Waiting for ferry to island.  Doris getting some last minute texting in!
It was a two hour very smooth ride.
Dinner the first day at Qualicum Beach.

Ask Doris to describe the entertainment!
YUM!!!  
First stop was the Blue Willow B&B.
This was our third time here.
 
Our car and corner room.
The property is protected by attack bunnies.
Moss of the roof.
Typical morning breakfast setting.
Saturday morning breakfast.
REALLY???
 
Bacon wrapped sausage and a BIG sliced brisket sandwich.
Doris couldn't finish hers.

It was OK, but not really Texas BBQ.
The daily tide change here is about 11 feet, so when it is out, there is a very big beach.
Hike in Heritage Forest.
These are BIG trees.

One old Douglas Fir is 187 feet high and about 800 years old.
There was a clearing in the middle of the forest, and one rhododendron was in full bloom.  Most of the forest is very dark.
 Sidney Area and Butchart Gardens
We got to the Sidney harbor at the same time Deborah, Bob and Matthew returned from a 3 day cruise of the islands.

We had a great visit and dinner to celebrate our 30th anniversary!
Docking in Sidney.

This is a big video file
(about 6MB).
The LED candles did not survive the warm days in storage since the last visit!  They now have wax art!
Mimi texting!  
Captain Bob has GPS, radar and many other toys. 
Majestic bald eagle looking for dinner.

This guy was over a hundred yards away on a channel marker.
Our Anniversary 

#30 !!  
 
 
Brentwood Lighthouse B&B near Sidney, BC 
Marker for our B&B.  
View of Brentwood Bay from our bedroom. 
Even in Canada!! 

A day at Butchart Gardens
    
Our last dinner on the island was at the Brentwood Bay Pub.
Doris had the Garlic Prawn Linguine and John had the Halibut Fish & Chips.
 Leaving the Island - next stop Leavenworth Washington
OOPS!!

I guess we took a wrong turn getting on the ferry!
Our B&B in Leavenworth.

Bill and Paula at the Granite Hills Inn were great hosts and the food was wonderful!

There were still signs of the 1994 fire in the upper mountains.  We were here a few days after that fire was controlled.
Breakfast table.

The sign over the patio door is:
Buddy, the official greeter.
A few nutcrackers in a store in town. 
 
Doris LOVES hats! 
Black Forrest Cake after some excellent German food.
(yes, there were two forks!)
A glass of wine to end a shopping day in Leavenworth before our return to Texas and all of the rain.
Not sure what these are, but they are very pretty.  They were in the front yard of the B&B.
We also visited the National Fish Hatchery and saw the Native American Indians harvesting salmon for their tribe.  Unfortunately, a camera malfunction kept me from getting pictures of the harvest.  They clubbed the salmon on the head to quickly kill them, read any tags, documented weight and length and put them on ice to take to the elders.  We saw some as big as 30 inches!

The next day there were still some fishing with a pole, but we did not see any caught.
Beautiful horses in the field next to our B&B.
We drove through Roslyn on our way back to Seattle.  We had visited Roslyn in 1994 while they were filming the TV show "Northern Exposure".

The setting was "Cicely, Alaska", and a lot of the action took place in "The Brick".
I have a similar shot of Doris from 1994.
Many of the old "Cicely" stores and even the radio station are still in Roslyn.