Butchart Gardens

Butchart gardens is pretty pricey for a bunch of plants. Never the less we went.  We were there in the late afternoon and stayed for fireworks.  I got to ride on this little bronze statue named Annabelle sculpted by Nathan Scott.

This is the sunken garden.  On the top right you can see some people. It is this old bit of limestone left behind when the whole place was a quarry. You can climb up it and look over the plants and trees.  We were there over the September long weekend so the summer plants were still blooming nicely.

As always, Geordie has his fish-eye and took another planet panorama.  I think this is in the Japanese garden.  It is a very nice bushy sphere.  The path running throw it is a nice divider and gives it some pleasing symme'tree'.

As always you can click on the little planet panorama above to enlarge it.

Vivacious Visit in Victoria

I was so excited when my lovely cousin Carolyn got accepted in to the MA program at University of Victoria. Hurrah!  So Geordie and I went to Victoria to help get her settled in to her gorgeous dorm and see her and her mom.  This is us below being kind of gangsta'. Carolyn and I are wearing our new sunglasses.

We were big tourists too. Auntie wanted to do a high tea so we did. This is at Gatsby Mansion. A lovely high tea half the cost as that at the Empress in the same area and just as yummy.  We are holding our pinkies out to drink it properly.  Witty banter was exchanged.

We went to Bouchart Gardens as well. Auntie had been there a while ago but it was a first for the rest of us.  We saw fireworks and lots of lovely grounds. Expensive place but very pretty.  It was an excellent weekend and I was sad to go.  Fortunately I get to see my cousin more often so YAAAAAY!!!!! 

Someone Dropped a Bear Bomb!

Timelapses are fun. Especially when you stick one at the top of a mountain and a bear photobombs it! We put this one up at the Peak of Grouse Mountain hidden at the very top a bit to the side of the chair lift.  And we left it.....for a week. The very fun result is below.  Let us know if there are places in Vancouver that you think might make for a neat time lapse. Only criteria is that it needs to be locked to something preferably in a place where its not going to be messed with. In this case it was locked to some old rebar.

As is always the case with embedding, you may need to right click and watch it directly on Vimeo if you get playback issues here. 
This is the locale where we put it. I just realized I was in this photo!  This one turned out quite well. Geordie is getting very good at spotting places that would make for a good all round panorama. Well not panorama but whatever you would call that.  360 view I guess. Or planets. I like planet views.

Just in case you missed it here is our bear bomb. Looks like an older yearling. There are some grasses with seeds near the camera which may have attracted it.  There are some birds you can see if you stop the video fast enough.  I would love to get more animals in timelapses like this. I hear rumours of a beaver in Lost Lagoon but can't find a place to put the camera that is not high traffic. May risk it anyway......

Vancouver Heights

High places are fun. I am not afraid of heights but I love the wriggly feeling you get in your tummy. Like at the top of the CN tower or at the Peak of Grouse Mountain. You can get higher by going up into the observation deck on the 'Eye of the Wind'.  Cost plus of course as Grouse Mountain is a bit of a tourist trap since you have to pay to take a lift to the top and pay more for another lift to the base of the turbine, so why not have a third tier of tickets for that one too :P

This is the view of downtown from the peak of Grouse Mountain. I think you can see our apartment in the right foreground.  That is Stanley Park at the very front, then the West End and English Bay, then False Creek, then Kitsilano.

This is a photo looking further West then the above. The round spit into the sea is UBC. The city in the foreground is West Vancouver, made famous for its ridiculous real estate and folksy art seawall. Delta and Richmond are fading off into the distance closer to the top. Further still in the haze is the forgotten land of Washington state.