Yup - it is that time of year again! The tulips and daffodils blossom and my parents come for their annual visit! Each year we explore more new things together, and this time was no different. We had a blast! They arrived in crappy weather, had an unbelievable weekend of blue skies, more crap for the week, and gray weather for their last weekend when we went to Vancouver Island and Sooke, B.C..
On their first full day in Washington (Friday the 20th) we took off for Skagit Valley and the tulips. The flowers were really in full force. The daffodils were on their way out (but still around) and tulips had just opened up to the world.
I love this photo of my parents! We had quite the gourmet dinner the first night. We made homemade pasta and hand-picked, homemade nettle pesto. Yum.
Look at the sky! Blue! It wasn't warm, but it didn't matter because it was sunny! We took a super short ferry ride over to Guemes Island (you can see the island from downtown Anacortes) and spent the day walking up Guemes Mountain (not really a mountain) and cooking a yummy dinner at Deception Pass State Park. The view from the top of Guemes Mountain was fantastic. I can't believe that Jay and I had not been up there before! We were treated to wide views of Mt. Baker and all the San Juan Islands. Nettle was up all along the trail, which also gave Jay and me a chance to harvest more yummy leaves for pesto.
Although it was quite chilly by the evening, we still headed to Deception Pass State Park for our dinner. The only problem we encountered was some stubborn charcoal that didn't want to light. We almost gave up - but Jay was super determined and we finally we able to grill up some chicken, veggie burgers, and asparagus. It was so tasty after the charcoal fight!
The next day we took a ferry over to Lopez Island and wandered out to Iceberg Point. From this spot we could see the Olympic Mountains and a nice view of Cattle Point over on San Juan Island. Before catching the ferry back to Anacortes we also managed to get some ice cream cones and pretend it was warm and summer-ish outside.
Jay and I had to work during the week, but my parents sure kept busy anyway! I spent a day doing some intertidal research down south near Olympia, so I dropped my parents off in Seattle for the day. They stuck closer to home the other working days, exploring Anacortes and La Conner.
On Friday, we all took the early morning ferry over to Vancouver Island to spend some time visiting the Canadians! The first thing we did was head straight to the Butchart Gardens to stare at all the flowers.
Julie and Mom with the fountains at Butchart Gardens. We froze our a**es off but it was gorgeous!
Walking through these gardens made me feel like I was in a Monet painting.
After leaving the Gardens, we headed south to Victoria. We spent a few hours wandering the cute little downtown area. My mom dragged us into the fancy "Empress Hotel" to check out their old tea room (it turned out to be quite neat). We also found out that back in the 80s the hotel parking garage became a hiding spot for one super-scared cougar that was obviously really lost. The hotel had a photo of all the 80s dudes carrying the doped-up cougar out of the parking garage so it could be relocated to a real forest! Whoa!
We left the city of Victoria for Sooke, B.C. (west by about an hour) and a little cottage I had reserved for us for two nights. While eating our tasty dinner of veggie lasagna and salad we were treated to a great view of a few river otters eating (crabs?) on the dock in front of our cottage. Pretty cool! In the morning we had more treats; harbor seals had hauled out on the docks for some morning sunning (funny, no sun was to be seen). Lucky for us, we had binoculars and were able to get great views of both mammals.
We drove northwest toward Port Renfrew to check out this famous area where tidepools meet temperate rainforest. It rained, just to be sure we knew we were in a rainforest....but it was a gorgeous misty rain that we didn't mind. On the drive there a little black bear crossed the road in front of us. Poor thing must have been scared, but it stopped once it was in the safety of the forest to take a good look at us. I love bears!
J &J in the intertidal
The forest here has some pretty interesting shaped trees because of the strong winds that blast the exposed coast. Here I am pretending to be a monkey. Jay tried to be a money too (see below) but he also tried to one-up me by hanging from his legs.....until he started slipping and falling off the tree (see my panicked face to the left of the photo). He came up from the slip laughing, so all was well. After this he went and hid in the bushes and tried to make cougar calls to scare us. Very cute.
Wipe out!
Dad in Port Renfrew
After we left Port Renfrew and headed back to Sooke, we stopped and walked out on Whiffen Spit. The sun started to come out and I am pretending to melt from the rays here. My mother is very tolerant of all my goofiness in photos. =)
More photos are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/April2012?noredirect=1
Nothing sucks more than family leaving after such a wonderful visit and our house seemed pretty darn empty for days. Jay's mom is arriving this Wednesday though and the house will seem full again. We miss my parents a ton but we are looking forward to her visit! Those stories will be next!
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