{08jun2010: day 3}

Read about day 1 here and here and day 2 here.

Ok, so one thing I realized I forgot mention about day two... Darwin had a new "first".  So on our walk before breakfast there were some horse "candies" (as Lucille calls them) on the path that Jason and I walked around.  Darwin stopped to sniff it, and suddenly dropped and leaned into it!  Yuck!  (no pictures, sorry).  It was her first time rolling in something stinky!  Within the last few months she's sniffed stinky stuff, then slowly put her ear towards it as if she were listening to it, and we'd catch her and stop her.  This time though she was quick about it and just plopped into it!  Gross!


Anyway, so day three started out like this for Darwin:


We went to the dining room for breakfast where Banjo and Max joined us.



We were trying to catch the 300 ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, so we checked out and hit the road, but first some last pictures outside the B&B.


On our drive to Victoria we pulled up behind this car that had a harlequin dane in the back seat.

We got to the ferry terminal before noon and discovered the 300 ferry was booked up and they were already queuing up cars to wait for the 730 ferry!  Ugh!  They told us to come back at 130 for customs in case reserved cars didn't show up and we could get on the 300 boat.  We grabbed a quick bite then spent two hours waiting to see if we could get on the earlier ferry.  Luckily, there was room and we were one of the last cars to get on the 300 boat!  Whew!
The cloudy sky cleared up for a little bit as we left Victoria which was nice because we were sitting on the top deck.


It started drizzling after a while, but we managed to find cover.  Darwin was a hit with all the people on the top deck.  And she got quite a bit of stares as she quenched her thirst.

After that ferry ride, it was another hour and a half drive to another ferry to get to Seattle.  By then we were all pooped and ready for bed.
It was a great weekend get away and we totally loved Cougars Crag and would recommend it to anyone looking for a super dog friendly b&b on Vancouver Island!

I have more pictures from the trip on my flickr page if you want to check them out!

{05june2010: day 2}

(Read about day 1 here and here)

After a semi-good night's sleep (hard to get a good night's sleep with a 120lb dog in the middle of the bed hogging all the space) we got up and went for a short hike in the morning before breakfast once we could convince Darwin she could make it down the stairs.


We came to a clearing and Darwin got a serious case of the zoomies.

(pre-zoom pose)


Steve told us we didn't have to worry about picking up Darwin's poop as long as it wasn't on a main walkway because they have giant slugs that "take care of it".  We saw many giant slugs... like this one:

Steve was great and because the guests staying in the second room (it's a two room b&b) checked out already he let Darwin come to breakfast with us where she could harass Maximus.  This place was also great because if we went somewhere that wasn't dog friendly they offer free dog watching services... Darwin could either have stayed in the main house with him and the other dogs or stayed in our room (uncrated - he's fine with dogs being free as long as they aren't chewers and won't destroy anything in the room).  We left Darwin in the room so she could nap a little while we went out to zipline!

It was my first time ziplining and it was a blast!  We were in a group of 6 people, and one of them was this old lady ziplining with her adult daughter.  It was so fun!
After ziplinging we picked up Darwin and went out for a hike at the Sooke Potholes.




More giant slugs!



Here's a video of Darwin at the potholes.

We were going to walk further, but we passed a couple blowing their whistles saying they heard from another person who heard from someone else that they saw a bear and her two cubs.  We aren't exactly bear savvy and our jingling car keys weren't exactly noisy enough to warn a bear that we were approaching.  And when I asked Darwin what she would do if we ran into a bear she didn't give a very confident answer so we decided to leave.
When we got back to the b&b we found a friend sitting next to the drive way.

We tried to point it out to Darwin, but she kept looking at the wrong thing and eventually the deer got up and left.
That night we left Darwin to go eat dinner.  I wanted sushi and we found a really good place nearby, Akemi Sushi.


And that was day 2.  Day 3, our last day, wasn't anywhere near as exciting, but we'll post about it anyway.

{04june2010: day 1 part 2 }

continuation from part 1:
More pictures from Butchart Gardens. 

 
 

 

Darwin was scared of this carousel horse and kept barking at it.  People walked by and laughed at her.

 
There was a nice lady who wanted to say hi to Dar, so Darwin said hello, then tried to steal the stuffed teddy the lady was holding.  Thankfully the lady thought it was the funniest thing and didn't mind a little Dane slobber on her bear.

After walking around the whole garden we loaded back into the car and stopped at a gin distillery, Victoria Spirits.  They had a dog on the property and invited Darwin out of the car to play with their dog.

Darwin got some play time in, then we got to taste some gins.  Good stuff and super friendly couple who run it.

We finally headed down to our bed and breakfast where we got settled in and Darwin got to meet Maximus, the resident Dane.

There's something about being on vacation that Darwin knows she's allowed to sleep on the bed.  At home she's not allowed on the bed, even when I try to get her to get on the bed with me she'll bark at me and not get on.  But as soon as we are away from home she's the first to jump on the bed, which was exactly what happened this weekend.  The only problem was that the sleep area was up in a loft, and though she was totally willing to go up the stairs, she was scared to walk down them.  It took a good couple minutes of her whining upstairs by herself, to me standing a few steps down from the top of the steps for her to build up the courage to come down.  Such a drama queen.

We went on a quick hike before Jason and I headed out for dinner at The EdGe, which was recommended by the owner, Steve.  It was a great place.  From the outside we were pretty skeptical, but the food itself was sooo good.  If you're ever in Sooke, you should check it out.

deer sighting!

sunset around 9pm



And that was day one!  Stay tuned for day two!

{3june2010: weekend review.. day 1 part 1}

OK, here's day 1 part 1... there's more pictures for part 1, but Blogger's being a pain and I can't add any more for now (I found out you have a 1gb storage limit, but I checked and I still have at least half a gigs worth of storage space left...) so I'll just add more to the part 2 post... hopefully.

How was everyone's Memorial Day Weekend?! 

We went on another road trip!  As part of my birthday present from Jason, we stayed at an awesome bed and breakfast in Vancouver Island, Cougars Crag in Metchosin.  It's fairly new and was built for the purpose of being a b&b.  It was super dog friendly and the owner even had a Great Dane himself!

We'll start with our first day.
We wanted to take the 830am ferry from Anacortes, WA to Sidney, BC, so we got up early early Saturday morning for the hour and a half drive to Anacortes.  We got there early to make sure we'd get on and Darwin did not seemed entertained while we waited.

Once we got loaded onto the ferry we let Darwin out to do a few laps around the parking deck.

We got to Sidney and went through customs and headed to the main town of Sidney to get some lunch.  

After lunch we found an apple cider winery, Sea Cider Farm, and stopped by for a tasting. 

Good stuff.
Darwin got to pose by her favorite fruit tree... too bad it's not apple season yet!

We loaded her up again and headed over to Butchart Gardens.  It was pricier than I was expecting to go, but they are a pet friendly place and so Darwin could walk around the grounds with us.  

She got tons of attention from everyone.  There was even this cute little girl, she must've been around 1.5 or 2, that was fascinated by Darwin.  She didn't want to leave Darwin's side.  (Dang it, we didn't get pictures of her, but trust me it was the cutest thing to see this tiny little girl walking circles around Dar.)

Stay tuned for day 1 part 2... if Blogger decides to cooperate.