Uncharted Days

Summer 2010

Now that we’re settling into September and summer is fast fading from view with the advent of rain and coolness, it is prime time to sit back and remember some snatches of it—the wonderful uncharted days of summer.

Any given day might begin in the garden smelling sweet peas or in an adirondack chair just cultivating quietness but there’s no telling where that same day might end once Jim appeared with a suggestion. Being a homebody at heart I’ve had to expand my tastes and allow myself to be gladly carried by the wind to wherever my skipper pleases…

–whether it be to survey a tiny rocky island named Vivienne, inhabited only by snoozing seals and tiny cactus beds…

–or a pebbly beach to sit with washed up drift and sand fleas waiting for riders to ride and runners to run so pipers can pipe (that’s Jim’s part) at the closing celebration of the Savary Island Triathon…

–or a get-away on our favorite islands—the Raggeds– where we sunned like seals on slabs of hot rock, napped on ocean bluffs, and barbecued steaks on deck…

The epic trip this summer was a three-nighter sailing to Nelson and Hardy Islands, where we heard the raven call our name across the unpeopled reaches of Quarry Lake just as we’d stopped to listen to the silence…

–and we star-gazed all bundled up on deck the night of the meteor showers…

–had a crab pedicure on Musket Island—tiniest marine park we’ve seen yet

(not THIS tiny!)

and I played cowgirl with a giant kelp at an abandoned homestead by the sea…

SEATS IN THIS ROW DO NOT RECLINE.

Had an altogether other sort of adventure flying to Alaska with my favorite sister mid-summer to visit my harried mother and absent-minded father who also are having uncharted days, but of another sort. Never know what a day with Alzheimer’s may hold…

We pedaled crazy old bikes down the Alaska Pipeline and traipsed off down a random side trail into wilderness to see what we could see…No moose, no grizzlies, no coyotes or wolves but we finally got too spooked to continue after finding four different kinds of unidentified droppings along our way—

All good things (this side of Heaven) must come to an end and so did our summer, but not before one last trip—this time cycling with church friends over to the big island (Vancouver Island) and down to two little islands reached via ferries, first to Denman then to Hornby.

Little islands, little ferries, lots of pedaling, lots of pit stops, and beaches and hikes…

and eats out and memories made! Spent two sleeps at a B & B and pedaled home again…logging almost 90 miles, to greet summer’s end.

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Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. (Eccl.11:7)

Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage. (Eccl.5: 18)