It's Been Asked

I've been asked a couple of things since we got back from our trip.

One reader remembered that in the first post about this trip, I mentioned that it's the first of three trips we'll be going on.  Those trips don't include Park Rapids, Winnipeg, and Thompson which we still hope to do this summer, but rather it refers to another trip to Chemainus and then a trip to New York City.  We'll be in Chemainus for twelve glorious days at Christmas and we'll be in NYC for eight days in January.  Yes, NYC can be wet, cold, stormy, etc, etc in January, but it is also CHEAP.

This photo is a clue to both those trips as it was taken at the buffet at the Chemainus Theatre and it has part of their NYC set from last Christmas's Elf.  Elizabeth will be in between shows so she'll come to New York too.  That means I'll have cool coffee/tea breaks there, something I don't have when it's just Bob and me.

 

Glenda asked me about the shows we saw as she said I didn't comment on them much.  We saw Young Frankenstein, Grease, 42nd Street and Shrek in Bigfork, Footloose in Chemainus, and both Rock of Ages and Pericles in Vancouver.  All had their pluses.  Young Frankenstein was so much more professionally done than the time we saw it before.  Grease was high energy and Shrek had amazing costumes.  42nd Street tops my list of those four as the singing, dancing, and everything else came together perfectly.

Chemainus helped move Footloose up my scale of favorite musicals as it used to be rock bottom.  It was good to see a professional company perform it.  Rock of Ages was fine but I felt the instruments were competing with the voice.  Pericles, the only non-musical of the seven, was my favorite.  Everything regarding set design and costuming was used so effectively.  We were lucky to hear a talk about Pericles before the show and we were lucky it was a talk-back night so we heard the actors answer thought-provoking questions about the production.

Are seven shows too many for one summer?  No way!  I see Cinderella is playing in Moose Jaw and there are still two Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan shows to see.

Flower Mania

With very little effort on my part, my yard looks very good this year.  Have a look at some of my flowers and know that my vegetable garden is equally good.

Haha.  My zucchini decided to sneak in here with its pretty blooms.

It took me a number of tries before I got purple echinacea to grow.  Now I have lots of it.

This is my second year for yellow and it looks like the white survived too although it hasn't bloomed yet.

Vanessa and I realize how pretty ferns look outside.  We can find them cheap at WalMart and we've learned they don't keep well in the house over winter.

Safely & Happily Home

It was a quick drive home from Medicine Hat and the first thing I had to do was check out the yard.  It looks incredible.  I was afraid I missed the lilies and the peas, but I didn't.  I have borscht cooking on the stove right now and it has eight different fresh garden vegetables in it. The only "old" vegetable is tomato from last year's garden.  Come and try some.

Tonight let me show you some of the beautiful flowers we saw on our trip and tomorrow I'll show you equally beautiful ones from my garden.

Relentless Bob

Today Bob relentlessly attacked the highways driving 1270 kms to get us from Vancouver to Medicine Hat.  It definitely helped that we dropped Elizabeth at the ferry before 6 a.m. as that gave us a really decent start.  So today included a sea view, mountain views, and prairie views.  We may be the only Weyburn people who can say that today.

We had time to stop at a fruit stand so I could buy peaches and apricots  Jocelyn, Marty, and Mark, bring your appetites on Saturday.

As we drove through the mountains under cloudy skies, we commented on how many of our days were cloudy, but how little rain we saw.  We had a little rain in Whitefish and some the day we drove to Spokane, but otherwise we were dry.

I don't have a photo of it, but the most beautiful sight we saw today was the moon rising over the prairie just before Medicine Hat.  The full moon came up as large and as orange as I've ever seen it; even harvest moons do not compare to the beauty of it tonight.

Let me tell you about our full day yesterday.

We spent the morning in Stanley Park.  It's amazing at how many spots where I was completely alone.  It's so quiet.

At other times I could pretend I was alone ...

...but I really wasn't.

Here's today's trivia for you:  when you watch a movie that has Central Park in it, there is a very good chance that those scenes were filmed in Stanley Park.  More trivia:  Stanley Park rates as number one in urban parks in the world while Central Park comes in at number three.

I spent some time at one of Stanley Park's rocky beaches and liked the drain areas.

There was some sea glass around, but it usually had one sharp side.  I guessing that's from it being flung against the sea wall at high tide.

From Stanley Park the three of us headed downtown.

We highly recommend "Fly Over Canada" if you are every in Vancouver.  Our half hour wait to get in went quickly as we visited with a couple from Melbourne who were seeing some of Vancouver before heading off on an Alaskan cruise.

In the evening we saw "Pericles" at Bard on the Beach.  It was our seventh live show in two weeks.

Vanessa, Ellen & Brian, note two of the vineyards that Bard on the Beach wines come from.  Had there been a Pegg one, Staveley would have had a trifecta.

We're about five hours from home and look forward to getting back.