Mary Lis Travel Blog

Had breakfast at the B&B this morning – it was really good for me, but they didn’t handle Lis’ special diet as well. This was partly on them and partly on us, I’d say. The breakfast served to the non-special dieters was a bowl of granola and yoghurt with strawberries on top, followed by a scone, followed by an egg/crepe thingy – all of which was quite yummy. The Lis no-dairy version was the strawberries minus the yoghurt and granola, and scrambled eggs with ham. The part that is on us is that we only told them that Lis couldn’t have dairy – we didn’t mention the part about how she can’t have sugar, primarily because we don’t usually run across sugar for breakfast. However, the strawberries were in a syrup, which of course is mostly sugar, so Lis couldn’t really eat them – just had a couple of the least sugary ones. The part that is on them is that they should have been able to replace the scone with something, rather than just take it away. And the part that is on us is that Lis is really picky about eggs (it’s very easy for her to be grossed out by them if they’re not cooked just right) and doesn’t really like ham. So the upshot was that I walked away from the table full and Lis walked away hungry. We tried to run her by McDonald’s on the way to Port Angeles, but we missed the end of breakfast by about 15 minutes. So she had a cereal bar and cashews in the car.

We got to Port Angeles in plenty of time for the ferry, but not so early that we had to sit around for eons waiting to board. Once on the ship, we went up to the forward observation room where we had a good view of the crossing. The weather was much improved today but still a little chilly and morning-cloudy. But, by the final third of the trip the sun had come out and the temperature had warmed, and so we went out on the forward deck. Looking ahead we could see Victoria and the hills of Vancouver Island, looking back we could see Washington state and the Olympic Mountains in all their glory, and the sun was warm and the wind was down – it was truly lovely. There are few things as transcendently awesome as being out on the deck of a ship in glorious scenery and beautiful weather, even a plain ol’ no-nonsense gal like the MV Coho.

There were two cruise ships in port (Carnival Splendor and Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas) so the Inner Harbour area was pretty crowded and a bit of a pain to navigate through. However, as we have seen before, once we were about 5 blocks away from the Empress Hotel, things cleared up significantly. By the time we got to Market Square, only about 10 blocks from the Empress, everything was pretty quiet. We had lunch at Green Cuisine, but they didn’t have the regular Fruit Crumble dessert that they ALWAYS have and is the main reason we go there, so we were pretty disappointed (especially Lis – she was having a rough food day).

We had a couple hours to kill until we could check in at the B&B we will be staying at in Victoria (we have never stayed a week at a B&B – we are a bit apprehensive, as we like B&B’s but also grow tired of having to socialize with people. However, we are only having the breakfast part of the B&B on the first morning (tomorrow), so we’re expecting it might be more like staying in a boutique hotel.) so we drove around the island a bit and ended up driving along Beach Drive/Dallas Road on the east side of the island, which is way scenic. We got out and walked around for a while on this cool point with some wonderful tide pools and rock formations – that turned out to be about 5-10 blocks from the B&B. We hope to walk there a lot more during our stay.

The place we are staying is called Binners Bed & Breakfast. “Binners” is actually the name of our proprietress. She let us in and sat us down at the dining room table and we just chatted and compared travel notes and told stories and laughed for the next 2 hours or so. Her husband Edward came home about halfway through this time and joined us – we had a really great time and enjoyed them both very much – so much so that we completely lost track of time and pretty soon it was 7pm or so and time to try to find something to eat. First, though, Binners and Edward showed us to our room – they offered us an upgrade to the 2-room Cascadia Suite, but we found that we liked the light and feel of the smaller Harmony Room that we originally booked. They showed us all around the room, showing us where everything was and how everything worked – we appreciated the attention and the thoroughness.

The place itself is very different from the James House – a regular modern house in a regular modern neighborhood, as opposed to a grand old Victorian mansion. From the outside it doesn’t look very imposing at all, but the room is very comfortable and the amenities are much better – there is a little kitchenette-type area in the room with fridge, microwave, sink, coffee maker, kettle and toaster – at James House there was no way to have a cup of coffee or tea after hours. As we’ve often noted before, you do frequently have to sacrifice amenities in some of the grander older settings.

We headed out for dinner at about 7:30-7:45pm – very hipster cosmopolitan for a couple of dinner-at-5:30 gals like us (we can’t wait until we’re old enough for those Early Bird Specials we’ve heard tell of). There is a little neighborhood village area a few blocks from the B&B with some nice looking eateries, but they were crowded and loud and we almost punted and ate at Subway, but then we saw that the Pizzeria wasn’t too bad and had a table open, and so we ate there. The waiter was a touch attitudinal (I think I offended him by asking what beer he had on tap and then not wanting to order any – they had an ale and a pilsner, whereas I’m more of a porter/hefeweizen/stout girl) but the food was good and everybody else there was very nice. We had a hard cider instead of beer or wine and it was really good – very much hit the spot.

Then back to the inn, where we unpacked and hit the hay – Lis is snoring away as I type, and I hope to be snoring away myself as soon as I’m done here.

Rather than trying to get to Port Angeles in time for the 2pm ferry to Victoria, which we have done before but not without a fair amount of stress, as we are not girls who can easily get organized and out of the house at an early hour, we decided to drive to Port Townsend today and stay overnight, and then go on to Port Angeles in the morning. Good thing, too, as it turns out the 2pm ferry to Victoria is now the 12:45pm ferry to Victoria.

We had a pleasant morning, got out in decent time (for us), and had a pleasant, uneventful drive, alternately Learning Spanish Like Crazy and listening to This American Life and Fresh Air (brainwashed liberals that we are). We arrived at the B&B about 3pm and were able to check in right away. I had thought that we might then spend the afternoon and evening kicking around Port Townsend, but the weather today was a bit windy and cool and trying to rain, so we went to our room for a bit to unwind and then walked down to an Asian Noodle restaurant for dinner. We did walk around a little bit, but the weather wasn’t very conducive and most things were closed, so there wasn’t much to do. We did pop into a cute little herb store where Lis got some tea and a tincture for a tired throat, and Lis went and looked around a candle store (I had to wait outside as the scents in those kinds of places make my sinuses explode). The restaurant was cute and the food was good. Afterwards we headed back to our room at the B&B.

The B&B is called The James House. The literature in the room (which I liked a lot because it talked about the history of the area starting with the local Native populations and working through to the present day) says that the house was originally a mansion built in 1889 by Francis Wilcox James for his wife Mary. Mr. James apparently “made his fortune by making shrewd investments in the late 1800’s,” which I took as code for “gouged and ripped off the local citizenry like mad.” I did a quick Google search to test my theory, but didn’t come up with anything about the original Mr. James. However, I did find this cool photo of the inn.

Regardless of how he amassed his fortune, I will say that Mr. James had very nice taste – the inn is very lovely. Most of it seems to be original, and is in very good condition. There is lots of beautiful woodwork throughout the house – fir, redwood, oak, walnut, cherry – including the staircase, described in the literature as “the finest in Port Townsend [with] newel posts, spindles and banisters of wild cherry brought from the Virginias, around Cape Horn, as raw logs with the carving done here on the property.” It really is a spectacular staircase, but not overly ornate. The whole house is done very well – clearly a restored Victorian but not of the overly frilly variety that one often meets with on the bed and breakfast scene.

After dinner we retired to our room and did what we often do on vacation – surfed the web. Though now, with the addition of our new IPhone, our surfing bounced between the lap top and the IPhone. What was really cool is that when I attached the IPhone to the laptop via the phone’s USB cable, the laptop treated it as a camera and I was able to transfer the photos I had taken on it just like any other digital camera. Here are some of the pictures we took – pretty good for a camera phone, I’d say (needless to say, we LOVE our new IPhone).

Well, better hit the hay and get ready for the final leg of the trip tomorrow – looking forward to our breakfast:)