I was happily surprised at how close to rock formations we were able to fly in and around the Garibaldi Provincial Park. Seeing these rugged, natural monuments up close turned my disappointment into enchantment.
Flying at this ridge line, I kept waiting for the pilot to turn. We didn’t. Instead, we slid over that saddle straight in front of the nose of the Otter in this photo. I expected more thermals and thus more turbulence than what we experienced. I guess the rocks hadn’t gotten enough sunlight yet on this morning to reflect plane-bumping hot air up into the atmosphere.
I don’t normally get window seats on commercial flights. I prefer the aisle 9 out of 10 times. I might change that if American Airlines flew low through the mountains. We would get much closer to the rocky peaks than this, but I was too busy being stoked to take a picture.
Earlier this year, I decided not to pursue a sport pilot license. I have poor hand-eye coordination, and the textbook was intimidating. So, I don’t know if I’ll ever fly an ultralight or a plane—let alone a float plane. For an hour in British Columbia, I just reveled in someone else’s talent—someone else knowing what all the buttons and knobs controlled and when to add input. Riding in the cockpit proved a fantastic next-best thing.
In Canada, masks are still required in airports and on flights, including scenic tours. So, you’ll have to trust me: I was beaming under this white face covering.
As someone who believes in stewarding the environment as a biblical mandate, I’m hoping EVs will soon be better for the environment than their petroleum-powered counterparts. I take heart in headlines I see about new & better sources of lithium than mining, new battery technology that uses fewer non-toxic chemicals, and newer & cleaner power generation options (like sea wave generators). At the same time, over the past 5 months I’ve paid almost $20,000 in repairs for the vehicles with internal combustion engines that reside in my garage and driveway—most of those repairs for items not needed by EVs. With a hopeful eye for the future, I rented a Tesla for our anniversary weekend. That 4.2-second 0-60 time became my favorite feature. I’m not a fan of Elon Musk, and that gives me pause in joining the Tesla movement. But I can see an EV in my future … someday.
This is a still frame from
a timelapse video that has a couple of surprises—at least I hadn’t anticipated them.
Crystal graciously let me slip down to Coal Harbour before sunrise. I put some Maverick City in my headphones and hung out by Canada Place until she was ready for breakfast. I enjoy my sunrise worship sessions in the server-parking field of my church each Sunday morning. It was cool to mix it up with some different scenery on this Sunday morning.
It’s weird to think of a commercial/industrial space as a relaxing vista. But throw in some mountains, some water, and some gradient skies; and you can easily get your heart to a tranquil place.
On our last day in Vancouver, I rented a 19’ boat and showed Crystal around the Indian Arm fjord. Since I was driving the boat, I didn’t take very many pictures. But I had to set the boat down to capture this interesting juxtaposition. For thousands of years, humanity used boats like the one in the foreground to trade wares across seas. And now, we’re so dependent on the behemoths like the one in this picture that delays in loading & unloading them upheave global economies.
The Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, especially, call to my heart and open it to introspection and gratitude. I come alive in the landscapes and color palette of the American and Canadian west. I deeply want to share these places with my friends and family—especially Crystal. I hope she can see what I can’t explain. Nobody knows me like she does, and I’m grateful for all the times she has supported me traveling up here for adventures and writing sabbaticals without her.
I drove Crystal around Stanley Park and under the Lions Gate Bridge, which—by the way—isn’t that a sick name for a bridge? Before turning the boat in, I took her to Granville Island and False Creek. We saw 8-figure yachts and tiny floating houses, cargo freighters and water taxis. In the 4.5 hours we were in the boat, we encountered 6 different wild seals. It was a beautiful afternoon, even if it left our faces redder than we expected.
I’d not visited the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in all of my trips to Vancouver. So, it made for a new adventure for both of us as we explored its gorgeous environs. We stood spellbound during live encounters with a horned owl and a menacing falcon. We bounced on suspension bridges 100+ feet off the ground. We watched a heron try to out-wait its prey. We sighed, let our shoulders drop, and absorbed the redwoods around us. Candidly, I was surprised by the history of the place and by how much I enjoyed the park.
As part of my worship routine, I spend hours a week alone or with people of faith in the woods. I often let my hands linger over rugged bark, across bumpy leaves, and in meandering streams. I feel connected to God when I’m connected to nature. But at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, I took that relationship to the next level. I hugged it back.
I love how redwood forests smell. I love their long lines, their textures, and their unique shards of light. And I love this woman.
As we left the main part of the park to head back to our Tesla, we tried this canyon walk. Its walkways offered more exposure than a typical hike in a Virginia woods, including this cantilevered curve. Crystal didn’t feel a hint of fear, even though she doesn’t like jumping off things and would never bungee jump with me. We were both surprised and delighted by that.
It’s crazy that this remote place is less than a mile from civilization. (The traffic congestion took us an hour to drive the 5 mies back to our hotel from here.) Even though commercialized with restaurants and a store, I’m thankful for companies, NGOs, and governments who are protecting wild places like this for more people to explore and for future generations to enjoy. We shared this place with hundreds of other tourists, but we all also shared in the wonder of where we were and what we saw.
On our first morning in Canada, we got on the ferry to Vancouver Island. I’ve made the trip several times and had hyped it up to Crystal. The weather was a bit inclement. So, she snuggled up against me before heading inside for a hot beverage.
We grabbed breakfast at the Tsawwassen ferry terminal. Both of us took advantage of vacation diet to go big with our choices. This picture shows how different we are when we splurge.
I finally got to introduce Crystal to Butchart Gardens, an incredible reclamation project. At the turn of the twentieth century, the wife of a mining magnate repurposed a barren & abandoned lime quarry to build a massive botanical garden. Today, it is jaw-dropping with biodiversity and different themed areas within the lush park. The colors wowed me—a week after summer officially ended. The juxtaposition of hues and textures captivated my attention, and the fragrances penetrated my lungs. It was beautiful, and it felt special to share this with my wife.
I’ve not yet grown into the beautiful potential available for my life, but I’m working in that direction. Part of the progress—for me—is just noticing the beauty of humanity that’s already all around me.
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” – Frances Hodgson Burnett
“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” – Victor Hugo
Man. Over the last several years, I’ve come to realize what a pervading love feels like. Over the last week, my most played song includes these lyrics that resonate in my soul:
“I will lean back in the loving arms
Of my beautiful Father (it’s who You are, who You are)
Breathe deep and know that He is good
He’s a love like no other
And now I can see Your love is better
Than all the others that I’ve seen
I’m breathing deep, of all Your goodness
Your loving kindness to me….
I’m breathing, I’m breathing….
Thought I knew what love was
But it’s so much better, it’s better”
These bushes gave off a winter vibe to me or maybe a middle agedness from the gray. Not as vibrant as the flowers around them, they were beautiful nonetheless. I was drawn to the humility and self-assuredness that they’d project if flowers had emotions like that.
“Flowers don’t tell, they show.” – Stephanie Skeem
This area of the park was called the Italian garden, and it’s accessed through one of two arches cut out of a beautiful hedgerow. It felt more like a royal courtyard from a fairytale kingdom. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Belle had wandered through with some books under her arm.
“Flowers whisper ‘Beauty!’ to the world, even as they fade, wilt, fall.” – Dr. SunWolf
I prefer low-maintenance bushes around my house to flowering annuals. I am regularly captivated, though, by wild flowers. I regularly stop and smell them. If little kids are with me, I invite them to smell them too. Like wildflowers, I’ve found love in my life in unexpected places and doses. I’ve also found it in the discipline of the hard work of relationships over time. Love grows wild, but it can also be developed by intentional sacrifice (like the kind that filled this incredible botanical wonderland).
“Love is like wildflowers; it’s often found in the most unlikely places.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
These fountains stir the water that fill the bottom of the quarry and that pours out all the way to the Pacific Ocean. They stand guard of the very back corner of what’s called the Sunken Garden, which looks more like fiction than nonfiction. Mrs. Butchart never got to see these gardens in all of their glory. She only got to leverage her sliver of history to make the world better than she found it. I hope to do the same.
“A flower’s appeal is in its contradictions — so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect.” – Terri Guillemets
I wouldn’t have put these colors together in any design project, but these gardeners knew this arrangement would stop people in their tracks. People like me.
“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly our whole life would change.” – Buddha
One of Crystal’s favorite parts of the park was the rose garden which included a bevy of experimental varieties. Many were past their season, but a few—like this one—beckoned a closer look. I captivated by the delicacy of the petals and the smooth gradation of colors. Just beautiful!
“All the flowers of the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.” – Indian Proverb
All throughout Butchart Gardens, the caretakers wove different species and colors together to make living art pieces. This was one of my favorite juxtapositions along the path.
“Flowers don’t worry about how they’re going to bloom. They just open up and turn toward the light and that makes them beautiful.” – Jim Carrey
With almost every footstep, we walked past art. The color combinations and contrasting textures continually intrigued me.
“Where flowers bloom so does hope.” – Lady Bird Johnson
I don’t know what kind of flower this is, but it’s wild design reminded me of the beauty inherent in diversity and the creativity of Sovereignty. Pragmatism doesn’t need beauty. Chance doesn’t usually choose diversity.
“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.” – Zen Shin
This is just a gratuitous picture, but I actually needed to weed through dozens of photos to choose the ones to share. This reminded me of Costa Rica and Caribbean islands—from the Pacific Northwest. We weren’t in a greenhouse or solarium. We walked through chilly oceanfront drizzle on the island where they film the survival show, Alone.
“The flower that follows the sun does so even in cloudy days.” – Robert Leighton
Crystal and I sneaked down to Victoria’s harbor, and I thought it might be illegal if my half-Canadian wife DIDN’T pose with this art installation.
We returned from Vancouver Island to grab our hotel in Coal Harbour. This was the view from our room. I turned into a little boy, watching the seaplanes taxi and take off from our balcony.
