Today was a slow start to our trip, but a nice one. Mum met me in Duncan and we left my car at hubby’s work after transferring over my luggage. We, unfortunately, didn’t get a “start” picture as we had no one to take our picture, but we plan on doing a selfie at the ferry terminal tomorrow.
We had a fairly uneventful drive over the Malahat to Victoria and parked downtown at my favourite parkade. We then explored the Bay Centre and Munro Books while we killed time before lunch. We had originally planned to go to Jam for breakfast but the lineup was too long for us to wait in the direct sun. Next on the list was Shine Cafe, which luckily, was not as busy.
I had the Peachy Pork Benny which is August’s Benny special. It was a housemade pork sausage patty, roasted peaches, and brie cheese on roasted garlic cracked black pepper artisan bread topped with two poached eggs and fresh thyme hollandaise. Mum had the Cascadian Cobb Salad. Both of enjoyed our meals immensely. This is my third visit to Shine as I am in Victoria quite often, but this was the first time for Mum.
After lunch, it was time to check into the hotel – which was luckily only a few blocks away. Mum decided to relax for a while in the coolness of the room while I did some last minute errands.
Before we knew it, it was time to go out for dinner. I had originally planned on going to La Belle Patate, but after such a large lunch there was definitely no room for poutine. We instead went to The White Spot for a small bite to eat. I was quite happy when I realized that they were broadcasting the last Hip concert from Kingston over the speakers. I saw their opening concert in Victoria last month, but the concert today was their last of this tour and the last concert they will ever put on. Hopefully CBC will rebroadcast it again, but luckily I remembered to set my PVR.
Tomorrow we will be waking around 6 and heading to John’s Place to grab breakfast just as they open so we can catch the 10AM ferry from Swartz Bay. (UPDATE: John’s Place doesn’t open until 8AM – the TVFoodMaps app that I used lied to me ugh). We will now be going to Third Street Cafe in Sidney. It also opens at 8, but is much closer to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal.
The majority of tomorrow will be driving. I hope to get some pictures of Mt. Baker and Mt. St. Helens on our way southbound, but other than that, it’s just a driving day. We will be arriving in Portland around dinner time – which we will be having at Red Robin. I know Red Robin sounds weird for a Food Network trip, but it is a Portland tradition.
Sorry I don’t have many pictures to share today, but thank you for reading and I’ll talk to you soon.
L