Butchart Gardens to Tacoma

Butchart Gardens, British Columbia – A rare sight... no people

Butchart Gardens oozes tourists. We permeate the place like a plague, pausing only to gawk and bump into other tourists. The ones from Japan are most charming, neither giving nor taking offense when bodies collide. It's bumper cars with flowers.

The garden's story is long and convoluted, winding like its many paths. Two brothers made a fortune in the cement business. One of the brothers married a Scottish lass, Jennie, who became so famous for her hospitality that she reportedly served tea to 15,000 visitors in one year.

She built a garden, and it kept expanding. Fast forward several decades, and here we all are, bumping into one another.

After a morning of bumping, we eat lunch at the cafeteria. The food is expensive but tasty. We share a salmon noodle salad (vermicelli with black beans, corn, garbanzo beans, peppers, and edamame) and blueberry cheesecake on the patio.

To drink, we have a pint of Hermann's Dark Lager on tap. Hermann's is brewed in Victoria, and it's good to see the local product represented.

* * *

Back on the coach, Lyle is up to his usual tricks. “What an idiot,” he says calmly as a car passes him on the right. “Sorry, he probably doesn't know it's illegal. He's probably from Van-COU-ver.” It's the worst swear word he knows.

* * *

On the ferry, across the strait, off the ferry. Dogs sniff our bags and we return to the car.

More driving. US-101 to WA-104 to WA-3 to WA-16. We cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in a carpool lane that confuses us. We can stop at the toll plaza and pay Washington $4 now, or we can pass without stopping and pay $5.50 later. The confusion arises over whether or not carpools must pay a toll.

Either way, we are in a hurry to catch a ballgame, so we keep moving. Months later we receive a bill.

The game–Tacoma Rainiers vs Las Vegas 51s–starts at 7:05 p.m., and we arrive at the 19th Street exit by 6:55. We didn't buy tickets in advance because we weren't sure how long it would take to get from Port Angeles to Tacoma. Besides, when I checked last night, good seats were available for cheap.

Traffic stops. The van in front of us unloads three kids, who walk off the freeway off-ramp and up the hill toward the stadium. It will take us 40 minutes to go that final half mile.

We fail to find the Rainiers game on the radio, catching instead the Mariners up the road in Seattle. Félix Hernández is pitching against the Red Sox.

One of the announcers notes that top prospect Danny Hultzen is making his home debut in Tacoma against ancient left-hander Jamie Moyer, who played for the Mariners from 1996 to 2006. Moyer is 49 years old and returning from a season lost due to elbow surgery. He puts us all to shame.

Meanwhile, we miss the game. This spawns an article ($) that describes, among other things, what happens next:

Whatever the case, we continued along 19th Street to a hospital, not because I needed mending–although this could be another metaphor–but because we had to find our motel. We got directions from our somewhat trusty phones and proceeded to a part of town that defies reasonable description.

To the north, there is an adult bookstore, a thrift shop, and an empty lot strewn with trash. To the south, a dingy-looking Chinese buffet. The freeway was spitting distance from our room, which I know because I felt droplets while we walked to the pizza chain just past the adult bookstore. Or maybe that was rain.

There were some negatives as well, but I'll spare you the details.

Either way, Hultzen was pitching against Moyer about five miles from us. Hernandez was pitching against the Red Sox 35 miles away. And we were carrying a box of chain pizza back past the adult bookstore, the thrift shop, and the empty lot strewn with trash to our room, where we dined in luxury, washing our pizza down with fine craft beer [ed note: Kiwanda Cream Ale and Tsunami Stout] procured some days earlier in Oregon and now sipped–in the mode of Paul Giamatti's character from Sideways–out of paper cups generously provided by our motel.

So if you ask my opinion of Hultzen, I will tell you that his presence in Tacoma helped destroy a perfectly good evening of baseball for me. If you want to know what I thought of Alex Liddi, I can tell you only that the beer was delicious despite being consumed out of paper cups and that the flowers on Vancouver Island made our delay worth the while.

Still, the motel looks like the kind of place that would find you hookers if you asked at the front desk. Not that we ask.

Victoria to Butchart Gardens, Part 2

Butchart Gardens, British Columbia

Lyle rattles off facts like the crazy Canadian fact machine he is.

“There's a new hockey arena on Blanshard.”

“The Bay Street Armoury was built in 1913 and currently houses two regular units, cadets, and a marching band.”

“The original jail is now a high school.” (I remind myself that the territorial prison in Yuma, Arizona, later became a high school as well.)

“The observatory off Saanich Road is the largest in the British empire and is affiliated with the Hubble Space Telescope.”

Lyle's voice swells with as much pride as his Canadian citizenship will allow. And I say this without any hint of mockery, because he is wonderful. If not Kids in the Hall, then maybe Corner Gas or some other underappreciated television show.

“Victoria is the only part of Canada considered sub-tropical. It averages one snowfall per year.” He explains that the Olympic Mountain Range to the south picks off all the potential snow. A passenger adds that one of those mountains–Hurricane Ridge–received nearly 700 inches of snow last year.

Lyle acknowledges this and then tells us more about the sub-tropics of Canada. “There is no rain in Victoria between late-April and late-August,” he says. “That's good for tourism, but tough on locals.”

Then, without transition: “Vancouver Island has the largest cougar population in the world. Every now and then, one will wander into town.”

I cannot speak to the veracity of his claims, but he sure is entertaining. Crazy Canadian fact machine.

A cell phone rings. Lyle pauses, but says nothing. A few moments later, it rings again.

“I might have to confiscate that annoying cell phone,” he says in his gentle, measured tone. It is a threat delivered in the Canadian style, as an apology.

Upon arriving at Butchart Gardens, Lyle informs us that he will be handing us tickets as we disembark the coach. “Now,” he says, “these tickets are crucial.”

He pauses to ensure that all are paying attention, then delivers the reveal: “You'll need them to get through the turnstiles.”

Indeed. Because this is how tickets work. And turnstiles, for that matter.

Victoria to Butchart Gardens, Part 1

Butchart Gardens, British Columbia

A man in dark slacks and vest, with medium-length wavy grey-brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses, stands next to the coach. He introduces himself as Lyle, our driver. In his early-sixties and slight of build, Lyle speaks with a lilting cadence that makes everything sound like a question. He could be a character out of a Kids in the Hall sketch, played by Mark McKinney.

Lyle is so stereotypically Canadian that it's difficult to keep from smiling whenever... well, whenever he does anything. His anecdotes are torpedoed by odd tangents, and punctuated by nervous laughter and sighs of “ANY-way” that connect non sequiturs.

After apologizing for being 5 minutes late and then admitting that he is 15 minutes early instead of his usual 20, Lyle takes our tickets and welcomes us aboard. Sandra and I sit on the right side toward the back, and soon the coach fills with people much older than we are.

The gentleman across the aisle notices me taking notes by hand and taps my shoulder. “It's so unusual to see someone doing that,” he says, pointing at my spiral-bound book. “Everyone uses a computer nowadays.” He points at the book again. “I like it.”

“So do I.”

Lyle fires up the engine and starts us on our 21-kilometer (when in Canada...) jaunt to Butchart Gardens. He has lived here his whole life and tells us about the city, the gardens, and Vancouver Island.

We learn about Victoria's architecture and the Empress Hotel, famous for its high tea. Government Street is the oldest street west of the Canadian Rockies. There are more than 700 restaurants in town. Blanshard Street is named after Richard Blanshard, the first governor of British Columbia, and is home to Andrew Carnegie Public Library.

Gold was discovered here in 1858, shortly after British Columbia became an official colony of Britain. Migration from California during the Gold Rush increased a settlement of 600 to more than 20,000.

The city of Victoria now has a population around 80,000, with a greater metropolitan area around 350,000. This constitutes roughly half of the people that live on Vancouver Island, which at nearly 300 miles long is the largest island on the West Coast of North or South America. The island is named after Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy.

Lyle could go on, and does, but that's a story for another day.