Toronto - Victoria - Port Angeles - Portland and Oregon Coast

We only had two nights in Victoria and managed to have dinner out at a great Sri Lankan restaurant, a hike in the woods at Camp Metchosin, enjoy delicious home-cooked meals prepared by Peter and Rachel, and prepare the van.  Thanks for looking after WALUT for us.

The majestic Empress Hotel viewed from the Victoria to Port Angeles Ferry

Great mix of harbour traffic

We would like to try living in this kind of
community for a bit

Port Angeles is out there, 1.5 hrs away

Picking up our groceries at Safeway in Port
Angeles, we see that someone picked up groceries
for their loved one

We drove on to Sequim ....pronounce that name for me will you?  Can't hear you, but bet you'd be wrong.  According to Peter and the people of Washington State, it's pronounced "skwim".  We arrived at our first marina/rv campground after dark and discovered how lovely it was, when we could actually see it the next morning.

Last year, Bob joined a club called "Harvest Hosts", that gave us an opportunity to stay at vineyards, farms and other commercial and unique home stays.  We didn't take advantage as we travelled across Canada and Alaska, and as we approached Portland, Oregon, we called a couple of vineyards to see if they were accepting guests.  The one that appealed most, was called Plum Hill Winery, a small boutique vineyard that sells their wine within the Portland area.  It is a working farm as well as a vineyard.  The owners, Juanita and R.J. were great fun, gave us a wine tasting (shame we've never taken to wine drinking....did I say that???) and we bought a couple of bottles ( in case we ever develop a taste for the stuff).  They even gave us electricity, which isn't expected, since there is no cost for a home stay.  R.J. and Juanita don't live on the property and so we had the the farm all to ourselves.

Ice fog lifting as the sun rises

Anyone know what bird this is?

Vineyard covered in frost

That looks like snow but it's frost, as we drive
into Portland

And pearls there were!!!

Lovely carvings inside Deschutes Brewery/Pub, highly
recommended by Peter

Tasters were pretty great....that's a glass of water

in Bob's hand by the way.  He really doesn't

like beer either.

Bob exchanged some books and bought me 'I'm Your Man', the Leonard Cohen bio, at the HUGEST ('tis so a word!) book store in the world.  Yes!!!

Pretty horses.....

...and buildings on trendy NW 23rd Street

Beautiful boardwalk in the Stumptown area of Portland

Why demolish a beautiful old wall when
you can make an entrance to a park with one?

Whew!  That was close!!!

Nothing quite like the Oregon coastline.

That's not a train

Fish-eye pic without a fish-eye lense

Recommended restaurant on the wharf in Florence

Winchester Bay Marina/RV Park...gorgeous!  We
bought a lot of seafood in this town and made Nancy's
Nova Scotia chowder...in Oregon

This sunset was pretty un-spectacular, due to the clouds, however
it's what happened a half hour later that had us on alert

Glowing over the point, we thought perhaps the clouds
had lifted and we were getting a bit of a sunset

Then it spread, and we wondered if it was a fire

Suddenly this appeared

and quickly got bigger and brighter

Fishermen, returning with their catch

I have a lot of blogging to do....we'll be camping at Ventura, just north of L.A. tonight.  Thanks for the recommendation Phil and Nancy, it looks great on google.  

Up next:  Mom's birthday (tomorrow), San Francisco and Morro Bay.

Sending you love and warm thoughts.