May | 2019 | Lobsters on the Loose

A long-planned highlight of our spring was our visit to Beth and Jon’s family in Vancouver, BC. Planned in two parts, it exceeded our already high expectations. We had a wonderful time!

The first part of our visit was a weekend joint camping trip to Alice Lake Provincial Park. We arranged for two adjacent campsites so that we would all be together. An idea that we haven’t seen in US parks is to have a subset of campsites set up as pairs, and reservable only as a pair. It makes family camp outs much easier to arrange.

Our plan was that Kasper and Nyssa sleep with us in the RV, and Jon and Beth would be in their tent. They had primarily camped in the summer before; we all found out that late April was not quite the same. EVERYONE ended up sleeping in the camper, to stay warm!

What is a camp out without s-mores???!!!

If there is a log across a stream, well… Ya just gotta!

Sing it with us: “Anything you can do, I can do…”

After our stay at Alice Lake, we all went back to Vancouver; we stayed at the only campground actually in Vancouver proper, just north of the wonderful Stanley Park, and about 20 minutes from Beth and Jon’s apartment via Vancouver’s excellent public transportation system. (We were not about to try to drive our truck, Scarlett, in Vancouver!)

Note to selves: Do NOT put your transit card, loose, in the same pocket with your phone in a sticky Otter case. We each lost a card when we pulled our phone out.

In addition to a huge fleet of buses and an extensive light rail system, Vancouver has an inlet (“False Creek”) intruding into the heavily populated area, so it has a fleet of small (10 – 12 passengers) ferries.

One of the things that we missed living on the coast of Maine was a variety of cuisines, particularly Asian. Vancouver has plenty! We had Japanese (Sushi) (twice!), Afghani, and several others. Unfortunately, we ran out of nights before we could make a dent in the variety.

Sushi in the Pacific Northwest and Canadian southwest is hard to beat!

Kasper and Nyssa spent two more nights with us while in Vancouver. For those who don’t already know it, one of a grandparent’s most important duties is spoiling the grandkids. We take our duties seriously! What better way to do it than by having chocolate ice cream for breakfast!

We played a lot of board and card games during the week, including The Mind (you can’t talk), Pandemic, Hanabi (you’re the only one who can’t see your cards), Camel Up, Welcome to, King Domino, Go Fish, and Memory!

Among MANY others!

Memory with Grandma Lobster. What could be better?

Kasper and Grandpa also shared some good time together, working on K’s first book of logic puzzles, e.g., “Rita married Joe, but not on Wednesday. Carla was married on Sunday on the village green. Who did Tess marry?” The major learning from this was that Grandpa needs to (re-)start doing these as well! I loved these as a kid, but I’ve lost the knack. We also worked on ways to present data… How to graph seven different aspects of each of 12 chapters in Roald Dahl’s “Danny the Champion of the World.”

We visited Science World, a must-stop on each of our visits. Their current featured exhibit is a hall of mirrors… No, you can’t just walk straight ahead in the picture below!

And Kasper got to be part of the presentation team in a chemistry demonstration!

Shake, shake, shake! What is going to happen?

Vancouver also has many playgrounds scattered around the city…

The young sometimes need (want) help on the swings.

While others do just fine by themselves!

Do you remember your adventures on the monkey bars? I sure do! Mine weren’t this fancy…

Kasper had a birthday very near our visit, and Grandma had a VERY special birthday present ready for him. A handmade robot quilt!

One of the (many) highlights of our visit was being able to attend Beth’s concert. Celebrating the director’s twenty years with the choir, it was titled simply, “Donna’s Favorites.”

In a surprise ending, a sextet from the choir gave the premiere performance of a commission using Emily Dickinson’s poem, “It’s All I Have to Bring Today” as the text. Set to music by Donna’s favorite composer, Larry Nickel, it is dedicated to Donna Brown.

Our visit ended all too soon; it was time to head to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

But we’ll be back for Christmas! Yea!

I love to photograph flowers.

In a workshop we took with the amazing photographer/writer Colleen Miniuk, I learned that before I capture the image, I should title it. Yup. Before I even push the button.

That has stuck with me.

We camped recently in Mount Vernon, Washington. When we made our reservation, the campground owner made mention of the fact that since we’d be there “after the big crowds,” he had space for us.

Imagine our thrill when we learned upon checking in, that the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival was ongoing! The busiest time was the weekend just before we arrived but there were still fields and fields of tulips to enjoy (and far smaller crowds).

After we settled in, we grabbed our cameras and took off in the truck to take in tons of terrific tulips. It was totally astonishing!

Roozengaarde features a five acre display garden planted with over a half million bulbs, a 25 acre tulip field and 20 acre daffodil field. Tulip Town has another half million bulbs planted. The entire event goes on for the entire month of April (but sometimes the tulips are a bit early or late). The festival includes dozens and dozens of coordinated events in the region, everything from parades to fun runs, art shows to salmon barbecue dinners, and classes of all kinds.

We enjoyed a scrumptious salmon dinner sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club; it’s their biggest fundraiser of the year. It was a great way to meet and support the locals.

Back to the tulips. Here are a few of my favorites.

Roozengaarde was founded when William Roozen emigrated from Holland in 1947. The family began raising tulips in Holland in the mid-1700’s and has continued through at least six generations. It is now the largest tulip-bulb grower in the country and farms 2000 acres!