Honeymoonin' (Victoria)

It seems like I've been planning this honeymoon trip for us forever! And now it's here!

Disclaimer: Some of the photos were taken by James (many of the awesome ones, in fact!)

Day 1:
 Left good ole Kentucky early...like really early. Got on a plane and flew to Chicago. We did see a pretty sunrise while in the air.

Sunrise on the plane

After a short layover and breakfast at O'Hare Airport, we boarded our next flight to Calgary, CA. We had to go through customs (no line) and then had a good lunch at the airport Chili's. Our last leg was a short flight to Victoria, which is on Vancouver Island. It is British Columbia's capitol city. As our plane approached the Victoria Airport, I watched the islands that spotted the blueish-green water and the rolling mountains grow bigger and bigger. Once off the plane, we collected our ridiculous amount of luggage and signed off for our rental car, a pretty awesome Mazda 5.

So much baggage!

Mazda 5...nice roadtripin' mobile

 When we stepped outside, the smell of evergreen hit me. Ahhh! Love that scent. We used TomTom to get to our hotel in Victoria. The hotel was beautiful and our room had an amazing view! We could see the harbor and all it's huge yachts, water taxis, rowers, paddle boarders, cruise ships, and shorebirds.

The view from our balcony and windows at the Delta Victoria Resort

View of a totem pole from our balcony

Our balcony made the perfect place to watch sea planes come in and take off

The cityscape was great. We had views of the government building (which is lit up at night), the Royal BC Museum, and the bridge into downtown. We also had a view of a few totem poles. Let's not forget the view of the mountains. I think they were the Olympic mountains off in the distance. They had beautiful snowy peaks when it wasn't too foggy or hazy out. Our room was on the 7th floor and had a great patio space to enjoy. We snapped tons of pictures, freshened up, then headed to dinner. The walk into downtown was easy and we crossed the cool Johnson bridge. Dinner was at a small vegetarian spot called Green Cuisine. We did the buffet and tried a range of goodies. Highlights included corn chowder, coconut curry, and vegan mac n cheese (who knew?).

Green Cuisine for dinner

Johnson Bridge to downtown Victoria

After dinner, we explored a bit of the town and got some groceries in Chinatown. Then we walked back to our hotel and explored the walkways nearby around the harbor, snapping pictures of the totems, harbor traffic and sunset.

Totem pole 

James holding the sun

I'm glowing

Love this one of James

After the sun went down, it got a bit chilly, so we headed to our hotel's lounge for drinks and a wonderful lemon tart (I could rave about that tart...).

Yummy lemon tart

That about wrapped up our first day. We were pretty exhausted after 16+ hours of travel, but super excited to be in Victoria!

James relaxing on the patio

Day 2:
The weather was a bit gray and drizzly, so we decided to head to the Royal British Columbia Museum.

Cool whale topiary on the way to the museum

 It was pretty awesome! There were exhibits on the race to the South Pole in 1910 between the English and Norwegians (slightly depressing, but crazy interesting), a bit of natural history for the area, and history of the First Nations people of the area. I really enjoyed learning about the different cultures, their artwork, lives and regalia, though it is always sad to think how much has been pushed back or totally extinct.

Masks for different animals and supernatural beings

 After spending a good few hours in the museum, we walked to Re-Bar for lunch. James had a tuna melt and I had a 3 sisters enchilada (corn, squash, and beans in cheese...yum). We then walked to the Cowichan Trading Company store, which I had spotted the day before but it had been closed. They had lots of cool things, but we decided on some Haida inspired artwork of a green heron fishing. We walked back to the hotel for a quick rest then headed out for a drive. Our drive lead us to Mt. Tolmie. The view up top was great! We saw most of Victoria, water containing islands and ships of all sizes, and the misty, snow-capped mountains.

View of snow peaked mountains over water and Victoria from Mt. Tolmie

After admiring the scenery for a bit, we headed back down to town and stopped off at the grocery for a few items. After dropping our goodies back off at the hotel, we walked into town for dinner at the Tapa Bar. We enjoyed 5 different tapas including papas bravas, glazed carrots, curried cabbage, rice and beans, and fried oysters. Everything was great and we went home full and happy. We went to bed so we could be ready for our short drive up to Nanaimo.

Parliment  lit up at night

Harbor view at night