Some travel days are about as frantic as any you can have at work. A couple of our days in Seattle and Vancouver were like that. Today was a slow and restful day.
Both of us went to the morning Eucharist at All Saints by the Sea, one of the three locations of the Anglican Parish of Salt Spring Island. It is a modern building, not particularly attractive from the street, but inside you can see that it salvaged elements of a much older building. John was taken by the old needlepoint kneelers and took a discreet picture of them (snapping photos during a service generally being frowned on). Again, there were few empty seats and people were quite friendly afterwards at coffee hour.
We went back home, picked up the dogs, and headed to the top of Mount Maxwell. This is not quite the tallest peak in the Gulf Islands, but it is reasonably accessible and offers stunning views eastward towards Vancouver Island. The fences tend to spoil the view, but it is a 500 foot sheer drop at that point, so I suppose some accommodations have to be made to safety.
We found some of the biggest foxgloves we had ever seen growing wild in the forest there.
We returned to the ultra-expensive Hastings House for their Sunday afternoon concert.
The picnic lunch provided was not quite up to the price they charged for it, but the food was fresh and nicely prepared. I suppose to the upside to the precious portions was that the calorie count wasn’t too high!
The music was provided by a group of aging local rock and rollers who called themselves “The Millionaires'”. They did competent covers of old R & B songs and a little classic rock. The lead singer joked that he did not quite know what to do when the patrons weren’t drunk and yelling at him! There were only a couple dozen of us on the lawn and while John and I were not the youngest, we were close to it. The weather was perfect and the setting, overlooking the yachts moored in Ganges Harbour, was better than perfect.
We came home, put the dogs in the car, and headed off the Burgoyne Bay Provincial Park. This park is directly adjacent to Mount Maxwell. In fact, if it weren’t for that fence, you’d almost fall straight from the top of Mount Maxwell into Burgoyne Bay! This part of the island is lightly settled, and some of the old counterculture has made it their home. We talked to an old kayaker who said he came there 20 years ago and has not left. He lived on a small ship moored in the bay. He decried the guy who salvaged an old lumber float and moved a trailer on to it.
There are old farm fields, now abandoned, as part of the park. Several streams feed into the bay and these are lush with sword ferns and other greenery. Both dogs and humans frolicked in the water.
