Haunted Victoria

There's a light over at the Frankenstein place...

Victoria has a reputation for being one of the most haunted places on earth. Maybe it's for that reason that it has been tapped by Hollywood as a filming location for horror movies over the years. Two popular filming locations are Craigdarroch Castle seen above, and Hatley Castle seen at the bottom of this post.

Craigdarroch Castle -- more of a large manor really -- is often used by local theatre groups to stage Halloween productions. It shows up prominently in The Boy, a horror/suspense movie filmed here in 2016. You can watch it right now on Netflix.

Some of the exterior shots for The Boy were filmed at nearby Hatley Castle. Hatley Castle has also stood in for the Mutant Academy in the X-Men and Deadpool movies, and Lex Luthor's manor in the TV series Smallville.  It was also a film location for The Changeling, another very creepy ghost story, back in the early 80s.

Victoria's Hatley Castle....

Fantastic Shapes and Where to Find Them

Organic textures carved out by the ocean's forces...

Along the shorelines of the Gulf Islands, you'll find strange strange shapes and textures that have been carved out by the relentless forces of waves and water.

It's a characteristic of the soft sandstone and shale that makes up the islands.

Sunrise at 48.8476° N

The sun's rays appear over Mayne Island...

Mayne Island BC off the east coast of Vancouver Island lies just south of the 49th parallel.

Movies under the stars

The old school advertisements for the concession stand...

During our road trip last summer, we made a special detour to visit the Starlight Drive-In in Enderby, BC.

I've spoken before of my fond memories of going to our local drive-in as a kid. Today, drive-ins have all but disappeared across North America so I wasn't going to let this opportunity pass.

We arrived early. It was raining so to keep the rain off our windshield and ruining the experience I improvised with a tarp and a couple of paddles.

You do what you gotta do...

Pipe Mountain Coaster

Thunderbirds are go!

The Pipe Mountain Coaster at Revelstoke, BC is described on their website as an "exhilarating ride...4 km of twists and turns across ski runs, between glades and through a tunnel while traveling up to 42km/hour."

We camped in the area during our summer 2018 road trip for the express purpose of trying it out.

We ended up doing it three times. The first time we went down, the goof in front of us kept his brakes on for the entire ride. He was completely oblivious to the backed up riders behind him who wanted to do it the way it should be done... fast!

The staff at the bottom acknowledged our frustration and disappointment and gave us a another free ride.

The Ledge in Lights

Christmas lights outline BC provincial legislature...

During the Christmas season the provincial legislature (a.k.a. The Ledge) lights up in green and red.

Meditative Mayne Island...

A moment of Zen on Mayne Island...

A scene from Mayne Island's Japanese Gardens...