Victoria October 2008

Incredible scenery looking south towards the US Olympic peninsula. The weather was a bit cloudy when we arrived but cleared up quite nicely as we went along.
Kevin's self-timer worked!
Sooke on the far side of the water and the twisting trail on the spit
My son the amazing photographer - I took the same photo but it was not nearly as nice.

Here is the main gate leading onto the spit

Victoria 2008

This looked like an extremely comfortable piece of driftwood.
Looks can be deceiving!
This is a small area off to one side at the entrance to the park. These two stones are filled with beautiful wooden carvings that are now covered by plexiglass, probably to stop the weathering and erosion. The plaque on the stone cairn to the right in the photo states that the bust on the top was a gift from the Spanish to commemorate their voyage of charting the west coast in the 1790's and has a bust on top of one of the Spaniards. The beautiful coast along the spit
Just an interesting tree that has been shaped by the elements

Victoria

This video is my very amateur attempt to show the relationship between the Empress Hotel, the inner harbour and the legislature, now called the "leg" (pronounced ledge). I think this abbreviation is derived from the website which is www.leg.bc.ca I thought that people who have never been to Victoria might enjoy this, and certainly that might have happened if all of those tourists hadn't been "in my shot" as they say in movieland.

Trip to Victoria October 2008

This is the inner harbour at Victoria with the Empress Hotel across the water all decked out in red vines. Across from the inner harbour are the BC Parliament Buildings. This is the first time that I have actually set foot inside. I didn't take the guided tour as I was not willing to wait the three hours until the next one, but wandered around and looked at everything. My comment: I'm sure glad that this was built 100 years ago - imagine what it would cost today! Here is a slightly different view with the statue of Queen Victoria in front, cast from her younger, slimmer look.
And even further over is the local totem pole that shows this is truly west coast Canadian.

Harrop - Procter Fall Fair

Shirley and Robert invited us to go to the fair with them. We had the BEST corn on the cob that I have had in many years. In the top photo Emily is chosing a bag that she is sporting in the next photo. After we finished browsing all the booths and eating our lunch we went back to Kammerzell's house and had a lovely apple crisp. Another incredibly beautiful day in September in Nelson. The raspberries are just starting so I hope that the frost holds off for at least a couple of weeks.

Spawning Kokanee

I took this short video because I am amazed at how the fish just stay in one spot, in such a big "clump" while the water washes over them. Unfortunately the color of the fish doesn't show up, the bright red with the green heads. We were in too much shade at the time.

Middle of the bloody night - I'm going back to bed soon!

Here is a photo of Emily with the balanced rocks on the sandbar. We didn't even have to get our feet very wet! From the other side - the sun was so warm, the sky so blue, too bad there was still one mosquito who didn't know that summer is over!
Relaxing a bit This is the end of the sandbar, in the form of a question mark. You can just see the ripples in the very shallow water out at the end of the sandbar. My favorite subject Emily) helps with the perspective of size.