Okay so today was an amazing day! I went on a whale watching tour and I thought it would be cool but it was better than that. Our guide, Vanessa, greeted me at the counter and told me I picked the perfect day to go see some whales. I thought this was just a sales line because to them any day is a perfect day to take some money. But she explained the time of year was perfect, there’d already been several reported sightings, and the weather was nice. Even though the weather was nice and I brought a jacket I was still strongly advised to wear the provided jacket for warmth. I also had come prepared by wearing long underwear and my REI shirt with long sleeves and thumb holes and a hood. I am really glad I wore all of those things. Once we were out of the harbor and cleared the breakwater wall we shot through the water at 60 miles per hour. We did slow down along the way to see some harbor seals, some crazy black birds that can dive 200 feet into the ocean, and a kelp forest.

The first sighting of the Orcas, killer whales, was about an hour into the trip or 60 miles away near Pender Island. I was amazed by how they moved and they took my breath away. I was not scared of them at all but was truly awestruck by them. It is so cool the creativity that God has in His creation. The tour guides were calling out names of the whales as they surfaced because they have known and studied the whales for many years, about 21 between them I believe. The Orcas have been identified and named by markings on their dorsal fins and the surrounding area. They each have a scientific name and also a more personal name like Blueberry.

Our guides explained to us that we got extremely lucky today to see what we did. It was a combination of all of the following that made it so amazing. We saw all three pods of Orcas that are resident to the area. Pods are basically family groups and each pod also has smaller groups that hang together. Examples of this would be mothers and their calfs, those mating or courting, or those just playing. There was one Orca we saw today that was born in 1911, that’s right she was 99 years old. How flippin cool is that, a 99 year old granny killer whale still swimming and being active with the pod! As usual the women outlast the men by quite a bit 🙁 In all we saw 87 total Orca today!

Along with seeing so many Orca we also some unusual activity at least as it comes to being able to see it with our own eyes. We saw large groups of Orca swimming and playing together. We saw several full breaches, where the whale basically jumps out of the water, I’m guessing about 15 of them. Those were obviously extremely difficult to capture on camera. I was always a little to slow or didn’t even get the shot off. We also saw some young calfs swimming with their moms. Our Captain also believed we were witnessing the courting of two Orca as we saw them for quite awhile, grown male and grown female swimming alone together. Finally one of the coolest things we saw was when two or three Orca were headed straight at our boat. Seriously it almost looked like a scene from the movies with these fins coming at us. Two of the whales must’ve dove deeper and went under us. The third however unexpectedly came up to us, still under the water, turned his white belly toward us, and “took a look at us” as the captain explained how the whale turned so he’d be able to see us. I was standing ready to snap a picture if he came up next to our boat but he didn’t. However just seeing him that close and turning under the water was exhilarating.

Unfortunately this is where my camera definitely showed it’s lack of features. I did what I could to change certain settings to be able to capture the moments but I won’t know how I really did until I get home. The battery died after about 180 pictures. This might sound like a lot but when it was a moment like this that seemed pretty unacceptable to me. I conserved batteries down the stretch to make sure that if something amazing happened I would be able to capture it. Another problem with the camera is it’s zoom. I just wasn’t able to get in as close to the Orcas as I would have liked. Finally, the camera seemed a little bit “laggy” when both snapping the picture and also in saving the file to disk. I have a high speed card but I still had to wait a couple seconds between shots. Again this probably sounds like nitpicking but during an activity like this you really notice the shortcomings. I am looking forward to being home to see just how things turned out. Maybe I’ll have more positive things to say about the camera after that.

So the whales were obviously the highlight of the day and of the trip so far and I think they will be for the entirety of the trip and for trips to come. However,just being outside, on the ocean, in the sun, speeding along at 60 miles per hour passing islands and wildlife was just so fun! Feeling the breeze in my hair, what’s left of it at least, the sun on my face, and smelling everything was refreshing. I have come to like my sunglasses a lot. I’ve told many people after I bought them how annoyed I was at how they fit after hearing so many good reviews about them. Over the last few months they must have either conformed to my head or I’m just used to them now but I really like them now. They kept the sun at bay from blinding me, kept the wind out of my eyes, and have been with me everywhere I go on this trip. So in a short time in my life now I’ve been: on a couple of the most beautiful beaches in the world in Hawaii and Kitsilano in vancouver, I’ve seen an active volcano through the air and walked on fairly fresh lava rock, I’ve gone snorkeling in one of the most the premium snorkeling areas of the ocean, flown alongside one of the tallest waterfalls in North America, seen the Grand Canyon multiple times, hiked Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, explored a ton of Colorado and it’s mountains, and went to Niagara Falls. This whale watching adventure tops all of them and I would do it again in a heartbeat, even though I’ve already done it.

For dinner I took Vanessa’s advice and headed to Red Fish Blue Fish. It’s a seafood, fish and chips kind of place right on the harbour. It’s in a converted cargo container and lookes very simple. In fact it took me awhile to find it because it was so unassuming. I go two spicy fish tacones. They are fish tacos that are folded like a cone so they are easy to eat and don’t fall apart. They were amazing! I will be going back tomorrow night for sure. Best part was they were $9 plus another $1.50 for a Coke. What a deal.

After dinner I headed into the downtown area and checked out shops. I didn’t get to the bookstores because I want more time in them so I’ll tackle them today. Oh, I forgot to mention that I extended my stay here. This is the first time on this trip I feel truly relaxed. During my hike I felt relaxed but it’s always like I’ve got somewhere else to go. I felt differently right when I got to town. I set about changing my plans and making sure my hotel would be okay the the extension. I head to Nanaimo on Wednesday now. I also booked my first Airbnb reservation at a families home in South Vancouver. They seem nice as I’ve emailed back and forth. I’ll be there on the 3-5th when I leave. The night of the 2nd is still up in the air. I have requested to stay in a home on gabriola island that night but haven’t heard back. The island is a 20 minute ferry ride off Nanaimo so it’s fairly close. It’s supposed to be beautiful and very peaceful which would be nice.

Well I should hit the sack. I want to get breakfast at the place I did today, the Blue Fox. It was recommended by the front desk as a great place locals like. She was right. The french toast was perfect, think baguette style even. I sat next to four young cops. They seriously talked just like in Fargo or Northern Exposure. They sounded so Canadian I was laughing on the inside quite a bit, eh. By the time I left there was a line out the door that could have filled the restaurant at least once over. So by my estimate I better get up early. Peace.

The first two are the views from my hotel room. The the next one is fisherman’s wharf. The next three are from the seabreaker wall. The lit up building is the Province Capitol. The other building is the Empress Hotel, a former castle.

Well I don’t have quite as much to say right now, which is a good thing I think. It means it was an easy going, uneventful day. After the last blog entry I grabbed a shuttle to the Link Light Rail line and headed downtown. I did make one stop on the way though. I hopped off and found a post office so I could mail home some stuff. I wanted to trim my load as much as I could and I was able to cut about three pounds of stuff out of my bag. That might not sound like much but it ended up being about what fits inside in one of the large side pockets of my main travel bag, a Tom Bihn Aeronaut. It also takes the extra weight off of my shoulder, which I’ve been starting to noticeably feel.

I didn’t walk as much as the last few days today but I did still walk quite a bit. By the time I got downtown the baseball game was going and I couldn’t find a cheap ticket. There were a couple of people selling, it was the fifth inning, but I was hoping to get a steal of a deal and I didn’t. My luck definitely changed at night though, which I’ll get back to in a bit.

After checking out the game and the outside of the stadium I headed into the downtown area, Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market. I had already checked them out yesterday but I wanted to be able to browse around more. There were some neat shops but nothing that really got my money. That was of course until Starbucks, the original. I’ve been wanting to go there and check it out and it was kinda cool. To be honest I was sad because it was more of a tourist stop than a coffee shop. They’ve tried to keep it looking like the original but there’s no inside seating and the line is usually out the door. I did buy a mug that said “First Starbucks Store” or something to that effect and loaded a Pike Place exclusive gift card for myself. I use gift cards for my purchases anyway because I earn “points” toward perks so there was no reason not to get one.

I then headed down to Seattle Center where the Space Needle is. I snapped a picture, turned around and left. Seriously. I saw no reason to stay there and look and I’m still glad I didn’t. It just would seem weird to go to Seattle and not get a picture of the space needle. Then I walked down to the local REI, which is the flagship REI store and was quite big. I was also quite thrilled about this as I love REI, they were having a sale, and I was bummed I was out of town for it originally. I found a couple of things I was looking for already and bought them. Now I just have to ship those things home on Sunday somehow.

After REI I headed back downtown. I went down to Qwest Field which is where the Seahawks play because there was a Seattle Sounders vs. Chicago Fire game. They were sold out but a guy selling tickets came up to me at the ticket window offering me a deal. I got a ticket for $25 and was 10 rows up from behind one of the goals. The bonus was that it was an all-inclusive ticket, meaning eat all you can. That was perfect because I had planned to eat at the stadium anyway. So for $25 I got a $38 ticket, two hot dogs, two cokes, peanuts, and nachos. Yes, I made sure to make it worth it. So if you consider that food to be free I only spent $6.39 on food today. Coffee is in a different category, always has been for me for budgeting reasons. Yes I know I have a coffee problem. Anyway there were 36,000 people at the game. That’s amazing and they sell out every game! Even better was that everyone stood for the entire game, minus halftime, and most were really into the game, knew the chants, and understood the game. It was really cool to see and be there. Now I want to go to a World Cup or Euro Cup game even more.

That’s all for today folks. Peace.

Hello everyone. I talked to some of you who are following this blog yesterday but for those of you who I didn’t here’s a quick update on my hostel adventure yesterday. When I got to Seattle I made my way to the hostel which was across downtown. I wanted to catch a bus that went there but I just missed it so I started walking. It took me awhile but I made it there okay, about 1.2 miles later. When I got up to my room I knew within moments I would have a problem. Now I knew using hostels would be an adventure and I still think I picked “good” hostels but I just knew I wouldn’t enjoy my time there for two nights. There was a pungent smell when I walked into the room. Not really bad or disgusting but more like a really bad perfume or cologne. There were four beds, two bunks, in a room smaller than most small dorm rooms I’ve seen and the only other space available was for out lockers. No sink or anything. I sat on my bed and could feel the bars beneath me. The window was right next to my bed, which if you know me you know I can’t sleep with light, I opened it up and it was a really gross looking AC unit taking up my whole view. There was also very little noise suppression from the outdoors. I knew this would not be a good nights sleep.

I immediately locked my stuff in a locker, pulled out the ipad, and went to work finding a cheap hotel. I figured any hotel with a room of my own and a crappy bed had to be better than this. At least I would have my own room and a shower available. I launched the trip advisor app and searched for what people said about hotels so I knew which to try to avoid. Then I launched the Priceline app and started my bidding. Two hours later I had found a hotel down by the airport. They had accepted my price of $40 so after tax I was only spending about $20 more than the hostel. The only caveat was that it was for Saturday night only. Priceline makes you change all sorts of factors to keep bidding so I did so as well as changed my email address multiple times. I then tried to find a different hotel for one night but didn’t have any luck and price line wasn’t letting me do any more changes. So I decided to ride it out and try to be positive and make it work. After the ballgame I came back to the hotel and headed up to my room. The minute I stepped in there I knew I had to leave. I wouldn’t be able to sleep and I didn’t care about my $25 at that point, they had already refunded me for Saturday night after I told them I’d be staying somewhere else. I called a couple of other hotels nearby and was ready to pay a pretty penny. I decided to call my Saturday hotel though and see if I could swing something with them. They gave me a room at their most “discounted rate”, which obviously isn’t because price line accepted my $42 offer but who cares, and I got a room for $75 plus tax. That sounded sweet to me when everyone else was asking at least $150. The bonus was that Trip Advisor had many good reviews about this place. I went up grabbed my bags, checked out the same night I had checked in to the hostel which confused them a bit, and hopped on the train which had a station right by the hostel. From the airport it was a four block walk. This seemed longer than four blocks though because I had my luggage and it was midnight now. The area seemed safe though and they had big sidewalks off the rode and I walked along a row of other hotels, much like in Bloomington, MN.

The minute I got in my room I was very happy. I was able to shower, the room was nice, I had a comfortable bed, it was quiet, and they told me there was breakfast. I watched some ESPN for a bit which was really weird because the only tv up till now I’d seen had been in the airports and in bars/restaurants with no sound. To be honest I didn’t really like the tv too much because I’ve been enjoying my vacation and quiet time so much. That’s a good thing though. The only drawback was that wifi is not free. The good thing was that a 2 day pass which takes me up till I check out on Sunday only cost me $10 which is cheap for hotels that do charge for that stuff. I slept till 9 this morning and was really tired when I got up. That’s good because that’s when I know I slept well and would feel better as soon as I showered, which I did. I went out to get breakfast as soon as I was up and was very happy. It was the first breakfast I’ve had all trip so that was good but it also had waffles! Granny and Grandpa you would have loved it and it reminded me of our weekly breakfasts during the last couple summers.

Yesterdays Twins game was super fun. The stadium here is gorgeous. I still think I like Target Field better but I see why this one gets such high marks from fans, writers, and players. This has been one of the highest rated ballparks since it was built and is still at the top of most writers lists but now is either just above or below Target Field. My seats were awesome! 10 rows behind Scotty Ulger and the Twins dugout. We had numerous foul balls in our area. One of them I might have been on tv for but I don’t know for sure. The folks next to me were super nice and we talked most of the game. This was also nice because as you can probably imagine I haven’t been doing much talking. They were originally from the Iron Range but moved out to Salem, OR long ago. They raised their kids baseball fans and the one that was there that night definitely was. We had a good time commenting on the game together. The gals right behind me were from Hastings originally but now live in St. Paul and Lilydale. If any college friends read this you know that they of course know Greg Kvamme, seems everyone from there does.

I would like to take partial responsibility for Scott Baker pitching as well as he did. This was the fourth straight Twins game I’ve been to when he’s pitched. Every single one of the previous ones he’d get a lead early and then give it back. Now when he was done warming up in the bullpen he, Drew Butera, and Rick Anderson were walking to the dugout and passed right in front of me. For some reason I yelled out “Hey Scott when you get the lead, don’t give it back to them!” I felt super bad right away when he looked over towards me. I don’t know if he knew who it was but I was super worried I got it in his head and if he would’ve had a bad game I would’ve felt really bad. Oh well the fan in me came out. It got better late in the game when the older guy in front of me, who was drunk and on a date, started telling his girlfriend in the 8th inning that with the bases loaded and Adam Moore up to bat that this guy would hit a grand slam. Well a little background, Moore is a rookie and is expected to be good someday but he’s batting under .200 with 3 homers on the year, and we brought in Matt Guerrier. So I leaned over to the Twins fans next to me and told them this guy doesn’t have a chance. The moment he swung the bat he looked foolish so I yelled “Way to swing like a rookie.” Us Twins fans were quite happy and this started a fun, lighthearted back and forth the the older guy in front of us. The only bad thing was that my camera died, remember I couldn’t charge it the night before, so I only got a couple of pics of the stadium.

I had dinner last night in the Belltown neighborhood which is quite nice. There are lots of shops and restaurants in the area. The good part was it was out of the main busy downtown area so I thought it’d be cheaper. I took the waitresses recommendation of spicy chicken tacos over the special that brought me in the door which was fish tacos. They were amazing and totally filled me up. She was also nice enough to give me the late night special price for them as that’s the only time they’re supposed to be on the menu. For that and a drink it only cost me $10 plus tip. Best deal I’ve head so far this trip food wise. I also checked out Pike Place Market and saw the fish being thrown. By my calculations I walked all over downtown, back forth, and back again and racked up about 4.5 miles throughout the day in Seattle plus the walk from that morning in Vancouver.

Right now I’m about to head back to the downtown area. I may see if I can snag a cheap ticket to the game with a good seat. If I can then I’ll go and walk around downtown later. If I don’t get a ticket then I’ll go hang out at the piers, grab a Starbucks, do some shopping, and whatever else I can find down there. But I will be relaxed one way or another.

For the upcoming legs of my trip I cancelled my hostel stay in Victoria after my experience at the one here. It may well be a nice hostel, I won’t know that but I wanted to get a decent nights sleep while I’m there and enjoy my time there as well. So I used Priceline to get some more really really cheap hotel rates which ended up being in the same hotel chain as the one I’m at now. I did this prior to the ballgame yesterday. During the game the woman next to me overheard me telling the story of the hostel to dad. She recommended I check out Airbnb.com. It’s a home rental service and she swears by it. Prior to this trip I had checked out VRBO.com and HomeAway.com both which are similar but prices were still more than I wanted to pay so I wasn’t sure about it. When I got to the hotel I logged on to airbnb.com and found some really good deals. I am pondering using this to book my future stays during this trip. One thing I did notice though is that the hostel in Nanaimo, BC has listed some of their private rooms on airbnb.com because they are so nice. I’ve heard nothing but great things about that hostel so I’ll probably stick with it but maybe I’ll extend my stay on the island or find a place in Vancouver using it.

Well that was a lot of writing and I’m sure a lot of reading for you so I should stop and go find a Twins ticket. Have a good day. Peace.