Things are back to normal around here again and it’s eerily quiet once more. We drove Carrie and Maggie down to Victoria late Sunday morning where Maggie was going to visit with some friends before Carrie drove her to the Ferry to catch a late afternoon sailing back to Vancouver. It was a great weekend of fun for us as it had been way too many months since we’d seen either of them.
Dallas Rd. Waterfront in Victoria, B.C.
And, speaking of driving, I got to drive the Blue Bullet for the first time since last Christmas. I’d almost forgotten how much fun it is to wheel around in this little Honda Civic. What a difference after only driving our Chevy Silverado Diesel for 4 months. It felt like driving a sleek race car instead of a huge tank. It was also nice to notice that the fuel gauge barely moved when driving to Victoria and back.
After we dropped Carrie and Maggie off, Paulette and I took the opportunity to take Molly and Rylie for one of our favourite walks – Victoria’s Dallas Road waterfront walkway. It’s an off-leash area for dogs and a beautiful walk along the cliffs overlooking the Straits of Juan de Fuca. As usual, on a nice Sunday morning, there were lots and lots of folks out for a walk and dozens of dogs as well.
We spent about an hour walking from Clover Point all the way past Beacon Hill Park and back including taking the stairs down to the beach for one stretch. Molly and Rylie love this walk as they get to meet so many ‘friends’ – every type and breed of dog one can imagine. Most of the dogs must be ‘regulars’ because they were all well behaved even though 90% of them were off-leash.
Victoria Conference Center with Empress Hotel in the background
Leaving Beacon Hill Park, we drove right down Douglas St. which is the ‘Main St.’ of Victoria. It brought back a lot of work memories for me as we went right by the Victoria Conference Center where I spent a lot of time back in 1989. The center opened that year and I was responsible for installing and implementing the computer system for managing its conventions, reservations and other events.
Douglas and Yates – dead center of downtown Victoria
Downtown Victoria still has a ‘small-town’ feel to it even though the metropolitan area has a population of around 350,000. That’s most likely because of the city’s imposed height-restrictions on buildings in the downtown core. I’m not 100% sure and can’t be bothered to Google it but I think the limit is 18 stories. City Council is ever vigilant to protecting the city’s tourism industry by maintaining many of the beautiful old buildings built as far back as the 1800’s.
My old office in City Hall
Just a few blocks from the dead center of downtown we came to City Hall, the place where I worked for 31 years. At a red light, I looked at my old corner office with it’s blacked-out windows. That was the result of a security consultant (aka Goofy) hired by the city to advise on safety precautions to protect our computers. We always used to laugh about that as our windows were the only ones blacked out in the entire building thus making them the object of lots of questions.
The venerable old Hudson Bay Building – it’s now loft apartments
Leaving the downtown core just a block from City Hall, we passed by the venerable old Hudson Bay Department Store building. The Bay was a victim of suburban shopping centers and big box stores and closed its doors several years ago. It has now been converted into retail space on the ground floor and apartment lofts on the 3 stories above. I haven’t seen any of these lofts but I’ve heard they are pretty spectacular places to live. A little expensive though.
Daffodils and Blue Bells in Beacon Hill Park yesterday
Safely back home, we just rested up doing nothing much for the rest of Sunday afternoon. We had great leftover Lasagna for dinner and watched a few of our favourite TV shows Sunday night. It was a terrific and all too short weekend with two of our daughters.
Have a great Monday, and thanks again for visiting!
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