Sunday, June 30, 2013

Next Stop – Cannon Beach, Oregon

Our goal with this adventure can be compared to a mathematical word problem. Did you ever have to do those in school? I was never very good at them. For some reason they were hard for me to sort out.

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See if you can figure this one out:

If two people leave the east coast of the USA and travel west in an airplane going 520 miles per hour and two people leave the UK going the same speed at what time will they both arrive on the west coast of Oregon at the famous Haystack Rock?

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I don’t know how to figure it out. All I know is that we met our dear friends, Lex and Elanor, she’s a fellow bear artist (an extraordinary one at that!) at the time we had previously arranged. What a terrific reunion and the beginning of the next leg of our trip to be spent together.

Our first exploration took us to Oswald West State Park – we hiked through the forest . . .

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to the beach –even Sebastian came along.

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We peeked into the tidal pools – the sea life was amazing.

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The forest was amazing –

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totally amazing.

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The views were amazing.

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Even the rocks on the shore were pretty impressive – smoothed and weathered.

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Jay stacked them and made a place for Sebastian to sit and watch.

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So hello from Oswald West State Park to my family and all the readers here at bearbits.

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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Being Quirky in Victoria – by Sebastian

These photos are a bit quirky.

Q.  Can you figure out who or what I am posing with?

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A. Totem pole.

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A. Sully

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A. Canadian Mountie Bear?

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A. A dragon!

I’m tellin’ ya. I sure end up in some strange places when we travel.

Love and hugs,

sebastiansigns

Friday, June 28, 2013

Next Stop – Victoria

Sebastian and I have come to an agreement regarding our travel posts. He told me I could have a turn if I included photos of him every so often. I thought I could manage that somehow or other.

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Leaving Vancouver, we traveled by ferry to Victoria. Sebastian was excited about a big boat ride.

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I took this photo, one of many, on our journey across the Strait of Georgia.

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Once off the boat, we drove to Victoria. We didn’t have a lot of time there so we went about seeing as much as possible. This was taken from the Inner Harbor area and the building on the left is the Fairmont Empress where we had the whole ‘afternoon tea’ experience. More on that another time.

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Here Sebastian sits with the rather iconic Legislature Building in the background.

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We knew that Victoria was the home of the narrowest street in the world, so we went in search of it. Once we were in Chinatown, it was easy to find.

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It is most definitely narrow.

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Wandering the streets of Victoria, we came across this peaceful and picturesque garden at St. Ann’s Academy which is designated a National Historic Site.

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There were lots and lots of interesting shops like Munro’s Books where I could have browsed for hours.

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Flowers were in bloom everywhere – the colors of the flowers were bright and cheery. We found these roses on the grounds of The Empress hotel.

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I will sign off for today because Sebastian and I are going to enter into negotiations on who will have the next turn here. Thanks for reading!

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Sebastian Reporting

Sebastian here reporting from along the seawall at Stanley Park in Vancouver. There’s lots to see here and I’m excited that Ginger has conceded to let me give my perspective.

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The first thing we did was take a carriage tour of the park guided by these two draft horses. At first I thought the lady said they were daft horses and then I realized that couldn’t possibly be right because they get a massage every morning. You can’t rate a massage and be daft!

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This photo of Vancouver was taken from the carriage. See the bike rider there? There were loads of them – and runners and skaters and walkers and of course, all of us in the carriage. We don’t have a seawall in Raleigh. I might talk to the mayor and see if I can convince her that we should have one.

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This is the first time ever that I have seen a totem pole. They are so cool. And tall. Totem poles are very tall.

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“Hello from the seawall.”

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Can you guess what I’m perched on?

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Here’s Ginger and me for a bit of size perspective.

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This is a photo of Mister Jay. Ginger said I had to include it because she likes it. I don’t think it’s very relevant to my reporting but then, sometimes the rules here are beyond my comprehension.

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This little lady is called Girl in a Wetsuit. I wanted to go out and interview her asking questions like what it was like to live on a rock but I was overruled due to the incoming tide. A real reporter wouldn’t be prevented from getting the story in spite of the risks but alas, my credentials only go so far.

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Even though I have only shown you a fraction of what we saw in Stanley Park, I’m going to leave it there because my tummy is a bit growly. Time for a snack I think.

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Cheers from your roving reporter,

sebastiansigns

Why Steveston? Why Sophie’s Cosmic CafĂ©?

I suppose I should  first ask “Why Vancouver?” as our first stop. We discovered the Northwest in our travels a few years ago. Then we heard that Vancouver was a beautiful city so we added that to our “One Day” list. When it  looked like we would actually be able to visit, we started researching interesting things to see.

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We were watching a talk show one evening when one of the actors from the TV series Once Upon a Time mentioned filming the show in Vancouver. It seemed like a good thing to check out while there.

If you don’t know what the heck I am talking about regarding the TV show Once Upon a Time, then these photos will just be quaint buildings in Steveston.

If you recall, in the show this is the library and the town square.

    

Do you recognize Granny’s Diner?

    

Or Sebastian and me in front of  Mr. Gold’s Pawn Shop?

   

Here’s the location they referred to as the park.  It was quite pretty and in real life part of the Steveston Museum grounds.

    

After we finished wandering in Steveston, we followed up on our original plan to have breakfast at Sophie’s Cosmic CafĂ©. And the reason is that it just looked like a fun place to eat!

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