Author: douganddanaandaboat

“Next to the Brown Lantern, Rosario has the best food in the Islands,” offered Jeff, our friend from No Drama who cruised these grounds a few years ago. “Be sure to catch the organ concert at Rosario,” added his lovely wife Ann.  Frankly, given the circumstances, we found their recommendations a tad mean-spirited, although we allow for the possibility they weren’t aware that the resort’s new owners are deep in renovations so nothing is open.  No restaurant, no organ.  Grrrr.

Rich dude Robert Moran completed his palatial home in 1909, and filled it with stained glass, the huge pipe organ, and a fabulous collection of historical photographs, among other must-see things.  “The Red Lady”—yet another of the area’s ghosts—flits around the mansion, at least according to silly people who believe in such things.  We missed all of it.  Double grrrr.

But the grounds are pretty, so at least there’s that.

Here’s a white pine figurehead that once adorned the 1874 clipper ship America.  “It had many times in many ports been remarked upon as being one of the most artistic figureheads that ever graced the bow of a ship,” according to the plaque.  Given all those qualifiers that’d be a tough claim to prove or disprove, but it is pretty cool, and remarkably well-preserved.

At least the marina is cute enough.  Pleasantly empty, likely because everything else is closed.

Remember the Maeda Escarpment from Mel Gibson’s docu-drama Hacksaw Ridge, where the Army’s 77th Infantry climbed up the cliff with ropes and then were blown apart by the Japanese and then Seventh-Day Adventist superhero Desmond Doss lowered the wounded survivors to safety?  Straight vertical.  The path from Rosario to Cascade Lake is just as steep but much longer.  The trim one of us who hikes and runs wanted to do the circumference trail, however, so she lured the fat one of us off his recliner with the promise of Lopez Island ice cream at the snack stand up by the lake.   We left Sammy on the boat, tending to his carrot patch.

Once we got to the top without needing a medic, the miles around the lake were awesome.

Lopez Island ice cream is to the San Juans as Kawartha ice cream is to Ontario’s lake region.  Delicious, although the people who drove to Cascade Lake in their comfy cars probably enjoyed it even more.

Anyway, despite our lack of rappelling gear we somehow made it safely back down to Rosario, where Sammy had finished his gardening and was napping in his blanket pile.

Under brilliant skies and with one heart atwitter over the upcoming rematch with Florida State in the CWS, on Wednesday we headed off for Lopez Island.  Lopez Island surprisingly takes its name from Spanish explorer Gonzalo López de Haro and not former Fly Girl J.Lo, even though she’s undoubtedly much more famous.  Hopefully she and Ben Affleck can work things out.

For us, the first most important thing about Lopez Island was the terrifying entrance to Fisherman Bay.  Narrow shallow channel.  Concealed rocks.  Many stories of boats aground or dashed to pieces.  We were so worried that we didn’t take a single photo of the trip or the approach.  But we did get the drone up shortly after arriving.

The Vols won, punching their ticket to the championship series and sparing us a night of despair and ensuring that the sun indeed came up the next morning.

The walk into town took us past a bank of Pantone 151C colored flowers.  An omen, perhaps?

Lopez Villege is the main—meaning only—town on the island.  Very small, but with a surprising number of excellent restaurants.

If you don’t want to take the main road, there’s a more peaceful option.

Lopez Village has some pretty cool stuff.  Like an awesome farmer’s market, where we picked up very important items like mushrooms, pickles, strawberries, soap, and a Lopez Island Library hat to support the fundraiser.  We particularly appreciated the rule that vendors only can vend things grown or made on the island.

Now this is way cool.  The one of us who has seen every episode of Blown Away chatted up the glass guys in the hot shop.  Dana bought a glass starfish that we previously weren’t aware we needed.

No offense to Jeff, but we went to the Brown Lantern.  The Brown Lantern isn’t even close to the best place we’ve eaten up here.  Setsunai in Lopez Village, however, is right up near the top.  The only thing bad about dinner at that joint was the gluttonous mile waddle back home.

Lopez Island also is the home of—wait for it, wait for it—Lopez Island Ice Cream!

Know who else likes Lopez Island ice cream?

Up here daylight sticks around until after our bedtime, but we sometimes catch the fading glow just as it reaches the color of the daisies on The Hill in front of Ayers Hall.

Deep in the island interior, past Hummel Lake, freshly cut fields, and scenic farms, Barn Owl Bakery cranks out delicious fresh bread using only Lopez Island ingredients.  They don’t sell retail until the new batch leaves the ovens at precisely 3:30.  By 3:30, there was a line, but we still scored the loaf that we polished off with ease the following morning.

On our scooter ride out to Fisherman Bay Preserve we noticed that many islanders take pride in their mailboxes.  Here’s a little sample of the artistry.

Saturday was cruise-e-bikes-around-the-island day.  After the market, we found our way out to Shark Reef Sanctuary.

Waaaay out there on that San Juan Island point in the distance is Cattle Point Lighthouse, which we last saw one post ago when Dana was in her biker chick phase.

Center Church is impressive, not only because it’s the oldest one on the island, but also because—if the sign is any evidence—the good folks in St. Francis Parish hold no grudge over the whole Reformation thing.

Here’s something new.  A dog running a farm stand.

This morning, the tide table pressured us to leave relatively early so as to avoid getting stuck or sinking.  On our way out we passed by something else we’ve not seen before: a boat worth less than its fenders.

The tannish land off to the right here is Speiden Island.

In the seventies, the owner populated it with big game animals and birds and built a hunting lodge where he and his guests could stay before killing them.  The operation ended quickly, however, in part because bullets flew across the narrow channel to San Juan Island, which was populated by people.  Whatever animals weren’t killed supposedly have reproduced and flourished, although we didn’t see any.

For at least the second time—River Dunes being the other—we docked directly facing a chapel of some sort.

The chapel may become obsolete as soon as tomorrow, however, because if the Vols lose the College World Series championship to Texas A&M, it effectively will prove there is no God.

Here’s the trip from Rosario to Roche Harbor, where we’ll stay for a few days.

Freddy Mercury’s anthem couldn’t be more apt.  The mighty Volunteers vanquished the city boys pretending to be cowboys pretending to be soldiers and their cringy “yell leaders” to secure Tennessee’s first baseball National Championship.  Crazy awesome.  And all the people in the little chapel said “Amen.”

Now back to Roche Harbor.  This post is limited to Roche Harbor because tomorrow we’re crossing the border into the Great White North again, although oddly we’re heading south to do it.  Canada deserves its own posts.  Plus, Roche Harbor is cool enough to be singled out.

Remember the Pig War?  During those twelve years when the British and the Americans were waiting on opposite ends of San Juan Island for battle orders, the Limeys decided to build a great lime production operation at Roche Harbor to prevent scurvy and to facilitate their heavy margarita consumption.  What?  That’s a different kind of lime?  Well at least that explains the kilns.

Lime production here continued after the Americans took over and continued basically until 1956, by which time all the trees needed to fuel the furnaces were gone.  So Roche Harbor became a fabulous resort community instead.

The Hotel de Haro—built in 1886 by the dude who started the Tacoma and Roche Harbor Lime Company—is the resort centerpiece.  There’s a roche motel joke in there someplace but we’re too fond of this place to work it out.

The San Juan Islands Sculpture Park up by the airstrip “is home to over 150 unique creations by emerging and world-renowned sculptors.”  It indeed is pretty neat.

We’re guessing that the guy who made the piece on the left has had “beep, beep” running through his head ever since.

The park is soliciting names for the thing with the open jaws if anyone has a good idea.

This is “Soundhenge,” which would be a great place to insert the relevant reference to This is Spinal Tap if we hadn’t already used it on the sundial henge we found in Burlington, Vermont.

These are fake sheep.

These are not fake sheep.  These are hay bales we passed on what turned out to be a seven-mile loop out to English Camp, which was necessary because we zoomed past it on our previous adventure.

The English Camp visitor center isn’t quite as posh as the one at American Camp, but there still are structures and a formal garden to visit.  The British clearly took more pride in their compound than did the Yanks, who basically lived in squalor.

Exhausted though we were, somehow we made it back.

By the way, that chapel on the hill at Roche Harbor—dating to 1887—is dedicated to Our Lady of Good Voyage.  By biblical reckoning, Mary died some 2,000 years ago.  It’s hard to understand how she gets all these obligations placed on her now.  Who even knows?  Maybe she once had a near-death experience with some Florida jackass on a Viking Sportfish in an ICW no-wake zone and thereafter hated all things boats and boaters.  Also, isn’t Christopher the patron saint of traveling and travelers?  Does that double the protection of voyagers?  Or do they cancel each other out?  Very confusing.  But the chapel is cute enough, and will hold 80 wedding guests if rain drives the blessed event out of the garden.

Turns out Roche Harbor is quite the wedding machine.  Every day, another wedding.  Which means every day, another wedding reception band playing the same songs a hundred yards from Tumbleweed.  We have no idea why they all insist on the bastardized Chris Stapleton version of “Tennessee Whiskey” rather than the classic original David Allen Coe version later made famous by The Possum, but it’s abominable.  Anyway, one lucky couple made their escape in cute li’l June Bug.  We didn’t get to watch the departure so can’t verify where their prankster friends tied the tin cans.

“Hey, what’s that sound?  Everybody look what’s going down.”  Stephen Stills may have been talking about guns and war, but the delightful and familiar “pop, pop, pop” from shore sounded to us a lot like pickleball, so we dug out our shoes and paddles and wandered over.  Nice folks.  Big fun, but “Don’t hit it hard at Betty.  She doesn’t like it when you do that.”

Speaking of Burlington, Vermont, remember the fancy mausoleum where Chuck and Jann Perkins will rest when they finally pass on?  They’ve got nothing on Old Man John McMillin—the aforementioned rich dude who owned the lime company that made him rich—and the mausoleum where he and his family are interred.   Apparently the edifice is full of Masonic symbolism.  The columns, for example, supposedly duplicate those in King Solomon’s Temple.  Frankly we find this claim a bit sketchy because (1) there are no extant blueprints or as-builts from 1,000 BCE, and (2) nobody knows the precise length of a “cubit.”  Maybe he channeled the Widow’s Son.  It’s impressive either way, however, and either way the halibut and sole at McMillin’s Dining Room was delicious.

Every night at 9, the Roche Harbor staff “Retire the Colors” with great fanfare.  “O Canada” when lowering the Maple Leaf.  The recently-modified “God Save the King” when lowering the Union Jack.  “To the Colors” when Old Glory comes down, followed by “Taps” and congratulations to guests who just got married or divorced or are celebrating something else.  And a cannon blast that makes Sammy jump every time.  Stirring.

Yup, Roche Harbor is fantastic.  Very high up on the list of coolest places we’ve visited, by boat or otherwise.

No animated cruising map this post, because, well, we didn’t go anywhere.

Note:  Our friend Bill—an illogically-proud Kentuckian and long-time blog follower—advised us that Desmond Doss actually was a member of the 77th Infantry.  Bill should know, since his father was in the 96th.  We’ve made the appropriate correction to the last post.  The sheer verticality of our hike up to Cascade Lake, however, remains entirely factual.

Roche Harbor was fantastic, but we had a border to cross and a bunch of Tim Hortons to avoid.  So off to Canada.  We do love us some Canada.

Mosquito Pass is narrow and churny but Dana timed our departure perfectly, so all we got was a great view.

We previously commented on all the driftwood piled up on PNW shores.  This isn’t driftwood.  These are seals lazing about in their clever driftwood disguises.

No worries as we passed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.*

Most of the Pacific Ocean water filling Puget Sound comes through this passage.  If “Juan de Fuca” sounds Hispanic, by the way, that was the intent of one Apostolos Valerianos, a Greek sailor who found changing his name an easy way to avoid the racism of the day.  Apparently it was enough to fool the Spaniards, who commissioned his travels.  Opa!  There’s an historical debate about whether he actually discovered the strait that bears his fake name, but either way “Strait of Apostolos Valerianos” lacks the same je ne sais quoi.  We later honored de Fuca by enjoying the flaming cheese at Ithaka.  Opa!

The Trial Islands just outside Victoria Harbor are home to the picturesque and aptly named Trial Island Lighthouse.  The coolest thing about this little speck of land, however, is that its Ecological Reserve “protects the most outstanding known assemblage of rare and endangered plant species in British Columbia.”

The Customs dock was efficient enough, at least once the dude who pulled in after us but then leapt off his boat to cut ahead of us was finished.  Whatever.  Maybe someone on his boat needed an emergency appendectomy or something.

The harbor, er, harbour, is lined with a beautiful “Welcome to Victoria” sign made of flowers, but no matter how hard one tries there’s no ground-level angle from which it is clearly legible.  This was the best we could do.  The more interesting thing is that tree in the foreground.  A palm tree.  In British Columbia.  Bizarre.

Since Canadians still have a British monarch on their money and have a Governor General whose vague obligations somehow involve King Charles, it’s no surprise that Victoria, the city, is named for Victoria, Queen of the Brits.  Here’s her statue in front of the Parliament building, which is equally impressive at night from our back porch.

If Edward Oxford’s 1840 assassination attempt had been successful, of course, British Columbia’s capital might have been named “Ernest”—after the next in the line of succession—instead of Victoria.  “Ernest’s Secret” would be a horrible name for a lingerie company, however, so they probably would’ve come up with something better.  Also, that pointy silhouetted tree off to the left is the Provincial Christmas Tree that they decorate every year.  Here it is in real life.  Very big.

According to the mural below, (1) some folks preferred to name the fledging town after Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, and (2) Victoria was ugly and stern and in desperate need of a good eyebrow pluck.  If BC’s capital was Albert rather than Victoria, of course, its nickname wouldn’t be the “Garden City.”  It’d be “Fat City.”  Hey hey hey.

Need additional proof that Canadians—at least those outside of Quebec—are reluctant to give up their status as a British colony?  Winston Churchill laid the cornerstone for an addition to Christ Church Cathedral in 1929 and they still brag about it.

If that’s not enough anglophilia, Here’s the Queen Elizabeth. 

Want even more evidence?

Okay, okay.  After that punny one we’ll give it a rest.  How about a jumbled hodgepodge of random Victoria sights instead?

Another town, another market.  We judged it to be kind of lame as we approached, but boy were we wrong.  All handmade stuff.  Which meant we wound up with a bunch of it.  Fancy butter, chocolate, smoked salmon, cheese, cookies, gin, flowers, and fresh veggies.  Dana rescued and then ate the tomato with the, um, nose.  Yeah, we’re going with nose.  Not the other thing.

Oh, and an emotional support pickle/Christmas tree ornament.

Back when Doug was chafing at the Customs dock, Dana noticed some cute float homes like the one Tom Hanks lived in one of the several times he ended up with Meg Ryan.  We later hiked over for a closer look.

They indeed are cute and people indeed do live in them, but basically they’re a facade, the backside of which teems with all manner of people patronizing what seems like a low rent county fair.  Hotdogs on a stick and funnel cakes anyone?  We didn’t stick around.

Remember the pelicans in Pensacola and the sailboats in Orillia?  Victoria does whales.

And totem poles.  There are lots of totem poles.  We’ve chosen to include only the 127-foot one that claims to be the world’s tallest, although from here it mostly looks like a tree trunk that sort of survived a fire.  There are taller poles in the world, of course, but they’re made from more than one tree or they’re made by non-indigenous craftsmen, so apparently don’t count.

Red Fish Blue Fish is maybe the best use of a shipping container we’ve seen.  Delicious, although the long wrap-around line is decidedly off-putting.

A fact unknown to us until we arrived:  Victoria has the second oldest Chinatown in North America.  We walked over to the Mexican place in Chinatown but the menu wasn’t great.  True story.

Here’s a peacock crossing the road.  We don’t know why.  Probably thinks he’s a chicken.

For those of us who appreciate sophomoric humor, this place needs no additional commentary.**

Just off our bow sat the Victoria Harbour Airport.  We actually had a patrol boat scold us away from the runway.  Some 800 seaplane flights per week zoom in and out of here, making it one of the busiest airports in Canada by landings.

The coolest thing about Victoria—and maybe the coolest thing we’ve ever witnessed from our boat—is the “World Famous Water Ballet,” performed by five water taxis.  Synchronized to classical music blaring from the shore.  Just fantastic.  We got to watch it twice.

What wasn’t the coolest thing about Victoria was the Canada Day evening fizzle.  The day part of Canada Day was hopping.  Food trucks galore, concerts, and tens of thousands of happy Canadians filling every street and restaurant.  But we were waiting for nightfall, when the amazing drone show and fireworks spectacular were to commence.  Meh.  First up, no drone show.  Based on a sample size of two, we deduce that when Canada promises drones there’s a zero percent chance of drones.  The fireworks were fine, but about half as grand as Montreal’s Fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste extravaganza.  We did have primo seating on the bow right next to the throng crowding Ship Point, however, so that was nice.

If anyone wonders just how close we were to that throng, by the way, here’s the evidence.

All in all, we give Victoria 4.9 American stars, which is about 8 Canadian stars.  The drone show fail cost them a perfect score.

Next up, Maple Bay.  Lots of gorgeous scenery along the way.  No throng.

This little thing is Burial Islet, “islet” being a baby island.  It’s also a park.  We’ve no idea why.

Not a lot happening in Maple Bay, although our waitress in Victoria said Maple Bay is where her dad keeps his sailboat.

At least the only pub was open.

Remember those canoe flower gardens at the Trent-Severn locks?  Maple Bay did them one better.

These folks also figured out how to dispose of old diesel motors: put some logs around them and call them sculptures.  Clever, eh?

The route from Maple Bay to Nanaimo brought more scenic beauty.

It also required traversing Dodd Narrows, a slot through which tidal current rushes at up to nine knots.  In either direction.  Hit it at the wrong time and you end up in a YouTube video taken by the folks who come out hoping for drama or worse.  That’s not a joke.  Google it.  Thanks to more of Dana’s careful calculations, however, we passed through without incident.

The lumber ship suggested that Nanaimo might be a town of lumberjacks, who sleep all night, work all day, and put on women’s clothes.***

Nanaimo indeed seems more industrial than other BC places we’ve stopped, and we only stayed for eighteen hours.  It’s likely, however, that there are some interesting things we missed.

Okay, just one more British thing.  This Nanaimo building’s claim to fame is that Queen Victoria’s son Arthur—that’d be Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught to us peasants—hung out here.  He later became one of those inexplicable Governor Generals.

In a couple of weeks Nanaimo will host its annual bathtub race, with associated bathtub-related festivities.  Now that’s something we’d love to attend.  We needed to get to Vancouver today, however, so we couldn’t stick around.

On the way out Nanaimo we passed Entrance Island and what looks like a lighthouse but really is a cute little weather station.

Then thirty miles across the Strait of Georgia, which separates Vancouver the Island from Vancouver the City.

Incidentally, the Strait of Georgia should not be confused with the State of Georgia.  In the former you’re surrounded by gorgeous mountains and pristine wooded shoreline and killer whales that so far have eluded us.  The latter is full of worthless dirtballs like Wayne Williams and Kirby Smart and cesspools like Athens.****

We’ve just tied up in Vancouver, where we await the first of our family and friend visitors of the summer.  Liz and Eddie will be here in a couple of hours.  Woooo!

——————

* Canadian charts call it Juan de Fuca Strait.  Canada also disputes the offshore international border at the strait, but the methodology they use to do so screws their argument about the more important disputed border in the Gulf of Maine, so basically they just keep quiet.

** To quote the TikTok generation, IYKYK.

*** Perhaps the most startling thing about the lumber ship is that we’re well into summer and only now have worked in the season’s first Monty Python reference.

**** The Strait of Georgia also should not be confused with George Strait, who used to be the King of Modern Country Music but somehow both he and we have become old school.  As a reminder, George Jones always will be the King of Country Music, which by definition makes Tammy Wynette—not Loretta Lynn or Dolly Parton—the Queen.

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front.  Vancouver is a damn fine city.  We didn’t see all of it, of course, but what we did encounter was pretty cool.  And amazingly, Vancouver doesn’t ban drones.  Tumbleweed is right down there on the left at Pelican Bay Marina on Granville Island.

Vancouver takes its name from English naval officer George Vancouver, who explored the area while seeking new lands to replace those lost just a few years earlier when plucky revolutionary Americans threw off the shackles of British imperialism back east.  The city probably was easy to spot, what with all the buildings and pretty lights.

Vancouver is known for its beaches, which seems funny.  In fact, beaches in Canada always seem funny.  It’s been bloody hot for the past few days, however, so we’re glad people without air conditioning have a place to go.  Even the full-body-tattooed woman.

Liz and Eddie arrived from Austin—Liz being Dana’s sister—to help us check out the area.  Starting with Granville Island.  Granville Island is one of those silly places like Coronado that people call islands but really are peninsulas.  This is proven by the fact that the bridge is over land, not water.

Awesome little place, is Granville Island.

Dating to 1917, Ocean Concrete is the oldest business on Granville.  Ocean Concrete is noteworthy, of course, only because the company famously paints its silos and trucks.

The Granville Public Market also is famous, and fabulous, and we patronized its vendors several times yet failed to take a single photo until we passed by on our way out.

Vancouver may be the most bicycle-friendly place we’ve been, although our bicycle ride around town would’ve been much more pleasant without all the bicyclists clogging our route.

Along the way we stopped to photo-document a few of the things we normally don’t encounter.  Like BC Place.  BC Place is home to the BC Lions, which is significant primarily because CFL Hall-of-Famer/VFL Legend Condredge Holloway finished his decorated career as a Lion.

The trip around Stanley Park took us past the Girl in a Wetsuit, who “represents Vancouver’s dependence on the sea.”  She’s probably more picturesque at high tide but we didn’t go back.

This is “storied Siwash Rock.”  The story is that the rock was sacred to the Squamish people who inhabited the area before Captain Vancouver and the British Navy stopped by.  During the First World War Canada placed artillery on the overlook in case Kaiser Wilhelm came calling.  The original fir atop the rock lived for perhaps hundreds of years before succumbing to the drought of 1965.  Despite long odds a sapling took root a few years later, which is kind of cool.

Now these are real totem poles, which as previously noted means crafted by indigenous people out of a single tree, preferably red cedar.  They serve as tribal “coats of arms,” celebrating significant milestones in each tribe’s history.

Back on Granville Island we found a dude working on a new one, using ancient tools and techniques handed down from generation to generation.

Sunday we’d intended to take Liz and Eddie on a day trip over to Snug Cove.  Big plans for lunch and a nice hike through the forest.  Except when we arrived there wasn’t space to dock, so we just went around Bowen Island instead.  Brilliant day for a nice five-hour cruise.  Flybridge weather.

Like most of Canada Vancouver is quite clean, so seeing an abandoned sailboat in a park is a bit jarring.  If this was Maple Bay they’d surround it with logs and call it art.  Seems to us someone should remove it, but whatever floats their boat.

Here’s one of those “find the hidden object” games.  Can you spot seven dogs and a sailboat using a sunken boat as a mooring ball?

Despite the traffic clogging up False Creek we made it back to Pelican Bay, which was a good thing because we wanted to visit the Vancouver Aquarium.

The aquarium at Stanley Park isn’t huge, but it’s pretty well put together.  Lots of jellyfish and frogs and fish and other stuff.

As always, fun times with Liz and Eddie.  But they have things to do and blazing heat to enjoy so on Tuesday they headed back to Texas.

And we headed over to Gibsons.

Gibsons originally was called Gibsons Landing because George Gibson and his son George Gibson landed here in 1886.

When viewed in the context of the aforementioned George Vancouver, the logical conclusion is that Canada required all explorers in these parts to be named George.  Most importantly, they put us in a spot without shore power but then let us move, so we had air conditioning after all.

Gibsons is famous as the setting of the second-longest running  Canadian television program.  As self-absorbed Americans we’d never heard of The Beachcombers—and frankly weren’t aware that Canada produced anything of TV significance other than Schitt’s Creek and Great White North—but apparently it ran from 1972 through 1990.  Molly’s Reach was an integral part of the show and supposedly is the most photographed building in British Columbia that isn’t the Victoria Parliament Building.  Fans of the show flock to Gibsons from around the world.  We ran into a wistful Canadian taking pictures of Molly’s on our way to a delicious dinner at Lunitas.  When our Winnipeg friends arrive next week we’ll get their thoughts on it all, but for now the place needs a new owner.

Lunitas.  Yum.

One of The Beachcombers main characters captained Persephone, a now-iconic steel-hulled tug he used to locate and collect stray logs floating around Howe Sound.  They retired the boat when the show ended, which may be why on the way here Dana kept yelling “Look out for the log!” so as to divert Doug’s attention from his iPad game long enough to avoid hitting them.  Persephone now is a national treasure, laid up for refurbishment before permanent relocation to a place of honor just down the street from Molly’s.  So we couldn’t get a photo.

What we could do, however, is hike up the 21% grade to Persephone Brewing Company.  At least some of the miles were flat and shaded and green.

Persephone’s is an amazing place, because it has a downstairs brewery where Doug could buy a pint and a t-shirt and an upstairs non-profit bookstore where Dana could buy the book Liz recommended.  Win-win, baby.

This morning we’re headed back to Snug Cove.  Yes, we have a reservation.

——————

* We know.  This is a pseudo-recycled theme from another bunch of Georges.  But it fits here and the blog is free, so get over it.

Several significant events occurred in 1889:  Van Gogh painted The Starry Night, France completed the Eiffel Tower, the WSJ published its first issue, Confederate President Jeff Davis died, and Adolph Hitler emerged from the loins of hell.  Also, the Union Steamship Company started hauling goods and passengers up and down British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast between Vancouver and Pender Island.  The nine hour round trip cost $1.50.  Canadian.

The point is, we spent two nights at Union Steamship Company Marina in Snug Cove on Bowen Island.  As far as we can tell the marina has zero connection to the Union Steamship Company—which went out of business in 1959—or any of the other events referenced above, but still.

Before arriving in Snug Cove, of course, we had to get past the dangerous logs and the awesome scenery, all of which we succeeded in doing.

Very cool little town, and very cool little marina, except for the ferry wake at 10:30 pm that kept Sammy from sleeping which in turn kept us from sleeping.

Remember the cool stuff we’d intended to do with Liz and Eddie?  Turns out we were right.  Very cool stuff.  Like the hike up past Tumbleweed to the lookout spot.

Right now, this lagoon looks sleepy and calm.  Come October, however, it teems with salmon heading up the creek with a little help from the fish ladders we didn’t walk up to see.

The Bowen Island Whale Trail supposedly offers opportunities to see dolphins and otters and seals and sea lions AND THREE KINDS OF WHALES.  We rented a golf cart to take us out there, schlepping the camera and big lens so we could get photos of amazing ocean wildlife.  Meh.  Here’s a photo of the place where we got no photos of amazing ocean wildlife because there wasn’t any.

We did score some Riley’s cider from the family cidery, however, which boasts of “almost 1000 different apple varieties making it one of the largest apple collections in a North America.”

We were dubious, so looked it up.  Depending on what source you use, there are either around 30,000 or 7,500 apple varieties worldwide.  To us, at least, this made Riley’s claim plausible.  All we know for sure is that the cider is delicious.

Then back to Vancouver to await Trevor and Brenda.  This time we found a spot at Quayside Marina, which is farther from the Granville Island Market but closer to BC Place.

Turns out we pulled in on game day.  We could tell it was a big CFL game because an hour before kickoff tens of fans in BC Lions hats or shirts were walking around in a completely flaccid state of excitement.  As we can’t stress enough, we love Canada and Canadians.  In many ways, Canada and Canadians are better than America and Americans.  Football, however, is not a summer sport.  Playing football in July is like making your national dish out of mushy french fries and gravy; both are unacceptable and together make it difficult to take Canada seriously.  But BC beat the Roughriders from Saskatchewan so all those handfuls of fans left happy.

A few more Vancouver tidbits we failed to mention last post.  We might not have heard of The Beachcombers before, but we’re well aware that the Second Narrows Bridge collapsed on the eighteenth day of June back in nineteen fifty plus eight, killing eighteen workers who were shaken off like a hound dog shakes off flies.  Even our daughters know this, the same way we all know that Big Bad John just drifted into town and stayed all alone.  RIP Jimmy Dean.  Here’s the best photo we could get of the bridge—now called the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge at Second Narrows—as it exists today.

Lots of famous people are from Vancouver.   Ryan Reynolds, whose VanCity twitter moniker now makes sense.  Michael J. Fox.  Steve Nash.  Pamela Anderson.  Scotty from Star Trek.  And of course Robert Pickton—the notorious serial-killing farmer who used his victims as pig feed and died in prison just a few weeks ago—called Vancouver home, although the city probably wishes he hadn’t.

Anyway, although Vancouver is nice enough, we figured we should rent a car and drive around more of British Columbia while waiting for our next set of guests.  So off we went to Whistler.  We could’ve stopped for photos a zillion times along the Sea to Sky Highway, but managed to limit ourselves.

Whistler’s Olympic ski mountain reminds us of Mont Ripley on the Keweenaw Peninsula.*

Last summer, our friend Mike Gordon was one of about 300 crazies to do the 29029 Everest Challenge in Whistler.  You hike up 4,000 feet to the top, take the gondola down, then hike back up, and do all that over and over until you’ve gained 29,029 feet of elevation.  In thirty-six hours.  Mike either will live to be a hundred or will die young.  We probably would’ve gone up once or twice ourselves, but Sammy gets tired after thirty minutes on level ground, so instead we walked around town and ate Thai noodles and then went back to the hotel at night like normal people.**

We’ll definitely get back to Whistler, but we needed to keep moving.  More great scenery on the way around through Kamloops and down to Kelowna.  Lots of lakes and mountains.

Most of the trip we spent whizzing along at the American equivalent of 110 kilometers per hour, so we had only a short time in Kelowna.  The highlight was seeing our snowbird pickleball friend Sharon, who snuck us into a fabulous dinner at the Kelowna Yacht Club.

Trevor and Brenda arrive from Winnipeg tomorrow.  There’s a possibility not all of us will survive.

——————

* Just kidding.

** Disappointingly, we did not get to see Whistler’s Mother.