the new wing. In 1968 the Jesuit’s left and it became a hotel.

Ghost Stories:

Reports are that rooms 302, 304 & 306 are haunted. There are reports of two ghosts in residence. One is about a monk who hung himself in the attic. Sometimes people hear footsteps walking above them, but there is no one in the attic. The other ghost is a young lady who had been waiting for her beloved to return from war. After hearing of his demise, she threw herself out her window.

Also, In the chapel/cafe drinking glasses are know to explode, even when in one server’s hand, & sometimes the empty glasses are know to be turned upside-down. There were many entries in the room journals, that the manager graciously let us read and photograph, that comment on the Castle’s haunting. You can view these photographs here.

Our Review

Accommodations: Most of the rooms are small with each room being decorated a little differently. The furniture in some rooms is interesting and pleasant, while in others fairly boring. There are a few rooms that have the extra flair to make them something special. The suites in the original part of the Castle have wallpaper by Bradbury and Bradbury and a more Victorian feel.

Breakfast: There was a built-in Restaurant for lunch and dinner. In the morning, the one-time chapel becomes a cafe serving a simple breakfast of muffins & juices.

We stayed here as part of our “Haunted Honeymoon.” You can get more information about our stay by visiting our honeymoon pages day 8 and day 9.

Official Website for Manresa Castle

Honeymoon Day 9

Day 9
August 9th, 2004
Port Townsend, WA to Bow, WA

She Says

Still no signs of un-life. So ends our official tour of haunted hotels.

Of course, I hear that the Skagit Casino is built on burial grounds…

Breakfast was your typical muffins and juice continental.

The manager, Ron Myhre, was kind enough to let us look at and photograph pages from the 304 and 306 guest books. After checking out, we walked the hallways once more. Room service was kind enough to let us into rooms 302 and 304, but 306 was unavailable.

As we drove thru the neighborhood to get to the main street, we passed a deer sitting on a front lawn. I thought maybe it was a statue at first, but it moved. No meadow of woods near it. It was as if it lived there and decided to sit in the shade of the tree on the front lawn… It didn’t even get up when we pulled back around to take its picture! It was neat.

Port Townsend has a nice little downtown section, but they also have a couple really nice Victorians in that neighborhood.

We had to drive and get turned about to find Fort Worden. There is a neat structure called “Alexander’s Castle” on the grounds. It was built for Alexander’s Scottish bride-to-be, but when he went to get her, he discovered she was married.

The man at the Guardhouse/gift shop was very helpful and gave us ferry pamphlets, so I feel a bit more comfortable now about our upcoming trip back to Seattle.

I got a few postcards and a map of the area for my dad. I got a wolfie pup (plush) for my Best Friend as well. She’s not really a plush kinda person, but he’s really cute. After, I went outside to feed the crows/ravens. They were cautiously watched as I ate and then threw things to the base of their trees. Eventually the 3 told their friends and soon I had 8 new friends.

We had to take a ferry from Port Townsend to Keystone. Nice views. The “Quinalt” which means “river with a lake in the middle” Hmmm, maybe Fremen is based on a Native American language?

Driving thru Whidbey Island to the mainland brought a bit of surprise. It’s much like south San Jose, but surrounded by evergreen hills instead of dead brown grass hills. It would be a nice place to live, being close to city, sea, and woods, if it weren’t for the fact I’d probably freeze solid in the winter! I’m tired of looking at brown skies and brown hills at home. I can breathe much better since we left the bay area…

We’re in Bow, WA. We were upgraded for free to a suite… and it is SWEET!!!

$95 and we have a Jacuzzi, fireplace, 2 TVs, fridge, microwave, coffee maker and an outdoor deck!!! We took a wander about the casino and I played about $20.

The buffet seemed a better option than the food. The fine dining looked fine, but we didn’t feel like spending another $70 for dinner again. Most “nice” restaurants serve a few things I will eat, but Bryan usually gets limited to Steak, Steak, or Steak. (He’s also a lot pickier than I am about what he will eat.) You can only eat steak so many days in a row. Not to mention being able to afford it… $teak isn’t cheap.

It’s now after dinner, and Bryan is at the the Blackjack table. I pulled out my Blackberry to type up more trip notes and e-mail my mom, and I was told I can’t use any electronics in the casino. I guess it makes sense… After all, slots are all nothing more than glorified computer chips now-a-days. Guess someone got an idea to hack one with a cell phone or a gameboy??? Hmmm…I suppose card counting programs can be put into a palm pilot…

Bryan lost $80 between video poker and the blackjack table. I lost $20 on quarter slots, but put another $20 in the nickel slot and got back $46.75. So I’m up almost a whole $7!

2 more things: The $8 fruit and cheese plate we got from room service is HUGE. (The look on the service boy’s face was priceless when I answered the door in a towel!!! He smiled and looked like he might blush, except he turned his head away.)

And

Falling Down is not a terribly romantic movie.

He Says

Last “Haunted Hotel” and no hauntings. Gee, that wasn’t predictable or anything. Pretty restful night. Hotel is nice, except for the room. We explored the hotel some more.

Kryis asked the manager if we could look at the journal’s that at one time had been left in the rooms. They had to take them out because too many people were stealing them or ripping our pages as souvenirs. We took photographs of pages that talked about the hotels reputation of being haunted so that we could compile them onto our website. We took pictures of pages of journals from Thornewood also. Wish we would have thought about that earlier.

We explored the town some more, this time in the daylight. Some very nice Victorian buildings, and a nice little downtown area.

We headed to Fort Worden State Park and explored a bit. It is apparently where they filmed An Officer and a Gentleman and other movies set on military bases. There is a neat building called Alexander’s Caslte on the grounds. Alexander built it for his Scottish bride to be, but when he went to Scotland to get her, apparently she had already married someone else. The best laid plans and all.

After we left, I got a snack at McDonald’s and then we went to the ferry dock. It was an interesting ride. There was an aircraft carrier that passed us at one point. I took a few pictures of it and a few pictures of what I thought might be Mount Ranier.

When we got to Skagit Valley Casino, I was not really that impressed. I had never been to an “Indian Casino” before, and I guess everything pales in comparison to Las Vegas.

The coolest thing was that they upgraded us to a suite, complimentary, because we were on our honeymoon. The fact that it was the middle of the week probably did not hurt that either. The room was nice.

I did a really dumb thing playing video poker. I was up… WAY UP, and lost it all. Oh well. I played some blackjack and lost there too.

We went back up to the room and ordered a fruit tray from room service. It was a nice fruit tray for eight bucks from room service. We kept the crackers for the rest of the trip.

More information on Manresa Castle can be found here.