Relax 8/6/2011

The theme of today: relax. We took a few short hikes along some beautiful trails, one of which took us to a lovely waterfall, and all of which feature old-growth trees. We spent a large amount of time sitting in adirondack chairs in front of the Crescent Lake Lodge, just chilling out. This was the view from the chairs:

The first trail we took was a little walk to Marymere Falls. The falls were picturesque, and we tried to imagine what they'd look like in the spring.

Along the way, the trail invited you to really look at the little things that made it special--the way the sun filtered through the trees, the large (really large) mossy rocks, the impressive old growth giant trees, the smell of the forest, a small tree growing from atop the decaying stump of a giant. What could have easily taken 45 minutes probably took us 2 hours.

Not much else to report. We hung around the front of the lodge for quite a while, and then headed back to our cabin , but not before picking up a bottle of wine to enjoy on our return.

Here's a photo of our typical lunch preparations in the morning before we set out to hike. Fancy digs, huh? Gourmet lunch, huh? It works for us...

Tomorrow we go north by ferry, across the Juan de Fuca Strait to Victoria, B.C. where we will visit Butchart Gardens.