chase the light

[VICTORIA GALLERY] [VIDEO LINK]
Infamous ladies man and fellow Shrek survivor Felix got married this weekend in Victoria, British Columbia. That’s in Canada, eh.

Alaska Airlines flight 283. The beginning of the nightmare. Alaska Airlines I hate you. I left work early after a late night of packing Thursday and a long day at work. Got to the airport and checked in with plenty of time but there was no plane. I guess they had to find one? They found one on the other side of the airport, but empty. It ended up being an hour late. My flight from Seattle to Victoria only as a 1/2 hour layover. They better haul ass and get me and this plane up there. Alaska Airlines I hate you.

Since my flight left an hour late I was already behind, but they said they would let us deboard first so we could take a shuttle to the other gate. After running around the airport like a chicken getting chased by a cleaver I give in and asked an Alaska gate employee how do I get to “S” terminal. She looks at the screen and tells me that flight has already left. I hate you Alaska Airlines. Now I’m going to have to call the Empress Hotel and hope they don’t charge me. Also the rental car. Long story short Alaska put me up in some skank hotel next to a bar and grill. I only call it skank because I was supposed to be sleeping restfully at the The Empress tonight in Victoria. The plan was to get into Victoria and sleep in before the wedding in the afternoon. Now I was not only up late but had to get up early to catch the flight out in the morning. Sea-Tac is one messed up airport for being so small. Their satellite terminals truly suck. You SUCK Sea-Tac airport. Alaska Airlines, you suck too. Missed flight, crappy hotel I didn’t want to be in, I missed the sleep I needed, and you gave me two, count them, two expired calling cards so I could cancel my hotel and car rental in Victoria. Alaska Airlines I hate you. I’m supposed to be in Canada. So I called the Empress on my own dime and they were cool enough not to charge me for the cancelled night, and the car rental I didn’t worry about. I was going to be there in 8 hours anyway.

Got up the next morning, way too early, hopped on my airplane which was smaller than the Wright Bros. The flight attendant made some crack about it being all guys on her flight. Pretty much a flying weiner party. Got into Victoria early Saturday, picked up the rental car, drove into the city, about an hour and checked into the hotel. The Empress was nice enough to let me check in at about 9am as their normal check-in time is 4pm. The room was even made up, unlike that crap place I stayed in in Ukiah.

Did a drive by of the church to make sure I knew I was going and then did a little site seeing around the city. Got to the church at 1:45 and no one was there. The doors were closed and not a single car in the parking lot. For a wedding that was supposed to start at 2pm this was way alarming. Had I missed the memo? I flew all the way to Canada and I’m sitting in an empty parking lot with a tie on and no phone numbers to call anyone. Finally the door opened about 5 til and a bus pulled up and a bunch of people piled out. Maybe I did miss some memo, because I certainly didn’t hear about a bus. I hadn’t seen Felix in about three years so it was funny to see him al nervous. I’ll spare the blow by blow of the wedding. but of course we stood up and sat down a lot for an hour. Then they kissed and off we went to the reception. I had the bright idea of following the photographers over because I figured they’d get there the fastest. Being locals and knowing the area I’m knew they’d take shortcuts to the castle. Good lord, did they ever. It was like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride as we jetted across town bending the traffic laws here and there. I even peeled out at one corner. This mini-van kicks ass.

Got to Hatley Castle and walked around the grounds a bit and waited for the wedding party to finish their photos. The photographer barked at me, “hey, are you with the wedding?”. “Um, yep.”, I replied. “Go hold that bush back”, he yelled. So I went and held a bushy branch out of the way of the photos for the next 20 minutes and promptly got nicknamed “bushman” by the wedding party. Hard to look cool standing in a bush, while holding a bush, and wearing a tie. Oh, and it was only slightly raining. The reception had to be held inside because it started raining and I didn’t know a single person. I sat down at a table and 6 other people joined me. Luckily it was people Felix worked with at EA so I was able to chat to them all night. The guys all went outside to smoke cigars for most of the evening, which I don’t, so I got to chat to their canadian girlfriends, eh, the whole night, eh. Not a bad tradeoff, eh? Got back to the hotel about 11pm and watched a little Canadian, eh, TV and fell asleep after about 6 hours of sleep over the last 48 hours.

I had booked a boat to go out to see the Orcas on Sunday. We left Victoria at 9am and headed out to the west coast of San Juan Island and caught up with the L-Pad of Orcas and they were breaching right and left when we arrived. It was an unbelievable display. Probably about 30-40 breaches within 15 minutes of arriving. This was the exact spot I saw J-Pod last time I was here. We watched L-Pod for a bit and then headed north and caught up to J-Pod which was a few miles north. They had gone into their resting mode where they all lined up and would dive for a bit, basically sleeping. They’d all surface together so we’d see about 20 whales at a time come up for air. Ruffles is still around and I got to see him surface a few times while we waited for L-Pod to catch up with us. All in all a great day of seeing the Orcas. Got a few good video caps of the action.

Monday I had tried to book a flight on a pontoon boat to fly over the Cascade range on Washington’s northern coast but the flight times didn’t work for me. So I hoped in the car and headed up the west coast of Vancouver Island. I’d read about a place called the Sooke River Sinkholes and thought it might be a good day trip. I pulled into the car park after about an hour and paid my $3 day use fee. I decided to check it out a bit before I committed to a longer hike into the river area, so I took just my camera and left my swimsuit behind. Thought I’d see if the water was warm enoiugh to go swimming. As I got to the first little offshoot from the trail I saw a man and woman and their two dogs down by the river. I couldn’t really make much out through the trees, and I didn’t want to bother them so I hiked up about another 50 yards to an overlook. I relaized the next river entrance is probably quite a ways up so I decided to quickly go down to the rivers edge by the two people and check the water. As I started down the path the dogs saw me and kept playing, but the man was in the water with his pantlegs pulled up. He was splashing around while the woman videotaped him. I then noticed he was wearing these pinstriped overalls with red back pockets and stitching that looked like little animals. Giraffes, zebras, kangaroos etc. Then as I got real close he noticed me and yanked something out of his mouth and turned his back to me. Uh oh, red alert, something’s going on here. I kept looking at him from the corner of my eye as I knelt down to touch the water and got a glimpse of what he pulled out of his mouth. A pacifier! Holy shit he’s an Adult Baby! He was playing and acting like a baby for the video and I just happened upon their dirty little secret. That’s what you get for walking around the canadian wilderness on a non-holiday Monday. You think you’re going to be alone. Anyway, I left them behind and walked back to the car to pick up the rest of my stuff to hike farther in. There was one car that I had parked by that was still there. As I walked up I noticed a “Baby On Board” sign but no baby seat. The back seat was down with dog hair all over it and the front seat had a mobile hanging down, and again no baby seat. Many thanks to the many daytime talk shows I know what adult babies are. They walked pass on my way back up the hill and I think they were a little nervous about me seeing the show. The Sooke river was great and I ended up driving farther north to the coast and saw a Bald Eagle. Then late in the day made my way back to the airport and watched a movie shoot while waiting for my plane. No travel woes on the way home.