Dateline: Victoria, with islanders dropping by

It's a common sight - folks feeding the ducks & geese & occasionally gulls at Beacon Hill Park, in the middle of Victoria.

It’s so close, isn’t it —  as the crow flies, it’s only 10–11 miles from Fri­day Har­bor to Vic­to­ria, and almost as easy, tak­ing the fer­ry. When you get on the 9:45am fer­ry from here, you’re in Sid­ney, BC less than a hour & half lat­er. From there it’s an easy bus ride or car (if you take it) ride to Vic­to­ria, a city of over 400,000 folks.

And there are a lot of things to like — let’s look around.

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That's Caroline from the Good Lovelies, playing in Victoria last week....

Last spring, one of the high­lights of the year was the appear­ance at the San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre of Canada’s Juno-award-win­ning folk group, The Good Lovelies. When I vis­it­ed with them after the show, the most com­mon ques­tion I hear folks ask them was, “When are you com­ing back?”

The Lovelies have a new album out, and are on a Cana­di­an tour that brought them to Vic­to­ria last week for a sold-out show that left peo­ple smil­ing & laughing…you can check out their site & hear their tight three-part har­monies on their site and on YouTube.…Sue, Car­o­line & Ker­ri do an awe­some job!

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It's always good to see friends from San Juan on the ferry on the way to Victoria - last month we ran into Ian & Laura Bolton (left) then watched Shelly & Clark Gilbert shoot selfies on the way to a day on Vancouver Island.

The gulls get excited when the fishing boats come back to the Inner Harbour, and the crew cleans the catch....

It was a month ago (on July first), but Canada Day in Victoria is a great thing for you to put on the calendar for next year, with tens of thousands of red-clad revelers in the street, music on the legislature's lawn, and fireworks to end the day.

How cool is that? Josie & ran into island bead artist Darleen Nixon coming back from a trip to Vancouver Island with her college buddies Debbie (left) and Lolly (right) - they all got together for a little college reunion, as they all went to Texas Christian University....

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How cool is that? We caught up with Wendy & Carl on the way to camping on Vancouver Island.....

There was a lit­tle Cana­di­an kid, maybe six or sev­en years old, on the fer­ry to Fri­day Har­bor yesterday…I was watch­ing him study­ing a guy who was stretched out & nap­ping on the boat, who then report­ed to his mom: “They get to sleep on their fer­ries. Why can’t we?”

I liked it when the fer­ry folks made an announce­ment that we were land­ing in Fri­day Har­bor, and he said, “Hey, Mom! Who’s Fred­dy Harper?”

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One of the things you'll want to do is take your evening walk down by the Inner Harbour & watch the sun go down, and the colours of the day soften...beautiful way to bring the day to a close...

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Kinda like Canada Day, BC Day (which was a three day weekend, last week) includes lots of music downtown, including the Victoria Symphony playing on a barge (yellow arrow) in the harbour for people on the Empress' lawn & the grass in front of Parliament...the fireworks at the end shook our windows, a mile away from the water.

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My six month study of this is complete: research shows it to be true.

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