Photos From Victoria, BC

BC Museum's "widow maker" mine drill.

This was one hard picture to take!  My crutches were on the floor, out of sight, and I had to hop on my left leg from the camera to the drill.  It only took seven tries to get the photo to not be of my hopping backside!  I need to get a camera with a remote control!

Rest Area in Buchardt Gardens.

 Buchardt Gardens has about 400 acres of flowers with two thousand miles of trail!  Not real easy to negotiate on crutches.  By the time I reached the rose garden, where this was taken, my foot was huge.  So, I sat for about an hour with my right foot on ice.  Very relaxing and actually I think I enjoyed the gardens more by just sitting and watching people.  Some Japanese starlet came through as I sat there - looking for photo ops, for the dozens of photographers and news crew with her!  I felt very sorry for her husband and little girl whom she totally blew off - but followed obediently at a distance.  What a dolt.....
 

Craigdarroch "Castle", one of Victoria's impressive 19th Century homes open to the public.

I first toured this place in 1983, right after it was opened to the public.  Back then it was just a shell you could walk through.  Since then, they have created a tour, using a double staircase, to wind through all of the floors and all of the rooms.  Some now are furnished for the period.  They advertise 85 stairs.  It was really 87 and my foot was might unhappy with me!
 

Backside of the Empress-Fairmont Hotel.

Victoria's inner harbor and the Clarion.

Ivy orcas swim in front of the Empress-Fairmont Hotel.  Their flower gardens are nice too!

This totem, in Totem Park, I watched being carved back in 1983!  Empress in the background.

Small totem in Totem Park, BC Museum in the background.