Cats of the Pacific Northwest (Part 2)

If you haven’t yet read Part 1 of this installment I encourage you to do so as it was certainly eventful!

I was remiss in not including a few things about my trip to Portland. Namely that we did of course imbibe in some very good coffee and wine (sadly only a trip to one vineyard but it was a good one – Archery Summit), and took a quick trip to view the stunning coastline as well.

I also feel compelled to include at least one good photo of me with my traveling companion (long time – but not old – friend Beth), since all the photos of me from Part 1 were less than complimentary.

And, I just had to share these two very creative ideas from fans on how I might protect from similar situations myself in the future (har har!).

Okay, now on to Part 2 of my adventures in the Northwest! Okay, I realize Vancouver B.C., isn’t exactly the Pacific Northwest, but hopefully you’ll forgive me this oversight and just go with it!

VANCOUVER: LOTS OF NATURE AND MORE CATS (of course!)

Yes we did our trip a bit backwards, Portland to Vancouver BC and then back to Seattle which will be my last installment in this series.

I’ll start off with the cat and cat people! We were lucky enough to hang out with Olivia and Francois, the couple behind Meowbox who featured me and I HAVE CAT on their blog The Scratch Post recently!

Me with Oliva (left) and Francois in the middle with Harvey and Zac (right)

The cats behind Meowbox are: Aja, a very chatty female bengal cat and the first born, and brothers Harvey and Zac. Harvey is bit shier than Zac (at least less a fan of my forced love) who is far more tolerant. I half joked I expected Zac to answer the door when we came over given how social he his.

The brothers are American ex-pats* from Philadelphia. Olivia saw a photo of Harvey and fell in love with the “catstached” kitten. Once in Philly she met his brother Zac and couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them behind. *As far as I’m aware they have not yet become naturalized Canadian citizens.

Left to right: Zac, Harvey and Aja

In addition to cats, Vancouver has  a lot to offer in the way of natural beauty and I’d be remiss not to share just a small sampling of what we saw on our trip. Sadly there just weren’t enough days to visit everyone or even explore the city of Vancouver itself as we spend most of our time on day trips:

Whistler (the drive there and back is the real highlight as the town is your typical ski town):

Vancouver Island (close to a two hour ferry ride away, of which we saw only a small portion):

Of course we had to start off by fueling up which we did at High Tea at the Fairmont Hotel in Victoria. And in case you were wondering yes, we did polish it off!

After we’d satiated ourselves we were off to the Butchart Gardens just outside of Victoria and easily a highlight of that part of the island.

The gardens, original a private resident are over a century old. We got there just as the leaves were turning and the dahlias were in full bloom. Hope you enjoy the photos!

The ferry ride back to Vancouver from the island.

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for Part 3 of my trip that will include two cats with whom I’m sure you’re very familiar!