The Dogs of San Francisco

I’m in Victoria, BC, this week, which is on Vancouver Island (which does not, in fact, contain Vancouver, BC or Vancouver, WA, despite what I thought for at least half my life). I’m staying at a rather opulent hotel, The Fairmont Empress, which is part of the same hotel group as The Fairmont in San Francisco (which I live a few blocks from, and which has been in the background of some of my pictures). Despite the fact that I’m staying in the ‘cheap’ rooms, it’s still dangerously comfortable. (And even for the cheap rooms, I got a great deal.)

Midwinter is hardly prime tourist season, but so far I have been blessed with two days so gorgeous that everyone was out and about. I went to two different coastal parks today and found their parking lots entirely full and a short line of cars waiting for a parking space to open up. I finally drove up to a rain-forest park that was only about a third full, and it was gorgeous. I’m here for another five days, and at least some of them are likely to be very pretty indeed.