Andrea and I spent the weekend in Victoria, B.C. It's a nice little town with a number of attractions to recommend it. Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

• I heard about HeliJet from a Canuck friend of mine and thought it would be a fun thing to try. So, we took a helicopter out of Boeing Field on our way to Victoria. Its about twice as expensive as the Victoria Clipper, but gets there four times as fast (30 minutes). Neither of us had ever ridden in a helicopter, so it was a fun experience and, at least for me, worth the expense.
• There were many artisans stationed in the open areas around town. They were selling all types of items, many the same as those you might find at a fair in Seattle, but also quite a few items that I found unique.
• We visited Craigdarroch Castle (or as I prefer to call it "Craig-the-rock"),  which isn't quite a castle, but is a very large and imposing house. Inside, nearly every surface is covered in wood paneling. This, combined with the period state-of-the-art electric lighting makes for a dark, uninviting and closed-in space. However, despite all of that, it is quite beautiful. Worth the visit to see a little how wealthy people lived 100 years ago.
• Butchart Gardens is one of the most visited attractions in Victoria and with good reason. Nestled at the site of an old quarry, It's a garden in the English style (though they have a nice Japanese garden on the site as well) with perfectly coiffed grass and millions of flowers. The rose garden was particularly nice with hundreds of varieties on display and some fantastic scents.
• We stayed at a simple little Bed & Breakfast called the Cottage Pirouette. It was a nice enough place and the breakfast was good. The hostess was a lovely person, but it was a bit far from downtown Victoria, so you need transportation. We used cabs most of the time, but the city bus is available and quite convenient.
• For our return, we took the Victoria Clipper IV. At theDial, we used to have an office right on Elliott Bay and we would see the Clipper go past a few times a day. It is a rather impressive boat. It's not as big as the State Ferries, but it is still big and really fast. Standing on the aft deck was also an experience. The jets of water that fly out the back of that boat have more in common with a hydroelectric power plant than any boat I've ever seen before. Also the sound coming out of the stacks on its twin gas turbine engines is so loud you need to cover your ears.

  Victoria Clipper IV can reach speeds in excess of 50 miles per hour. Victoria Clipper IV is the fastest passenger vessel in North American waters today [Visit-Seattle.com].

Victoria is a nice town and I would definitely like to go back. Among the things that we didn't visit were the Royal British Columbia Museum and the B.C. Legislature Building. I hear both are really nice. Someone told me that it takes nine hours to drive the length of the island. There also numerous parks and tons of beautiful land on that drive. 8:34:02 PM    comment []  

On Albert Einstein and the atom bomb: "Einstein himself had little role in the atomic bomb project. The bomb was ultimately developed at the insistence of the president and military of the United States (a Christian nation). It is true that Jews are a sinful lot who have caused all sorts of maladies over the centuries due to their refusal to convert to Christianity (even when tortured!). But in this particular case the Jew was somehow not to blame" [Corpse Divine]. 8:03:18 PM    comment []