Traveling west – the digital humanities tour day 12 and 13

Day 12 (June 12, 2015) – Victoria, BC to Portland, OR (254 Miles) took the Port Angeles ferry to get back into the states, and we ate lunch at the diner on the ferry, which was pretty fun for me. I love being on a boat. I stopped at a few gas stations when we got back in the USA looking for Monster Java – I had been without it for the week in Canada. Couldn’t find any near the border either. We stayed at a hotel in downtown Portland – it was old and crappy, but it was cheap, and we only slept there.

Day 13 – Portland to Boise, ID (429 Miles) – We went to meet a friend at the Original Dinerant in Portland, where at 8 in the morning I was able to get a Cheeseburger with feta and a shot of the house cinnamon whiskey. And a beer. We took a walk to the Saturday Market – shopping is always kind of fun, and the carnival-like atmosphere is always exciting to me.

We caught a blues cover band that was pretty good, and fun to watch.

During this leg of the journey, we stopped at a sign for Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, and though we should check it out. It was pretty cool, but living near Niagara Falls makes any other waterfall a bit less impressive through the law of diminishing returns.(the social one, not the economic one)

I may have said this before, but this was the most nerve chilling drive of the adventure so far. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. (Link to a news article about Interstate 84 through the Blue Mountains, with it’s signs telling trucks to only go 18mph.) I remember going up and up and up, and then it stopped and I waited for it to go down – but it got flat for a mile, and then went up even more. Some people’s conception of hell may be fire, but for me it’s a continually rising highway with a drop-off 15 feet away and a guard rail that wouldn’t stop a Schwinn. My worst nightmares will include that highway now.

Fortunately, we stopped and visited some friends in Boise, ID, and stayed for three nights, so I got some rest and relaxation before driving through the rest of Idaho and all of Wyoming. I also got a chance to do some work on a current project for the Magic Firm. More on all of that soon.

Traveling west – the digital humanities tour day 8 through 11

Janelle started her Digital Humanities class at the University of Victoria on Monday. This was a one-week class that ran Monday-Friday from 8am to 4pm. The whole time was nice, but a blur for me because I took Janelle to school, hung out with Amelia, took Amelia to school at lunch so Janelle could feed her, and then back to the school when class was out.

It was a lot of fun discovering different parts of town while wheeling a stroller, and I met a lot of people that I normally wouldn’t have met because I become less threatening when I’m carrying a baby.

I did meet one woman in her 70s that told me to have many more babies because the white race was dying out and we needed to keep it going. There were so many things I wanted to say, but I figured if she’s been here 70 years talking like that she must have heard it all before and it had no effect, so why bother…

We visited downtown a couple of times, and I already posted a couple of the photographs, but I’ll put them here again, in better context.

While we were eating at a restaurant downtown, I had to do the Heimlich Maneuver on a choking victim, and that kind of stuff always puts a damper on dinner, but other than that it was a great time. Victoria is a beautiful city and I would love to go there again to explore it even further. I loved the AirBnB rental, so we would probably stay at the same place.

I highly recommend Victoria as a relaxing getaway. If you don’t have a college class and an 8-month old baby.

Traveling west – the digital humanities tour day 7

Day 7 (June 7, 2015) – Anacortes to Victoria, BC (60 Miles) We took the Anacortes Ferry through the San Juan Islands, which was very cool – the longest ferry ride I have ever taken. Seeing the islands was beautiful, and I took way more pictures than I really needed to – I think I was using the camera to try and capture my feeling for the place, instead of just pictures. The ferry took us to Sidney, BC and we drove into Victoria.

We stayed at a house we found on AirBnB and it was really really cool, close to downtown and the hosts were great. More on that in a post coming soon.

All in all, 60 miles was a pretty relaxing day, especially since I only drove about 20 miles.

We went to Floyd’s Diner in Victoria and had a great meal, then checked in to our apartment. Since it had a kitchen and a fridge, we walked about 1/2 mile to a supermarket and stocked up for the week.