but my project at work is dragging on so I only had a few days left of it for holiday so we decided to just spend it in Vancouver. I figured that it was close enough that we could come back later if we liked it. Since I did the research for the whole Seattle->Victoria->Vancouver->Seattle trip I will be putting that Itinerary up on this site later for others to follow. That section of course doesn't even exist yet (but it will).So I've lived in the Pacific Northwest on and off for 17 years and I've never been to British Columbia. For those of you who don't know it's only a couple hour drive from Seattle. So why haven't I ever packed a picnic lunch, got in the car and driven to Canada? Well, when I first moved here I had other pressing issues (no money, no interest), then later after I moved to Seattle I was busy experiencing Seattle and the U.S. side of the border like the Olympic Penninsula. Once I started traveling I would climb on an airplane and fly halfway around the world and not even think about BC. British Columbia got neglected.
There is another reason I never went there - similarity. I've met quite a few Canadians over the years and they all resemble us (Americans) for the most part. When I started traveling I wanted to go to foreign lands, not the Canadian side of Washington. I feared Canada would be too much like the U.S. to warrent any serious travel. Canada in my opinion was for inexperienced travelers that couldn't make it in Paris or Istanbul.
So I originally planned on spending a week somewhere because my kids were out of school for Spring break. Not knowing what was going to happen at my job in the near future (like whether I'd have any money or not) I decided on going somewhere close. That means Portland, Spokane, Seattle, Victoria or Vancouver. I live in Seattle so obviously that's out, I've spent enough time in Spokane to know you don't want to be there in the winter and it's not that great anyway in comarison to the others, Portland is getting old since we've been there quite a lot. At this point the hilight to Portland is ice skating in the mall! So that brings us to Victoria and Vancouver - the northwestern cities oft neglected by me.
As I said I had planned on spending a week in the two cities but project overruns at work meant I was only going to have a few days. That cut out one of the cities and since Vancouver is easier to get to (and larger) we decided to name it the winner and give the runners-up prize to Victoria. I did however, plan the whole Victoria/Vancouver trip so I'll be finalizing itineraries and uploading them to this site in time. Later we'll do it as I planned.