Day 23 Friday 16 June 2017

Leaving Las Vegas and today is an early start. We leave on Alaskan Airlines to go to Seattle with a connecting flight to Victoria, Canada. The first problem was that our shuttle never arrived so we went and grabbed a taxi, problem 1. Arriving at the airport, and after trying to get through border security, we were turned back to get our boarding pass, problem 2. We then checked our luggage and tried to go through security a second time but were turned away as we still did not have a boarding pass. At check in they hadn’t given us one.  They say that things happen in threes!  Maybe they shouldn’t let us out. After arriving in Seattle which was interesting. Someone in the row behind us was so ill they asked if they was a doctor, nurse or a paramedic on board. The next step was to ask if there was anyone who had seen a series of MASH. Then a girl in front of us had been throwing up so badly that they called the paramedics to escort her off the plane when we landed.  As it was we arrived 30 minutes earlier than scheduled and I was wondering if that was because of the medical emergencies.  I was worried if it was really serious that they might divert the flight.

After we arrived in Seattle it was all plain sailing.  We took our prop driven Alaskan Arline Caribou aircraft to Victoria.  We were picked up in Victoria by a nice young limo driver who spoke and acted exactly like Cousin Gerard from Everybody Loves Raymond, though he was very nice. Our hotel is the Fairmont Empress which is right on the waterfront. Spectacular!

The two Killer Whales are statues composed of 11 000 individual flowers, or so we are told - they are pretty cool. The town is lovely quite reminenscent of Melbourne meets Fremantle.

As we didn’t have breakfast or lunch today so we went to have a mid-afternoon dinner.  We found The Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant where we had a beaut three course meal of wholesome Italian food. Tonight we went on a local ghost tour as Victoria is reputed to be the most haunted places in North America.  The stories were very good and recounted by a young man called Zac.  It was an excellent experience, especially when the first stop was out hotel! The tour finished in a commercial building in which the owners had contacted the ghost tour company if they wanted to rent it as all the other tenants leave after a few weeks.  Apparently there are bodies buried under the floor as it was built over a cemetery that housed prisoners.