Looking Out My Back Door

Earlier in the spring, Sandy Witman took a picture of the marsh from our back deck and went home and painted this lovely oil from the photo. I wheedled it out of her this week and it is now hanging on the wall in the living room in such a way that you can look at the painting, then look out the door, and if the tide is in, -- same view! Now, how cool is that?!  I love it. 

I am lucky to have so many very talented people in my life.

Our Pretty Church

There's a fellow in town photographing all the churches in Charleston. No small task in a place that calls itself "the Holy City". Go here to see his beautiful photos. I've directed the link to take you to our church first, but you can surf around and see seven or eight others that are all quite special. The collection grows and he's beginning to add churches from other places as well. I think he hopes to publish a book.

Ours is Circular Congregational Church and it was the founded by the early settlers in 1681 as the first non-Anglican  Church in Charleston. Because they weren't part of the Church of England they were looked down upon and considered "dissenters". Not to be encouraged, they weren't allowed to call themselves a church – only a "Meeting" and that's how the main avenue through downtown Charleston came to be known as Meeting Street – because it was the location of the Meeting House. This building is the church's third; built in 1890.

Circular started out and continues to be a denominational mishmash. In 1775, it was said to be "called either Presbyterian, Congregational, or Independent, sometimes by one of the names, sometimes by two of them and at other times by all three."

The Scottish immigrants who wanted a "truer" Presbyterian experience split off early on and formed First Scots Presbyterian down the street in 1731.

Another group left in 1817 and went around the corner to worship as Unitarians on Archdale St. And finally, the black memebers withdrew in 1867 and founded Plymouth Congregational Church. All of these are still active congregations.

Here is one of my favorite church pictures, taken by a member of the church sometime last year. It is our recently retired pastor, Bert Keller, weaving a newly baptised child "into the life of the congregation."  Even without seeing the architecture, this photo somehow gives a sense of the circle that is our worship space.

Swimming Lessons

Last Summer we all just sort of floated around aimlessly. This year, Duncan is determined to teach Fiona to swim. I sort of  miss the aimless floating, but Fiona does want to be able to "Do it myself!"

Across the Rockies to Banff, Lake Louise, and Glaciers!

Leaving Vancouver, we traveled for two days on the Rocky Mountaineer excursion train across the most impressive Rocky Mountains to Banff National Park. None of us - even Duncan - had ever been closer to the Rockies than a fly-over, so the awesome views out the window were captivating for all of us.  

Our traveling companion doesn't look very happy, but we enjoyed her company throughout the trip. It's a good picture of the rest of us and the only one we ended up with of all three of us.

We were not lucky enough to see much wildlife -- no bears or elk or moose. From the train, we saw osprey and eagles, some deer, and a big horned sheep. At one of our stops, this little guy practically posed for us. I thought he was a really fat chipmunk, but learned he is a type of squirrel.

By the end of the second day on the train, we were at the edge of the "Alpine Tundra" -- above the 7,200 ft. treeline. Many mountains reached 10,000+ feet. The color of the rivers changed from dull green to bright aquamarine, indicating they were fed by glacial ice-melt.

Before we visited glaciers, we fortified ourselves with lunch at the Fairmont Chateau at Lake Louise. It is just as elegant as the more well-known Banff Springs Hotel and had this nice view of the gardens (gardens everywhere!), the lake, and the mountains.

A two-hour drive from Lake Louise got us to the Columbia Ice Field at Jasper National Park. Mom is in front of the Athabasca Glacier where the ice is between 270 and 1000 feet thick.

This bus with monster tires actually took us out onto the glacier. They told us the ice under us was as deep as the Empire State Building is high and the riverlets of running water we could see were from melted ice that fell as snow up to 150 years ago.

It was a bit windy, but otherwise a mild day. As you can see, lots of kids out in shorts.

The next day we did a bit more touring around the Banff area. We had lunch here, at the Banff Springs Hotel, built in the late 1800s to entice the rich and famous to visit using the new transcontinental railroad. In a display of old photographs, we learned that in the late 1920s, the wealthy would arrive with "letters of credit" for $50,000 to cover their 3 - 4 month stay. One photo showed a waiter serving "Lithium bromides" to a group of smiling ladies at the swimming pool. Well, no wonder everyone was happy!

Everything inside was on such a large scale, it is impossible to depict the grandeur and elegance.  I would love to go and stay a week. Let's see, if a 4 month stay cost $50K in the 1920s, a one week stay would have run just over $3,000. In today's dollars, that would be ??? What would you guess?

Of course we admired gardens here, too.

Here is a map showing our route for the trip, beginning at Seattle and ending in Calgary.

What a great time for all of us!

Canadian Rockies -- Victoria & Vancouver

We are home from our big Rocky Mountain excursion -- here are a few highlights from the Victoria - Vancouver leg.

Here are Victoria's signature hanging baskets.Victoria is on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, the capital of British Columbia, and a retirement and tourist haven. I had no idea the climate was so temperate here. I thought you had to be a polar bear to live this close to Alaska. But it doesn't get too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer. Flowers thrive! 

We're in one of the water taxis that scoot all over the harbor, and we're going down a "street" of houseboats. One of these floating houses was in the movie, Sleepless in Seattle.

Here is British Columbia's Parliament Building -- it is outlined in lights in the evenings, giving it a definite Disney glow.

Duncan, just being himself, as we visited a Victoria city garden. Butchart's Garden, one of the stops we (well, Mom and I) looked forward to the most, comes next.

  Rose Arbor

  Fuchsias -- my favorites. They make me think of tiny dancers in tutus.

  Tuberous begonias. This is definitely one of the things that does well in these cooler temperatures. We saw them everywhere, huge, and in every color.

 
And here we have the tuberous begonias, a profusion of fuchsias and hydrangeas to boot.. Butchart Garden did not disappoint. We loved every minute we spent there.

 
Another day, another ferry ride to Vancouver. This was a bigger, more sophisticated city than we were expecting. Lots of modern architecture -- skyscrapers of glass and steel dominated the downtown. But it is on the water, with a marina, and a paved boardwalk stretches the length of waterfront.

 
I was quite taken with this fairly new public library building. It is a square glass and steel structure within a concrete structure that has curved walls and lots of arches -- reminiscent of Roman ruins.

 
Here it is from outside -- you can see the building within a building. We were told the design and scale of this as a public facility is controversial in Vancouver.

The roof peaks are fabric sails. This venue was built for the World Expo in 1986 and now serves as the cruise ship terminal.

This is the Olympic torch for the most recent winter games. It is only lit, we were told, for very special occasions. Apparently, they weren't told we were in town.

Tai Chi in the park on the waterfront. The red, squatting figures are an installation of public art. They made great photo props.

Here, as well as in Victoria, the harbors are busy helioports. There is steady traffic of float planes taking off and landing and for some reason, I found it relaxing to sit and watch.

Stanley Park is to Vancouver as Central Park is to New York -- a vast, multipurpose green space within the city. Here is a display of old and new totem poles carved by First Nations artists. Some of these poles tell a family's history and stories. We discussed what our family's totem pole would look like. We thought we'd have some wise owls in ours, because we have some pretty smart people in our family!