Sweet Spring Sunday

I awaken in the morning to birdsong outside my window. Drawing back the curtains, I see blue sky, with a hint of frost in the deep angles on the roofs of my neighbours. Clear, cold skies overnight signify a warmer day ahead.

After morning church, we head downtown. First, to buy a new waterproof jacket for me, then to Fisherman's Wharf for our first al fresco meal of the year - fish tacos eaten in the sunshine while watching sailboat masts sway at their slips. 

After lunch we walk along the Inner Harbour. A heron, framed by reflections from a kayak on a float house, slowly turns his head back and forth.

The new Johnson Street bridge is in place and in use. The old blue bridge is partially dismantled and the remainder will disappear in a few weeks. I am not fond of the new bridge, but perhaps it will grow on me.

We wander by the Legislature, and I admire the copper domes against the blue sky. The golden figure of Captain George Vancouver, a British naval officer who charted many of the waters around the islands in the late 18th century, tops the main dome. 

In the gardens around the government buildings, the blowsy tulips are almost finished, but still so pretty.

We walk back to our car under arches of ruffled pink petals. Hundreds of these trees grow downtown to be admired by locals and tourists alike. Home again, I am replete with sunshine. Such a beautiful day.

Thank you for your kind comments on my last post. Yes, blue days come and we get through them. I'm glad that I finished my latest batch of report cards, and spent some time with friends, and walked in the sunshine this weekend. 

Linking with Maggie of Normandy Life for Mosaic Monday. 

Road Trip #2: Elk Falls and Sayward

Vancouver Island is 460km (284 mi) long, and is about 32,000 square kilometres. (In comparison, Wales is about 21,000 square km.) Most of its 800,000 or so residents live in the southern half of the island. We've lived here for 16 years and have never traveled far "up Island" as the locals say. 

Before I was asked to go to Mexico with the school, Tim and I planned a little vacation up Island. After I returned from my trip, I spent one day doing laundry and catching up before we left again. I did not drive!

Our first stop was just before the town of Campbell River, to visit Elk Falls. Thundering water rushes and falls steeply, creating a mist that one could almost shower under. Elk Falls is also the site of a hydro-electric project providing electricity for the Island. I was amazed to see that the pipes carrying water from the lake above the falls to the hydro plant were made of wood! Long boards are banded every 6-8 inches with metal cords for 1.8 kilometres. Completed in 1947, the pipes are going to be replaced soon with an underground system.
  

There is a wonderful trail system along the Campbell River, including a suspension bridge for viewing Elk Falls and a dizzying platform that extends over the falls. Skunk cabbage is in bloom these days, brightly visible and unmistakably odorous, as well. 

A few salmon berry bushes showed early blooms and unfurling leaves.

Robins are everywhere these days. They run around in packs, landing to feed wherever they can before heading further north. 

As we followed the trail downwards, turbulent water quieted to calm. 

We spent one night in the town of Campbell River, and enjoyed a very good Greek meal at a local restaurant. The next day was rainy. We drove to Sayward and Kelsey Bay, two adjoining very small communities where logging and fishing are the main industries. 

Three of these little yellow tugboats pushed heavy logs and log booms around in the water, reminding me of dogs corralling sheep. They spun and twirled, danced and bobbed expertly.

A friend recommended the Cable House Cafe, a unique building wrapped in old logging cables. We stopped to take a closer look at the building, but the cafe was still closed for the season. 

There is so much abandoned equipment in the forests here - even in remote, boat access only, areas. On our boat travels, we often find the forest swallowing up tractors, cables, spare parts and more. It's probably more economical to leave stuff from a logging show there than to pack it out. I console myself with the fact that most of it is metal and wood and will eventually break down, unlike plastic. 

Our next stop was Port McNeill, where we stayed 3 nights in a lovely AirBnB overlooking the water. We watched ferries go back and forth (this one needs a clean-up) and admired the snowy mountain peaks of the mainland Coast range.

In my next post I'll tell you about two very different islands we visited, via the ferry seen above. 

Meanwhile, here's a bit of forsythia in the rain, from my garden today.

  
How is spring coming along in your corner? 

Victoria's Inner Harbour

Victoria's Inner Harbour is a winding, sheltered waterway with a long history, beginning with the First Peoples, Spanish and English explorers, Hudson Bay fur traders, gold rush participants and more recently, cruise ship passengers.

Recreational boaters find moorage within walking distance of the Empress Hotel (seen above), the BC Legislative buildings and a host of tourist attractions. On the walls of the Empress you can see the tracery of ivy vines, leafless now, but soon to be covered in green leaves. 
 

The harbour is not just a pretty place, but a working harbour, too. Float planes and ferries take turns coming and going. SALTS stands for Sail and Life Training Society. The society owns two beautiful tall ships, the Pacific Grace and the Pacific Swift, seen in the foreground of the first photo. The society exists to teach sailing and life skills to young people (1700 per year) from all walks of life.

The Pacific Grace is 115 feet long and has 38 berths. Compare that to the Bounty (of the famed Mutiny on the Bounty) with a length of almost 91 feet and a crew of 46. Tight quarters for a voyage that lasted a couple of years. Lots of opportunities for learning to get along with people. On the Bounty that didn't work out so well.
 

Not everyone wants to sail a tall ship, and these little water taxis are a great option. They have a route along the waterway with stops where passengers can get on and off to see the sights.
 

One of the most beautiful buildings is now the Bateman Centre. It features the art of wildlife artist Robert Bateman. There's also a restaurant in the building. It was originally built as a steamship terminal to service passengers arriving or departing on ships traveling between Victoria and Hong Kong. Such lovely architectural details.
 

When we walked along the water, hyacinths were just coming into bloom. Mass plantings filled the air with fragrance.

These blooms have a great view of the water.  Tourist season is beginning and it's fun to hear all kinds of languages as we walk along the Inner Harbour.

I'm always surprised by how many people mention that they have visited this small city on Vancouver Island. Have you? 

Linking to Sunlit Sunday, hosted by Karen. 

Playing Tourist and a Giveaway

On our weekend trip we stayed in the very tiny town of Washougal, WA. Right next door was the not-quite-as-tiny town of Camas. Such a pretty little place. Old brick buildings, huge trees arching over the street, Narnian-worthy lampposts and a fun little antique mall.
 

Doesn't that lamppost make you want to look for snow and Mr. Tumnus?
 

There wasn't a lot of time for touring around - just a few hours on Saturday morning. The major item on my list was Powell's Books. Oh. My. Three floors jam-packed with books: new books, old books, rare books, used books, children's books.  Be still, my beating heart. I could have spent hours in the store. As it was I came out with a lovely bag full of delight including...

Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow Calendar. I read a couple of her books years ago and have kept half an eye out for them ever since. They have been out of print for a long time and go for crazy prices online. And here they were - two copies of Stillmeadow Calendar. Why two copies? Well, for those of you who are fans of Taber's writing, I thought a giveaway would be fun. Her books are filled with the small things that make up life and this particular book takes the reader through the year with observations on nature and life in general. 

No hoops to jump through, just leave a comment and I'll draw a name sometime next week. 

Oh, and if you have a Google+ profile, I can't contact you, so please leave an email address in your comment or send me an email saying you'd like to enter the giveaway.
 

Is anyone else having a hard time adjusting to the time change? It just seems so dark all the time to me. Perhaps it has nothing to do with changing the clocks and everything to do with the grey weather. The above photo was taken at 4:22 pm this afternoon.

 

Doors and Windows

Donna, who hosts the monthly Personal Photo Challenge, suggested doors and windows as this month's theme. I took these photos at a national park, Fort Rodd Hill, with its gun batteries and lighthouse. The photo above is of a small equipment locker up on the hill beside the range-finder.

A view from the lighthouse over the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains of Washington State beyond. I was a little miffed to see the edge of the stroller (yellow) in the photo. Not very good composition.
 

Catches today are often prosaic and boring. I love the graceful lines of this window catch in the lighthouse.

This door and handle has patina from years of use and weathering. I believe it was taken at the munitions storage room.
 

Lastly, windows in the Lighthouse. I like the symmetry of the pair of matching windows and the contrast with the tiny arched window in the lighthouse itself.

The photos were taken with my Nikon Coolpix 7100 on the outdoor scene setting. It was a bright day and I compensated for that by going down a couple of notches on the exposure compensation dial. 

 

 

An Impromptu Picnic

It was one of those Sunday afternoons when it seemed like summer would linger forever, the golden sunshine pouring down on rocks, sand, and sea.
 

The blue of the ocean melded into the blue sky with only a thin line of blue mountains between. Sere grass golden against swirled cloud blue. A good day for a picnic with a view.
 

Wind-patterned water smooth, then dimpled with big boats, little boats and medium-sized boats going here and there, to and fro, barely visible in all the great blueness.
 

Fort Rodd Hill - a national park of Canada right here in our city. Summer day, summer day. Achingly beautiful summer day.

Note Card Party - Mountains

Make yourself a cup of tea, grab a cookie or two, pull up a chair and join us for Vee's Note Card Party! Here's where we display 4 photos previously shown on our blogs that we think would make great note card photos. 

"poems of geology" (Norman Maclean)

My regular blog readers will recognize these photos as I've shown them all in August. Above, Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies.

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things" (Henry Miller)

 I never tire of this photo. It's definitely going to be enlarged and hang somewhere in my home. Lake Louise in the morning mist.

"It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out, it's the grain of sand in your shoe" (Robert W. Service)

 This rather daunting-looking mountain has a trail up the other side, not visible in the photo. Its shape evokes its name - the Big Beehive, with Mirror lake at its base.

"I lift my eyes to the mountains; where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121

 Lastly, Lake Agnes with Mount Whyte (left) and Mount Niblock (partially hidden on the right) in the background. 

So there you have it. Mountains. Thanks, Vee, for hosting the Note Card Party once again.

Glacier Walk - Mosaic Monday

The Icefields Parkway is 242 kilometres (144 miles) of sheer beauty between Jasper and Lake Louise. You could travel it in 3 hours, but the guidebooks say to allow much more time for pulling over at viewpoints. When we traveled through here as college students, we never stopped, but just admired the scenery flashing by. Now, much older (and hopefully wiser), we pull over and stand in admiration at creation's majesty. 

On this latest trip, we splurged on a guided expedition to Athabasca Glacier, part of the vast Columbia Icefields. The glaciers are receding - we notice the difference from our youthful travels - whether by natural climate change or human cause and effect is something I'm not getting into here. 

Our excursion took us by coach bus from the Icefields Parkway Center to a parking lot above the treeline where we transferred to a SnoCoach - a large-wheeled bus (built in Calgary) especially designed for travel on the glaciers. There are 23 of these buses, 22 here and one in Antarctica. While it was fun to walk on the glacier, next time, we would take a guided walking tour so we can explore more.

The large, lower left photo shows the Ice Dome and the Dome Glacier. This the world's only triple continental divide, where water melting here flows to three oceans - the Pacific, the Arctic and the Atlantic (by way of Hudson Bay). 

Just one more mountain - Mt. Edith Cavell - here with her cap on as befits a nurse of her time, and one of the very few mountains named for a woman. I first read about Edith Cavell in Grade 3 or 4, in a book about nurses I received as a gift. A British nurse during the first World War, Miss Cavell helped soldiers of both sides. She aided over 200 British soldiers to escape and for this she was arrested for treason and shot by firing squad. She freely admitted to the court what she had done and said, "I cannot stop while there are lives to be saved."

Rather a long post for Mosaic Monday - guess I'm feeling wordy this morning. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Close Enough Encounter of the Furry Kind

During our recent trip to the Rockies, Tim and I took a walk one afternoon, not far from the cabins where we were staying. We walked and talked, enjoying the warm sun and relative lack of mosquitoes. As we rounded a corner on the trail, our eyes met the eyes of a large black bear munching away on berries about 100 feet away. He saw us at the same time we saw him. 

I turned to leave, but Tim grabbed my arm and said, "Don't run." I wasn't planning on running, exactly, just walking very fast. Instead, we stood there staring at the bear for a few seconds while he stared at us. Then we began backing away. The bear, curious, but not threatening, followed for a few steps, then presumably lost interest. 

It was a very short walk. And I didn't have my camera. I don't know if I would have had the presence of mind to actually use it if I had had it with me. Bears are animals deserving respect.  So many tourists approach bears, disregarding the signs not to do so. Bears might look cuddly, but they can move very quickly if threatened. I was glad Tim was with me - he has much more bear experience than I have.

I did snap the photo of the bear in the above photo, much smaller than the one we encountered. The little black bear was feeding on bushes beside the highway, so we stopped, along with at least 20 other cars, and took some photos. In all we saw four bears on our trip, one of them a grizzly. 

Linking to Mosaic Monday, hosted by Mary of the Little Red House.

Postcards from the Road: Wildflowers

One last post card from the road. We should be nearing our island home once again by the time this posts. Here's a collection of some of the wildflowers seen in the Canadian Rockies. 

Have a great weekend! 

Postcards from the Road: Glacial Plain

Let's start with a pretty one: an alpine meadow filled with wildflowers. So cheerful.

Today we hiked to the Plain of the Six Glaciers. The trail followed the shoreline of Lake Louise to the end where glacial waters enter. Then a steady climb upwards to a tea-house adjacent to the wildflower meadow pictured in the first photo.

We continued climbing until the path led along the glacial moraine, seen above. Was I a little bit nervous? Maybe, especially on the return trip downhill. The trail to the right drops off into the glacial plain - the glacier here is covered by stones and dirt which help protect it from melting, but also hide the crevasses that would be easy to fall into, should one survive the tumble downwards. Shiver. The lady pictured above, ahead of me on the trail, also shared her nervousness as we ate our lunch perched on a rocky slope. By rocky slope I mean a slope of rocks. Nothing growing at all. You can see Lake Louise off in the distance.

During our hike we heard several cracks from the glaciers and looked up once to see a fine drift of snow fall from way above onto the glacial plain. Awe-inspiring. It's a desolate land above the treeline, but with beauty born of sparsity, leaving one to admire the massive rock formations and power that shaped them. Lichens and a few scrubby bushes survive in the harsh conditions, but little else. 

The above photo, not a black and white, is of The Mitre, with its glacier at the bottom. On our descent the rain began, not heavy, but rather steady. The world turned to gray. This day's hike was longer than Tuesday's, but not quite as steep. We hiked 13 kilometres, or about 8 miles.

Postcards from the Road: Little Things

The grand vistas of jagged mountains and massive glaciers are only a part of the wonders of the Canadian Rockies. Looking down from time to time reveals delicate flowers growing in harsh conditions. Above is Fireweed, with snow-covered mountains in the background.
 

This plant, whose name I am going to have to research, grows on a moraine - the gravel piles left behind by receding glaciers. How anything grows on them is amazing. This plant carpets the ground beside Sunwapta Lake, formed by the retreat of the Athabasca Glacier.
 

Indian Paintbrush is a cheerful sight beside hiking trails and in alpine meadows.
 

This delicate columbine nods gently beside Lake Agnes, where we hiked yesterday. It was the only patch of them I've seen so far.
 

Here we send our greetings from a rock in the Bow River near Banff. A kind Australian tourist took the photo for us. Wish you were all here!