To Grandmother’s Homestead We Go

We went to visit my Mother-In-Law & Step-Father-In-Law on their 13 acre homestead in Sonoma County, CA in June of this year. It’s a really special place – there are large Redwood trees in the wooded parts of their land and there is also a big creek running through the property. In the middle of it all is their passive solar hand-built house and several large growing areas for their various veggie gardens, vineyard and greenhouse for my MIL’s lavender growing business. The views are beautiful and you can see large vineyards for miles around.

My MIL spins her own wool on her spinning wheel, has a loom to weave it on and showed my son, Leif how to card the fibers and then to spin it on the wheel. He thought this was great fun.

We did many special things while we were there and since my son likes art projects, I thought it would be interesting for him when we took hikes around the property to collect cool looking items we found in nature to build some fairy houses on the banks of the creek. He loved that idea since we have read a few books about this. I think by the end of our trip, he built 5 fairy houses and we took many pictures of them all.

My husband and I took a day off to be by ourselves to celebrate his birthday and go to some wineries for wine tasting and to see some sights around Sonoma County. One place we went to is an exact reproduction of a 12^th century castle just outside of Calistoga called Castello di Amorosa. It was awesome! Such amazing detail work with actual artifacts from salvaged castles – including the stones of the castle – were shipped over from Europe to build it.

Since our son was hanging out with his Grandma and Papa all day on the homestead, they had some fun projects lined up for him, too. My Mother-In-Law knew in advance that we were taking a day to ourselves so she gathered items from local thrift stores to build a “scarecrow boy” the size of Leif. He LOVED this! When it was done, they staked it right in the middle of a new garden bed.

He did a special building project with his Papa, too. My son requested to build and paint “a sculpture.” So my FIL gathered some scrap wood from his workshop and found some paints and Leif said he wanted to build a tree. The two of them laid out the design and then my FIL nailed it together and Leif very carefully painted it green and brown. He decided before we left to give it to his Grandma to hang in her greenhouse “so she could remember him!”

Later that day, they had to gather up some firewood to stack outside their house and my son had a great time helping to load up the pick up truck from the various wood piles in the woods and then help unloading and stacking the split logs by the house.  They would have gone swimming in the creek but it was a little too cool to do that so they built another fairy house instead.  He had a great day alone with his grandparents and we had fun drinking wine, going out to dinner and seeing the sights alone, too.

Café Gratitude opened a restaurant in their town a few months earlier and I was ecstatic to be able to finally go in person! I had purchased their cookbook last year and I think they craft some of the greatest raw food recipes. We ate there 3 different times! Michael and I went to dinner there after our day out alone and saw local musicians play while eating. Such a perfect ending to a perfect day!

On my husband’s actual birthday, we helped my MIL work in her booth at the local farmer’s market. She sells lavender plants of all different sizes and varieties. She cultivates 38 varieties now and is always testing out new kinds to see how well they will do in her area before she will grow and sell them. There is even a white lavender variety named “Melissa” that she grows & sells.  And out of all the herbs I work with, lavender happens to be my favorite. I even had some sprigs of it in my wedding bouquet.

We had a family birthday dinner that night back at the homestead with relatives that live in their area. We drank lots of great wine and I learned so much more about the art of crafting wine this trip since my FIL has been making his own wine for decades. Michael’s Step-Brother-In-Law gave him a bottle of his own homegrown, locally pressed extra virgin olive oil. It is SO GOOD!! I wish we could grow our own olive tree orchard where we live! We learned more about this process, too.

We visited Bodega Bay and played by the ocean (which is always cold and breezy), went to Armstrong Woods State Park which is an amazing place to hike around the giant Sequoias (can you see me in the tree photo below?).  We also visited “Train Town” in Sonoma which was so fun for Leif.

It’s so nice to spend quality time with family and get a fun vacation out of it, too!

Reconnecting With My Roots

I just returned home from a much needed week long break we took to see my friends and family in NY for a friend’s wedding.  It was awesome. There truly is nothing like hanging out with old friends and in NY, I have many that I keep in touch with.  As much as I love living in CO, it always makes me so sad to leave everyone at the end of my trip.  Each day I woke up and I didn’t care about what was going on in the world and instead I saw many different people and we just laughed so much, ate great ethnic (vegan) food, played with all of the kids (my son just loved that) and just got to hang out and be me. My son got to see and understand more about his mama on this trip now that he’s a bit older and he got to play with so many cousins and friend’s children and spent quality time with my aunt who babysat him while we were at the wedding.

One of my friends who was the maid of honor gave a beautiful toast and at one point said, look around the room, see how many people (the bride) is still close with for more than 25 years.  (I have been friends with the bride for 28 years already).  She said this is because of the kind of character she has and the quality person that she is.  I agree.  The old, enduring relationships are with the kind of people that are there for you, know all about you and how you have evolved as a person over time and love you regardless of it all. This is such a rare and beautiful thing because as it is with any relationship, it takes some work and effort to maintain.

Our last day there we drove into NYC and took my son to see the new dinosaur exhibit at the natural history museum, went to Central Park then met my uncle for dinner at a restaurant I’ve been dying to go to – Pure Food and Wine.  It is a gourmet raw vegan restaurant and the food was amazing – we all liked it and I have new ideas of things to try to re-create here at home.  The highlight of the whole meal had to be the dessert – 3 different raw vegan ice creams.  Oh.My.God. They do have a $2,000 ice cream machine in the kitchen which makes it come out like gelato. One was an ice cream cone with chocolate ice cream dipped in a hardened shell of raw chocolate, the other was a pistachio ice cream sandwich dipped in the same raw chocolate shell and the third one we tried was a chai tea ice cream pop covered in the raw chocolate shell.  All so good and the ice cream sandwich tasted like marzipan which is one of my favorite desserts so I had to ask what the ingredients were and the waiter told me that it was really the Italian almond flour in the cookie part that gave it that flavor.  I am so trying this at home soon! My son, Mr. Picky ate a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dinner. I figured at least it’s all healthy ingredients since he wouldn’t eat anything else on the menu.  He loved it and loved the other ice creams for dessert, too. Now I need to get a good ice cream maker since I only have the REI roll it on the floor kind of ice cream maker you use for camping. Not the same.

The other great thing for me about being in NY is that it’s a very liberal state and that makes me feel right at home.  CO is a “purple” state so there is more opportunity to encounter others with a much more conservative viewpoint on every single issue out there – even ones like my current congresswoman voted for that hinder support for low income children in my own town which makes me so sad for them and disgusted by her (she’s done many other actions I don’t like, either).  Good thing she’s up for re-election and hopefully she won’t be back to do more damage.

On our plane ride home, there was a current issue of Rolling Stone Magazine left behind so I was psyched to read it since I don’t normally read that mag and of course, there is a big political article in it (many, many details) about “The Real John McCain.”  I’ve read a lot about both candidates over the past few months and just like I pick my friends, I want to choose my candidate on the content of their character and their integrity.  This article goes into detail with facts from his biography, interviews he’s given to the press over the years as well as interviews the journalist did with his fellow POW’s and other military personnel – even info about the Reagan’s viewpoint on his actions which was surprising to me.  I highly recommend you check out this article as it’s the best one I’ve read about him, bar none: http://www.rollingstone.com

I really hope we can rebuild our country and focus again on the people of this country and taking care of us all so we can become a strong nation again.  We are looking and acting pretty wounded right now out in the world especially because of what’s happened to our economy.  We who live here are lucky to live here, it is a great nation and I am fully aware of that from having lived abroad in other countries.

I am hoping we all will elect the president that understands that and wants to help rebuild us as strong people first.  I want my son to have opportunities for good health care and education that won’t cost us an arm and a leg to provide it for him and better laws to get rid of putting special interest groups first over what is safe for him (and us) to ingest and breathe in. If we had that, we wouldn’t have to go look up in the Skin Deep website about products we use on our bodies to see if the unregulated chemicals in the products we buy are safe for us or not or have a need for the Safe Toys Act or the noxious toxins that are allowed to be put into our air and dumped into our water supply, or injected into our food supply – even through the factory farm animals most people eat everyday, etc.  We need an overhaul of so many systems to help us become a strong and healthy nation and the tides are finally turning where enough people are aware of and care about these issues now.

As Suze Orman always says, “People first, then money, then things.” I really hope we get the opportunity to finally put all Americans first instead of continuously catering to the greed of the corporations and the wealthiest 1% of Americans.   If we don’t focus on the people, I think we will see lots more devastation and death with increasing global warming catastrophies doing a number on this planet as well as a bankrupt financial system and extreme amounts of homelessness and poverty all over America and the world, too since we’d be in the midst of a global depression.  Yeah, happy thoughts, I know.  I hope all of my American readers will take all of this into consideration when choosing who to vote for.  There really is only one logical choice who will put the people first and if you don’t believe me, be sure to read the above article.

Ok, I’m stepping off my soapbox now : )

My Twilight Zone

We went to a wedding for an old friend this past holiday weekend which was in Omaha, NE. We live in CO so we had to basically drive through the entire flat section of CO as well as the entire state of NE.

Now I know I live a semi-sheltered existence in my county of many aware people who keep up on things, are concerned for the environment, what they eat, getting out and exercising and even spiritual enlightenment for some. I guess I’m just not comfortable witnessing the devastation of the earth by large, corporate mono-crop farmers (most likely all using evil Monsanto seed and products). It was tough for me to drive through all of that and see hardly any trees, just mono crops and then feedlots of cattle who were crammed inside the fences and we saw very few areas in the state of free grazing cattle. I kept thinking, we slaughtered the Native Americans to do this? I just felt so bad for the earth and the animals. There was so much sad energy emanating all over the place there. My husband felt the same.

We finally get to Omaha and it’s more of the same except with small clusters of new housing communities and strip malls and office bldgs. It felt to me like everyone was walking around asleep, completely unaware and just towing the line and believing all the b.s. fed to them. I did hear that there was a Whole Foods somewhere in the city so that gave me some hope for some conscious people but then I heard there are a bunch of transplants living there for big corporate jobs like our friend moved there for.

The wedding itself was on this very nice horse property and there was a pond with ducks, geese and bullfrogs, big trees to climb and of course, lots of horses. All the little kids there had a blast just from engaging with nature. Leif loved the bullfrogs in the pond.

There was a woman there with 2 kids. She was our friend’s next door neighbor. Her son was the same age as our son and they kept running off and were constantly standing at the edge of the pond. She was with her 1 year old daughter by the pond and told us she’d watch Leif while we went in the lodge bldg. for food. A few minutes later, her daughter falls into the pond so she scoops her up and leaves the 2 boys who were all the way on the other side of the pond alone, says nothing to them or us. Michael and I were watching them all anyway because she seemed odd, like she was heavily medicated or something (but I later found out that she was not, many people there acted like this). I take off my heels and run all the way around the pond so as not to have my very clutzy child fall in the water and drown before I get there.

Needless to say, I was a little annoyed that this mother would just walk away and when she saw me running, she was like “oh, my daughter fell in the pond, I have to dry her off!” Man, I just felt like shaking her to wake up and pay attention and wound up taking turns with Michael watching both boys all afternoon until she left.

I was surprised about the food at the wedding. We thought it would be something amazing because this friend is very gourmet – loves to cook and loves coming back to CO and meeting up with groups of people at different ethnic restaurants because he says the food sucks in NE – all steakhouses! Clearly, it was his wife’s choosing of the caterers.

There was not one thing there that I could eat – not even a carrot stick or lettuce leaf or piece of fruit it was all barbeque! I wound up eating a little of the coleslaw because I was starving and the only veggies were coleslaw or egg potato salad. Mr. Picky was not happy with any of the food choices and ate the pretzels that were out on the table and that was it until I went and got some of his snacks in the car.

Personally, I think from all the massive chemicals used on crops, all the crap in the meat from the factory farming practices (and their large consumption of meat) and the polluted water, air, etc it’s no wonder people acted the way they did. I felt like an alien in that state. Just watching that woman feed her (wet) one year old, the kid had food stains all over her (and I mean bad) and she was wearing a white dress. I wanted to give her a napkin to put on the little girl but I didn’t. I tried to talk to her but it was like she wasn’t there, even when talking about her kids – always a safe topic with strangers. Thank God for the wedding people that flew in from the coasts and the fellow Coloradans.

Many of these people were from my husband’s old job many years ago and they all remembered us as the couple who lived in the yurt. Some of them asked me so many questions about living off the grid in a yurt in the mountains. It was fun to reminisce since we sold it 5 years ago now (for work reasons). One guy that worked with my husband that I never met before told me that we so inspired him and he had pictures up all over of yurts and solar power and did lots of research on it and wanted to live in one and then he had to move for a job to OR and his girlfriend (now wife) was not into living an alternative lifestyle. He really was into talking all about it which was so fun for me because we really loved living like that for 3 years plus all the years we spent beforehand planning it all. One day again we will buy land and build an alternative home and compound. (I will post all about living the off the grid life in a yurt soon).

I mean no disrespect to anyone from NE that may read this. I was only pointing out the vast differences in consciousness and lifestyle that we noticed. I really got a good look at “You are what you eat” firsthand once again and it just reaffirmed to me personally how happy I am living on live, organic foods and how lucky I am to be aware of that fact and have that choice.

Leif kept asking in the car ride home, “Are we in Colorado yet?”. And we would tell him “No, still in Nebraska” and he’d say, “I want to be in Colorado”. Even the 4 year old felt it. All 3 of us were just so happy to return home to our slice of reality which is just oh so nice we are not leaving the state all summer!

Special Santa Fe

We went on a little vacation to one of our favorite places in the world, Santa Fe, NM. This is a place we still consider moving to and a place that I thought I was originally going to move to when I relocated from NYC. I got “sidetracked” in Colorado and 14 years later, I’m still here.

Whenever we go there, we try to do some new things that we haven’t done before and to also visit with some friends and family that live in northern New Mexico. It is very, very similar in lifestyle and consciousness and attitude (mostly) to where we live now (which I do love where we live). There is just an “extra something special” there with the architecture and art and the energy of the land itself for me. This city has also been there for the past 400 years. I’m drawn to it and recharged by it every time I can spend at least a few days there and we were there a week and it still felt like it was not enough time.

We stayed in a 1 bedroom condo for the week and traveling with a young child, this is the BEST way to travel and have little stress. Since my son is a major picky eater, eating in restaurants is really no fun for us with him so we did take out at night a lot and he got to eat his favorite foods right in the condo and be his loud little self and pretty happy. The wireless for the rooms was down and only accessible in the lobby bldg. so we were internet free for the week. I think I had a harder time with it initially than my software engineer husband did. I tried one night early on to check email in that bldg. with our laptop but it was noisy and annoying and not worth it. We both really enjoyed the relaxing evenings of getting to spend some real quality time together and I think it was great that we couldn’t use the computer in our condo!

This was my very first trip as a raw vegan and I was worried that I would not have much to eat so I prepared different foods before we left and brought it with us which worked out great for me since we had a kitchen. I knew I would go crazy on the guacamole and pico de gallo found everywhere so I made raw corn chips and crackers for that but funny enough, I now prefer to dip into those yummy foods using veggies instead of my chips or crackers. I did eat some green chile (which is cooked but I love it) on my salads and other foods and can now tolerate more heat and spice than ever before since going raw.

I made this new recipe of raw granola I found and my (omnivore) husband loved it and said it was the best granola he’s eaten – and that is saying a lot! I also made raw nori rolls, sun garden burgers with raw ketchup, and a raw bread. I brought my “magic bullet” chopper/blender in case I wanted to make some smoothies. I was pretty well stocked for the week and only needed to get fresh veggies and fruit. I saved a lot of money doing this and didn’t feel deprived at all (I love all of these recipes) and wound up bringing a lot back home, too.

I found the one restaurant in town that served raw entrees and desserts which is inside this cool place called “Body” that is a natural home store, yoga/pilates workout studio that also offers healing services (yes, it was huge). My kind of place! I had a raw pizza and salad to go and it was excellent and now I am on a quest to figure out how to re-make their recipe this week.

So, I managed to stay totally raw for at least 98% of my trip and looking at my husband eating the traditional NM food smothered in cheese didn’t even tempt me – which is very weird for me bec. I love the food there and had the vacation mindset going on. I even lost weight from all the walking and hiking we did. Woo hoo! And, I had lots of energy – even at night. I am loving living raw!!

We took a tour one afternoon of a new community being built that has everything we like – photovoltaic and passive solar design, wind power, reclaimed water for landscaping, geo-thermal, eco-friendly building materials and insulation from top to bottom, beautiful architecture, lots of open space and trails surrounding it, community garden plots, commercial sized greenhouses going in for food sold to the community at a discount first, farmer’s market second, lots of fruit trees planted on the property for the community, parks and playgrounds, only environmentally friendly landscape maintenance used, etc. Basically our dream community. We just need work to support us down there and we are not moving in a bad real estate market for at least a few years. Good thing they will have a few phases being built so we have time to re-consider in the future.

The one new hike we did was at a place called Tent Rocks. It is just south of Santa Fe and a totally awesome place. These other-worldly looking rock formations formed millions of years ago from a volcanic eruption and it’s a soft sand and gravel type of rock pillar with the top part being a harder granite rock which kept it in place all this time. It has very narrow channels to walk through as you ascend to the top which my 4 year old loved doing as well as climbing on all the rocks (although for the other half of hiking he wanted to be in the backpack). It even had a cave that the two of them climbed up into and my son thought it was the coolest thing and wanted to sleep in it. I guess spelunking will be something we can do with him when he is older. He even pointed out a few formations that he thought were spaceships so even a 4 year old thought it looked alien like.

We took a train ride one day on the Santa Fe Southern Railway in an old 1920’s passenger car out to a train depot in a town called Lamy, had lunch and then rode the train back to the Santa Fe station. My son loved it since he loves trains so much. There was an outside platform to stand on, too which was fun.

There is so much more but this is a little recap of some of the fun and interesting things we did. I’m so glad that even though I don’t get to live there right now, we are only a (several hours long) car ride away from such a special place.

Please Help Save the Buffaloes!

I find it completely ridiculous the way our government allows such cruel and inhumane practices to go on in regards to our animals in this country. I can get into a whole litany of outrage over this but right now, I’m just going to speak about the wild Buffaloes of Yellowstone National Park.

If these animals venture outside of the park boundaries (following thousands of years old migration routes looking for food in winter), they are rounded up and shot or sent to slaughterhouses. More than a thousand of these last remaining free bison have been killed this way already.

Not only that, but in May when the newborns arrive, they will be killed, too. Newborns.

Why you ask? Well, it’s to protect the 12 to 16 cows that live just outside the park boundaries from a theoretical risk of disease – brucellosis – that has never been transmitted from bison to cattle in a natural setting.

So let’s see, 1,000 plus bison killed to protect a little more than a dozen freaking cows. Hmmm. Such logic and wisdom used in that decision. Besides, if the ranchers are fearful of the disease, there is always a vaccination they can give the cows – who most likely have already received it.

These buffalo are the last free roaming herd in all of America. “The National Park Service should be their guardian, not their executioner.” (quote from NRDC).

Does this mean one day in the future when we go to Yellowstone to see the last vestiges of the wild west of America there will be no more buffalo nor wolves since they are being hunted down the same way even though they are on the endangered species list??!! Really, what the hell is wrong with people? We need to stop this now!

Please take a minute to sign your name to the protest the NRDC is doing to try and put a stop to this cruel, barbaric, pointless and just plain stupid act of slaughtering thousands of the last free roaming bison we have.

By the way, the plains Native American nations consider the bison to represent Abundance since they gave their lives to help sustain the people with food and warmth from their hides. It’s ironic that these killings of the last free roaming bison are happening now when our economy is in the sh!tter and the feeling of abundance is lacking more and more in our country.

*photo from the NRDC

The Big Trip – long post!

Well, we are back from our 2 week journey to the Pacific NW and Vancouver Island, BC. I just want to say that I love Canada and esp. love this island. I’ll get to that later.

Our trip started with us getting up at 4:30 am on Wed. 8/22 and getting to the airport for a flight to Seattle. We picked up our rental car and immediately took off for an almost 3 hour drive to Portland to Michael’s aunt’s house where we were meeting his mom and step-dad from CA there, too. We got there mid-afternoon after dropping off our stuff at the hotel first. We had a bbq and hung out with them all and his aunt / uncle have 2 little girls ages 7&4 that Leif went off with immediately. It’s so cute how little girls just love to take over with kids younger than them. Leif loved it.

The next day, Thurs., we all went to see Michael’s grandma who is in a nursing home near his aunt’s house. She is mostly senile now but such a sweet lady and was very happy to have so many visitors and seemed to (or acted like she did) remember Michael. After a couple of hours with Grandma, we all drove over to hike by this beautiful waterfall called Multnomah Falls. It’s right next to the Columbia River and in a mountainous area. It was a sunny day so you could really see the beauty all around you. We next went to a fish hatchery that was nearby and saw these sturgeon fish that their biggest one is called Herman the Sturgeon was so enormous. They have a pond set up where you can walk down steps and look thru a wall of glass to see the fish swimming and Herman goes right up to the glass. They are basically dinasour fish, have been on the planet unchanged for millions of years. They also have fish food dispensers  for a quarter you can throw the food into the various ponds all over the place. Leif loved it.

There were the fish ladders there, too and you can see that from the outside and also from the inside of another bldg / museum type of place. It was interesting to learn about the salmon and their journey back to this area to spawn and die (or get eaten in the process of getting back). It seems so hard to have to swim against the current and the ladders were just that, graduated steps up along the diverted waterway and they swim thru doorways since most large rivers are diverted for use, etc. This is to ensure the salmon get back to where they are from. There is also a narrow channel at the top of the ladders so that the fish have to go single file thru a narrow opening so they can be counted. Very smart system they designed. We also saw huge Osprey birds diving in the river to get the fish.

The next day, Fri, we hung out with them again, went to a local playground after lunch and then left for the drive back up to Tacoma, WA where Michael’s dad and step-mom live and where his step-mom’s family was having a party there that night – everyone flew in for his step-sister’s wedding that weekend. It was late afternoon and a very clear day and we got to see Mt. St. Helens in the distance which was cool for me since I’ve never seen it in person before and since the tops of these volcanoes are usually covered in clouds most of the year. You could even see the part that’s missing from when it erupted a while ago.

On Saturday, there was a big out of towner’s party for all of the bride and groom’s friends / family at a beautiful ranch owned by the bride’s uncle, a judge who married them the next day. His ranch is in a town in the mtns. not far from Mt. Rainier. Very beautiful there. The clouds were coming in and it blocked the mtn. view but it was right there. Lots of kids and their dads went swimming, too.  After the party, we all went back to my in-laws and the relatives and all the little kids, too for dinner and Leif just had so much fun playing with all the little kids (mostly girls).

Sunday was the wedding in Seattle. It was on a retired ferry that has been converted into a catering place and is docked on Lake Washington. It was a nice day with some clouds so the temp. didn’t get too hot out which was great. A beautiful ceremony, a beautiful bride who wore a red dress like her grandma did during the war – it was her best dress she said her g’ma said. I thought that was awesome she did that. After that, back to the in-laws with all the kids again and more partying. Fun, exhausting, 5 days of family and traveling had by all.

Mon. a.m. we set off for our vacation week to Vancouver Island!! We drove up to Port Angeles, WA (almost 3 hours north) to take the ferry over with our rental car to the city of Victoria, the capital of British Columbia on the southern tip of VI. We never went over to mainland Canada, we just stayed on the big island the whole week.  While waiting for the ferry to come in, we saw some otters swimming  under the docks looking for food. They are just so cute!

Once we did all that and got to check in at the hotel and drop our stuff off, we went and walked around the harbour area of town. Needless to say, Leif was exhausted from all the excitement and traveling of the past 5 days so he passed out in the stroller and Michael and I had a nice time checking out shops and all the old English architecture like the Parliament bldg and some old hotels. Very British except on the front lawn of the Parliament bldg were sev’l amazing totem poles. I thought that was funny to see the huge contrast betw. the 2 cultures.

The other beautiful thing I noticed was all of the amazing hanging flower baskets all over the place. Just gorgeous, really. I have total, 100% basket envy. I have 4 hanging baskets in front of my house and although they do pretty good for the hot, dry CO sun, they are no VI baskets! (I was just happy to see them still alive and blooming when we got home – gotta love drip line on a timer!). The weather in general all over the Pacific NW / VI was really nice and cool – anywhere betw. the low 60’s to mid 70’s. A nice break from the heat in CO.

The “Inner Harbour” as it is called in Victoria is where all the action is. It is a really nice area with great views all around. We got some take out and sat by the water eating it as Leif slept in his stroller. He woke up and wanted to keep moving so we found out where a supermarket was located and walked over to stock up for the trip – all the places we stayed at were like little condos with kitchens. Makes life so much easier with a little kid. I just could not believe the prices! Even in Canadian dollars (a little cheaper than our dollars) food was like NY city priced (at least double CO prices – even organics). We went back to the hotel and made Leif some dinner and then we all passed out from exhaustion!

This island has a big city (Victoria) plus some smaller cities and many little towns, mountains with ski resorts, lakes, rivers and the “Wild Pacific Coast ” as it is called. We just stopped in Victoria for one night to get a break from too much traveling in one day.

We headed out early on Tues. a.m. for our 5 hour trek to the “Wild Pacific Coast”. We drove thru many little towns and up over the mtns. to get to the coast. Stunningly beautiful is all I can say of the island. The plant life, the enormous trees, the diverse animal life the lakes, oceans, streams, mtns, I could just live there and feed off the good energy of the island. Of course, I can’t tolerate a grey, wet winter for too long so we don’t live in the pacific nw bec. of that reason. We are content to visit it in the nice weather months. But, wow. I see how all that water makes everything so incredibly lush and beautiful. Plus the weather is temperate so it never gets too hot or colder than freezing (’cept the mountains get good snowfall so I think up there it does).

On the west coast of the island, we stayed for 4 nights at a resort right on the beach outside of the little town of Tofino. There were lots of surfers on our beach in thick wetsuits since the water feels like ice cubes (40-50 degrees year round). Even in winter – a.k.a. “storm season” there are lots of surfers out so they have told me. There were a bunch of surf schools there, too. We had a great view of the ocean and surfers and rainforest surrounding us from our condo. The area of the island we stayed in is a large UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. UNESCO = United Nations Educational Scientific & Cultural Organization.  There are alot of “First Nations” people living on VI (native americans but this is what they are called in Canada and Canadians are also known as “North Americans”).

When we got there, it was mid-afternoon and we unloaded the car and then went and walked on the beach! They have their own little rainforest boardwalk trail that leads onto the beach so my first venture in the temperate coastal rainforest was great and the tide was going out so we got to go and look at the tide pools by the rocks. We saw tons of purple and orange star fish, green anemone, lots of barnacles and mussels stuck to the rocks and assorted rocks and shells. (I didn’t find a sand dollar but did find one in a store a few days later! Very unique things, I had to have one). We drove into town to check it out and it was so beautiful – just off the land were these mini islands all over the place covered in big trees and there were mountains in the background of that.  We went down to this crab dock and Michael got 3 big dungeoness crabs for us to cook for dinner. Yum.  We even had a bunch leftover for the next night.  The place has crab pots and the nut crackers for all the guests to use. We sat on our balcony overlooking the ocean and the sunset was happening.  Nice.  It got pretty cool once the sun went down so we went back inside for the rest of dinner.
The next day we headed right to the rainforest trails after breakfast. These trails are part of what’s called the Pacific Rim National Park. We hiked in the temperate coastal rainforest with the 1,000 yr. old trees and all the plant life and wow again, it is so stunning to be in the presence of such rare, gorgeous nature. Such very still, calm energy in that forest like nothing I’ve experienced before. They have boardwalks for you to walk on bec. it is so muddy and lush with plants they don’t want you to disturb. Walking with a 3 yr. old checking everything out, we go pretty slow. I totally didn’t mind bec. I wanted to hang out with the old growth trees as much as I could. I even did a short meditation with them and got to speak to some wise Devas of that forest. I love to do that – connect with the spirits of the land of places of such raw beauty. We heard a raven basically speaking – carrying on a conversation in raven language. And it went on for a while. I know they can make many, many sounds but I have never heard them make more than 3 different ones, really. We don’t know who he was talking to bec. we didn’t see another raven there. That was so cool for me to hear that. Such interesting birds. Even when we lived in the forest here in CO, there were 2 ravens that lived nearby and I never heard them have a convo like what we heard in this forest. After hiking all day, we decided to head into town to hang out and book a whale watching trip for the next day. Then we went home and had more crab for dinner!

The next day was Thursday and we hung out on the beach in the a.m. and saw a porpoise and her baby feeding right in the bay by our resort where all the surfers were – that was neat – then we were off to see the whales!  This is very special to me, last year we went whale watching off the Oregon coast and did spot one but this year, we hung out by a grey whale and a humpback both feeding in different spots. They go down and come up in a few minutes to breathe and then go back down.  My damn camera was too slow (or the batteries were losing charge or something) for me to capture the perfect whale’s tale shot every time but we luckily got the whole thing on our video camera.  I basically complained about this camera sev’l times when I used it  since Michael’s Uncle Bob had the digital camera I really wanted with no wait time betw. shots, super fast, super zoom but super expensive.  My dear husband got me a great new camera for my bday – not the one I really wanted but it does have all the fancy stuff for much better shots and I’ve used it 2 days now and it’s awesome.  Totally happy with that. Ok, back to the whales.  We saw sev’l bald eagles sitting in the trees as we were slowly cruising out betw. all the little islands to get to the open ocean. We also saw a bunch of otters swimming around, lying on their backs eating stuff.  And we saw a lot of sea lions – 2 different kinds: Stellars which are huge and California -hanging out on this giant rock in the middle of the ocean, too.  We were on the boat for 3.5 hours and were supposed to be on it for just 2.5 hours but the guy hung out longer to see the humpback.  On our way back, Leif kept lying down, holding his head and then he puked – all over Michael and himself.  Poor guy, he got sea sick.  Luckily  they gave us stuff right away to clean it up and I also had wipes handy in my backpack for emergencies.  We went down to a lower deck out of the sun and I reiki’d him for quite a while and then he bounced back even before we pulled into the marina.  Totally fine again.  I love Reiki.

We went back to the condo and went down to the beach to see the tide pools again and we got to catch the sunset from “sunset point” which is a cliff area betw. 2 bays where we were staying.  Gorgeous sunset and we got it on film.  We went upstairs to the condo and made some dinner and passed out from a long day.

On Friday, we were going to go to Meares Island off the coast of Tofino where there were more rainforest trails and a 1,300 yr. old cedar I wanted to see but since Leif got sea sick the day before and we would have to take a water taxi over there, we decided to do something else on land.  We drove over to the other little town at the other end of this peninsula we were on to a town called Ucluelet and there is a trail there called the Wild Pacific Trail, also a part of the biosphere and the national park.  We just did one small section of a trail that takes days to hike from start to finish.  Needless to say, another beautiful rainforest with such interesting trees that take a direct hit from the strong winds and winter storms that come in off the ocean so lots of these trees are all twisty and different looking.  We brought the Ergo backpack since it’s packable and I’m glad he can still fit in it (although it says it goes to 65#) bec. every hike at some point he’s done and wants to be carried and then usually falls asleep on Michael’s back.  I don’t wear him anymore with my back issues but I carry the daypack.  We went down to a black sand beach and looked at all the hermit crabs and shells and colored rocks for a while. One of Leif’s favorite things to do is to throw rocks into water (ocean, river, reservoir, doesn’t matter) so we did that for a while then  walked all the way back up to the trail and continued on thru the beautiful rainforest.  Once we were done, we drove over to a First Nations cultural center called the Wickanninish Cultural Center and they had a small museum right on the beach of the Pacific Ocean with nothing but water in front of them.  It was kind of cold standing right there on the beach and this was August still!  There was also the biggest collection I have ever seen of huge driftwood logs piled up on the beach from the ocean bringing it in.  There was this plaque showing where we were and the next land out from us was basically Japan or Hawaii.  The Pacific Ocean is just so immense and you can really feel that from where we were standing. We went over to another deck and saw a humpback poking his head up feeding just offshore from this place.  That was great – free whale watching from land!  Inside was all about the different First Nations tribes of the island and whales and how their tribes used to hunt the whale for food, etc and they had a huge skeleton set up of a grey whale and other native artifiacts all made from whales or the cedar tree, etc.  Very interesting.  After all of that, it was time for dinner and we went out in town and got local fish and chips and then some locally made ice cream.  There is a flavor in Canada they say has been around for a long time and I have never, ever even heard of it.  It’s called Tiger and it’s orange ice cream and black licorice ice cream.  Some company in the U.S. should make it – it’s awesome.

We had to leave beautiful Tofino on Sat. right after b’fast to head back to Victoria for a couple of nights.  I could not get a room for longer than we had, it’s that popular.  We got a good feel for the wildness of this land and the amazing beauty.  There is lots of wildlife on the island, too – black bears, wolves, cougars, elk, eagles, ospreys, hawks, etc.  Plus all the marine wildlife.  I love that. As we were driving onto the highway, we saw a young black bear eating berries off a bush and we tried to get a pix but he ran back into the forest.  He was very cute, though.

We decided to take our time getting to Victoria and made a few stops in little towns and one last big old growth forest on the other side of the mtns. called “Cathedral Grove”.  It has alot of thousand year old doug fir and cedar and some maples, too.  Different type of forest but still very gorgeous.  I am enthralled by old growth trees and the energy they emit.  I would love to live near them but I just can’t handle so much weather in my face everyday.  In Tofino, they get 10 FEET of rain in 6 month’s time every late fall – spring.  You have to be a real trooper to deal with that plus the low lying clouds and constant grey color.  Most of the non-native year round people of Tofino all surf.  This island is the warmest location in Canada so you either deal with a butt – cold winter or a wet, grey winter (Victoria is not nearly as much rain but still wet/grey they say).

We also stopped for lunch at a little town called Coombs that has a store called the Old Country Market and like old villages in Europe, they had a sod roof on the bldg. and goats on the roof grazing!  That was so cute to see pygmy goats hanging on the roof tops.  Good marketing ploy bec. the place was very busy in a dinky little town.  The market itself was like a cross betw. Cost Plus World Market and  Whole Foods.  I was happily surprised over that.  We sat outside and watched the goats and all the diff. international tourists – lots of German people and British, too, of course.

We stopped in one other town called Qualicum Beach along the Straight of Georgia and you can see land off the coast which I found out was a small island part of an island chain that is there betw. VI and Vancouver the city on the mainland. Threw more rocks in the ocean, of course and Michael showed Leif how to turn over big rocks and see all the little crabs scurry off to find cover.  Boy did they have fun doing this.  He said it was just like being a kid in WA same kind of rocky beach that we stopped at.

Our last stop before Victoria was this town called Duncan and they have like 100 totem poles.  Leif loves the totem poles.  We even found one small scale, full color in a tourist shop and boy was he happy with having his own totem pole!  As soon as we get here, Leif pukes all over himself and the carseat.  Ugh! He was fine on the beach and all of a sudden he’s sick.  We think this was a bug this time.  We had to wipe him off, change him and wipe down the car seat and lined it with a raincoat until we could get to the hotel.  He seemed ok and wanted to see the totems so we walk across the street while Michael cleans it up more and he is really into the totem pole park there plus an old caboose train there, too.  He gets woozy again so I pick him up and we go back in the car and he seemed ok, I gave him a tupperware type bowl container I had and told him if he felt sick to puke in that.  I felt so bad having to make him ride in the car another half hour to the hotel but what else could we do?  He was good until halfway there, started heaving and I had to dump the liquid in the bowl out the window while driving.  Ugh. It was pretty sucky on all parts.  Needless to say, we had to do laundry and take the carseat apart (our own Britax), too once we got there.  Now we have a squeaky clean car seat! I was Reikiing him in the car, at the hotel, he stopped heaving and just passed out on the bed.  Nothing else happened, he slept all night and woke up hungry.  We started with dry toast and after eating / drinking and keeping it down, he was fine.  He did hit his head a few days earlier so we thought maybe it was that causing this twice.

On Sunday, we were supposed to go to this place called Butchart Gardens that is a 50 acre flower garden over 100 yrs old.  I was really into going to this but bec. of the sickness the night before, we decided to lay low in the a.m. bec. we were to go to Michael’s friend / biz associate’s home about 20 min. away from Victoria in a town called Sidney-by-the-Sea.  We told them what happened to Leif and that he was ok and they still wanted us to come over.  They have an almost 2 yr. old boy so I didn’t want to not tell them about the vomiting. We spent the whole afternoon with them and had a bbq.  They live right on the water with a marina in the backyard.  So cool to look out the window and see all these beautiful boats! What was also great was to get a transplanted American’s view of life living on a Canadian Island.  The biggest bonus besides the sheer beauty of the place is the medical card you get once you live there.  The wife was telling me she feels Canadians are more relaxed in their lives bec. they just don’t have to worry about health ins. or if something happens how will I pay for this,etc. There are sev’l walk-in clinics in each town plus the emergency room and hospital stays are all free!  She said she and her son were at a playground and he fell and hit his head and she took him over to the walk in clinic to be sure even though she didn’t think it was so bad.  I asked about wait times and she said it’s really not bad at all.  I asked if they would treat tourists the same and she said yes.  That’s nice. Alternative medicine is covered, too.  Dental is not covered, you need to get an ins. plan for that.  Her husband said for wealthy Canadians wanting more specialized or “better” care, they go to the states!

We also talked about the pricing of stuff on the island.  It turns out that the islanders don’t object too much, they want it that way to keep people from moving there.   Everything has to be flown or shipped in so it’s more expensive. Especially gas – they pay the equivalent of $4.25/gallon or more! Ugh.

Another nice thing about Canada is that they have a strong consciousness for organics, recycling, green bldg, etc. So great to see a country so into it! There was a small recycling bin in each hotel room and they recycle everything – all plastic, glass, aluminum, paper board, etc. Impressive.  This couple was also talking about that, too.  Gay marriage is legal, too.  Also, I loved this, she had her baby in Canada and when you get preg. you get to pick a midwife and stay with just her care the whole preg. unless you are high risk, then you go to an ob/gyn.  She did have a drug-free hosp. birth (totally free) and then her baby got stuck, never dropped, like Leif, too and her midwife consulted with a doc and she had to have a c-section or risk losing him bec. he was under too much stress. Interesting, no? The midwife has power in the hospitals, too.

After the birth, they show you how to breastfeed and assign a nurse to you to come over to your home sev’l times to check in on you and make sure your breastfeeding is going well.  They will also send over lactation consultants if needed, too.  Canada advocates for their mothers to nurse for TWO years if they can.  Also, mothers get a full year off work for maternity leave with job security and fathers get 6 months off if they want with job security (I don’t think salary, though).  This policy is the same or similar if you have a sick or dying relative at home you have to care for.  She went into other details of all the help they can get from socialized medicine and how having that really reflects in the people’s more relaxed attitudes.  It was very eye-opening for me to hear all of this.  No place is perfect but I really love Canada all the more now!

After we left, we decided to get a light dinner at a local greek restaurant we saw.  Food was great then we drove home and went to bed.  Our ferry was 3pm on Monday and I wanted to go to Butchart Gardens in the morning.

3 a.m. rolls around and I hear Michael getting up and then I hear retching in the bathroom.  He’s sick!  By 4:30, I’m in there sick, too!  We have to leave the island today!!  We are much sicker than Leif was.  I try to reiki Michael and myself but really have been so weakened so fast I just wanted to die.  We both had the same symtoms, body aches, stomach cramps, and everything else.  I hope we did not get those people sick!  It just came on like a ton of bricks out of nowhere.  I had to call down to the front desk and beg to stay in our room one more night and they shuffled people around so we could do that.  So, we got to see nothing and had to pay more money to just be sick.  Poor Leif, he was raring to go and we were both like it’s your turn to get up and get him whatever.  We both hurt that bad.  I got him some food, set up the dvd player on looping and opened his bag of toys and had everything out for him.  Each of us had to sit in the bathtub to ease the pain in our legs and get the chill out.  Then we all took a nap and by evening, I wanted t eat some dry toast and have some water and  we both were able to keep it down and were on the upswing again.

Luckily, I planned a buffer day for just in case and so we could see his parents one last night before we flew home.  We had to call them sick from bed to cancel that, too.  We got to switch our ferry to the a.m. packed up late at night when we could be upright for more than 30 min. and left the next a.m to sit on a ferry.  We were fine just exhausted.  What a fast moving flu we got.  It was weird.  I usually am so good at taking my preventatives and really slacked on this trip and we all got some version of it, too. The only low point of the whole 2 weeks away.

So, we go thru customs and drive all the way to the airport (almost 3 hours) and get there fine.  Our flight is delayed a bit but we get home and go pick up our dog who did really well with the nice older couple dog sitters – it was like he stayed with grandma and grandpa and was spoiled – they really loved him and kept raving about what a wonderful dog he is.  Our cats and all the plants and the garden all did well, too.  My babysitter came in and took care of all that plus we have automated drip line everywhere so that was great.

All in all a wonderful, yet tiring trip to an amazing place that I can’t wait to go visit again!