Tag: islands

  • Pumpkin-mobile

    Pumpkin-mobile

    This had me laughing for days afterward. And now I can never look at a VW Bug in quite the same way.

  • Tea for two

    Tea for two

    Speaking of Canadian fall color, almost exactly two years ago I had the chance to stay at Victoria’s Empress Hotel, and see its climbing ivy in all its autumn glory. Both then and just recently, when the Tailor and I visited Victoria together, a major highlight of the visit was the Empress’s world-famous High Tea.…

  • Celtic Colours

    Celtic Colours

    Well, okay, my visit missed the actual Celtic Colours music festival by a couple of days (sad but true). But even a short two days on Cape Breton gave me a nice taste of the Celtic heritage of the island— —as well as a panorama of stunning autumn color, absolutely everywhere I looked. If that’s…

  • A world where there are Octobers

    A world where there are Octobers

    “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it?” —L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables And I’m so glad my first visit to Prince Edward Island was an October one. Even without the peak fall color everywhere, the…

  • On island time

    On island time

    When my best friend Elizabeth came to visit last year, she told me she’d always wanted to visit the San Juan Islands. So we packed every bit of waterproof gear we had and headed north for a girls-only trip. We spent a good chunk of our trip on various boats— —which, even in spring’s constant…

  • Culture clash

    Culture clash

    You know, I stopped to sketch this guy (and suffered my least favorite sound in the world) because the bizarre combination of Scots and Salish is exactly the kind of melting-pot absurdity that I love. But then afterward, it occurred to me that if I had to pick just one sketch to sum up Victoria’s…

  • Croquet quarry

    Croquet quarry

    The Tailor and I just got back from a week on Vancouver Island. It was my second trip there, and I couldn’t wait to show him the Butchart Gardens on a sunny day. Most stunning of all is the spectacular Sunken Garden, which feels like an English garden crossed with something out of Lewis Carroll’s…