July 16 // Victoria, BC and the road trip to Astoria, Oregon

Our morning got off to an early start — checking out at 8 am and looking for a place to eat before our morning whale watching session with Five Star Whales and then the four to five hour drive to Astoria.

We had breakfast at this very cool little cafe called Sandwich Corner Cafe located just a few blocks from the port. The food was alright, but the mocha that I had was remarkable and made to perfection — a great start to the morning.

Afterwards, we walked around a bit to kill some time and eventually made our way to Five Star Whales and headed out with our group. I knew it was probably ambitious to think that it’d be this great whale-watching experience, but I think that it was anything but. Sitting near the boat captain, I knew that we were in for a long trip when all of the area boats were radio’ing into each other with no sightings at a number of the given locations. What I didn’t realize is that it would be an hour and forty minutes before we would see anything — and only gave us ten minutes to view the whales before we had to make our way back.

Ten minutes of whale watching. That was it, and they weren’t all that close either. It basically amounted to $10.00/minute of mediocre whale watching with an enthusiastic guide (excited that we even saw them, I guess), and a long, cold boat ride. If I could re-name their business, it’d be Two Star Whales… one star for the fact that they finally got us to see the whales, and the other, well, they were nice?

There was a point where they had to decide if it would be alright to go ten minutes long just to see the whales, and decided to do it for us. If we wouldn’t have seen anything, I would have wanted my money back — even if they don’t guarantee the sightings.

We saw a few orcas, grabbed a quick lunch at a cool Asian place called The Noodle Box, got back late to our ferry — which was also late — and didn’t make it back into Port Angeles until after 5pm, over a half hour late. On our way back, we drove through the northern end of the Olympic Mountains — a highly-scenic drive — and stopped for what was perhaps the WORST meal I have had my entire life.

Thinking that we were in for a cute meal, we stopped at a hole in the wall in the middle of nowhere, called The Hungry Bear Cafe. After dinner there, we know why the bears are hungry — there’s no way they’d eat there if they valued their life. I ordered their fried clams and it was the ABSOLUTE WORST combination of food that I’ve ever had. Between the powdered mashed potatoes, powdered gravy, fishy-tasting vegetables, excessively chewy clams, and a flimsy, slimy sorry excuse for batter, and the bagged salad, there was just no way that I could stomach the crap that was set before me.

After having seen several episodes of Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares”, I’d be afraid to take a peek in their kitchen and where they keep their food. The food was clearly not fresh, especially the clams, which tasted decidedly frozen and weeks old.

I’m sorry, but when you’re just an hour’s drive away from the Pacific Ocean, there is absolutely NO excuse for crappy seafood. None whatsoever. And it didn’t stop at mine either. Natalie had a nasty burger and her fries looked limp and wrinkly.

About the only thing that was any good was the bottled Alaskan Amber Ale that I had.

After an hour of enduring that terrible meal — and surrendering $35.00 for said meal — we made our way towards Astoria and eventually arrived about 11:30 at night, the first real night driving that I’ve had to do besides our time in South Dakota.

Tomorrow… the Pacific Ocean!!

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