Full Circle Written by The Musings of Bagger Dave Home News + Blogs Full Circle My brother Graham came out from England last month with his partner Julie for a visit. For three weeks they enjoyed fantastic weather and marvelled at how sunny BC was. “Try coming back in the winter and then tell me how lovely it is” was my dour response. They left on the Friday and the rain started on Saturday. Apparently winter started a little early this year. While they were here, my wife Julie and I took them to a few places that we never seem to go to unless we have visitors staying. Maybe it was for the best that my other brother, Mike, wasn’t here as well – his wife’s name is Julie too. (Julie Two, actually. To avoid confusion, my wife is known as Julie One and Graham’s partner is Julie Three). And no, I’m not making this up. Here are some pictures of our camping trip to Tofino, where we stayed at the Bella Pacifica campground along with daughter Kate, son in law TJ and grandsons Eli and Miles: Grammy (aka Julie, aka Scottish Wife) and Eli check out the view from a secluded beach near Tofino. King Canute style, Eli commands the waves to stop. Eli lives in the Naimo, as he puts it. He seems to like going to Fino, as well. It’s easy to forget how impressive Cathedral Grove is. English Julie thought it was the most beautiful place she visited in BC. Miles and his mum take a stroll on the beach with English Julie. Eli makes sure mum and dad’s boards are seaworthy Graham and I search in vain for whales. We might as well have been looking for Wales. Two days after Graham and his Julie had flown back to England, my Julie and I went off for a camping/hotel/shopping/golf trip down the Oregon coast. Needless to say, it poured with rain for a good part of the journey, but we had a great time nonetheless: It’s pretty hard to beat Cannon Beach… …but I think the Frank Lloyd Wright designed house in Silverton was kinda cool. As was Silverton itself. After driving all day in a torrential downpour it was great when we reached Birch Bay State Park near the BC border. The rain stopped and we could finally enjoy a campfire. The next day we met up with our son Joe in Kitsilano. He took us for a massive breakfast at a café on West 4th Street, appropriately named Joe’s Grill. I hold both Joes personally responsible for the five pounds I must have put on over the course of the meal. The following night Julie and I made our first trip to the famous Commodore Ballroom on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. We met up with our aged friends Stu, Wayne and Clyde to see Half Moon Run, a band which features three young Comox Valley guys, one of whom used to be in my French 12 class at Highland Senior Secondary. To Conner Molander and the rest of HMR – chapeau! The band is absolutely awesome, and here’s one of the tracks they played at the Glastonbury Festival in July this year: Full Circle.= An hour after the show at the Commodore had ended, Julie and I were kipping in our VW camper van at the front of the line up for the 6.30 a.m. Horseshoe Bay ferry. By mid morning, we were back home in Comox after our 2,000 mile camping odysseys. I guess you could say we had come full circle. Sorry. P.S. I really have nothing to say about golf except to say that I played three rounds, including one in Mount Angel, Oregon, where I played with two elderly gentlemen, one of whom had palsy. Suffice it to say that his putting stroke was quite a lot smoother than mine. The other gentleman had dementia, but I forget what I was going to say about him. All da best (and go buy the Half Moon Run album. It’s called Dark Eyes – you’ll love it!) Dave B. SaveSave Twitter Facebook Email Back to Top
