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Today’s puzzler

 We’re boarding the ferry from Victoria, BC to Anacortes, WA.  It makes a stop along the way at Friday Harbor.  Judy asked me to explain something.  She said “What if cars want to get off and on at Friday Harbor?” I said “No problem.  If any cars need to get off at Friday Harbor, they’ll just put them all in one row when they load them, so they can all get off when they need to.”   She said “Yeah. But.  What if any cars want to get on at the midway stopover?” “No problem, they can get on in the space where the other cars just left.” “Yeah, but they’ll all be facing the wrong direction on the boat!” Oh.  Yeah.  That could be a problem.  But the answer was going to be easy to find out.  All we had to do is wait until we arrived at Friday Harbor and watch what they did.  Then we got the horrible news.  This boat wasn’t stopping at Friday Harbor this trip.  We weren’t going to find out the answer to our question. So that’s it.  Today’s puzzler.  If the ferry makes multiple stops, how do they keep the cars they load and unload all facing the same direction?  In other news, Alex has been working on a new skill on high bar.  It’s a release move above the bar. https://www.facebook.com/lindsay.s.taylor.7/videos/vb.734450013/10159217642700014/?type=2&theater This is a link to Lindsay’s FaceBook page, so I don’t know if it will work for everyone.  We’ve left Victoria, and Canada altogether.  We’re parked in Edmonds, WA at Andy and Christie’s house. 2017 Summer Trip Map Got there in time for evening waterfront pictures.    
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I don’t remember his name

 We were in high school.  He was one of the “in” kids.  I wasn’t.  One day, out of nowhere, he invited me over to his house after school.  He heard I had pigeons.  He wanted to show me his loft and talk birds.  I went. Nice neighborhood.  Nice house with a spacious pigeon loft built on an upstairs deck.  I was impressed.  He was enthusiastic about his birds.  It was all going so well.  Until.  He said “I’m so glad to have someone to talk to about pigeons that isn’t a dork.”  I don’t remember anything after that.  A dork.  A “dork” is exactly how I thought the kids he hung out with would describe me.  He hung out with friends during breaks and at lunch.  They talked and laughed.  I was socially awkward.  I had friends in our neighborhood, but at school I was more comfortable eating lunch alone, then going to the library to read. Sincere as he may have been, and happy to have someone to share his love of birds with, I was put-off beyond repair by his overture; his offhand remark; my teenage insecurity that he might be making fun of me.  We didn’t bond over pigeons.  In fact, I don’t recall ever speaking with him again after that day.  
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Along the way

 A public piano at Cattle Point.   Victoria. Black Oystercatcher. Northwestern Crow. Harbor Seal. Water Taxis. River Otter. Orca. 
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Follow-up

 We were expecting Butchart Gardens to be nice, but we weren’t expecting THAT! The first picture is of the sunken gardens. It’s an old limestone quarry (the source of the Butchart fortune).  They took an entire old spent limestone quarry and turned it into a garden! And that’s just one of the gardens.  There is a rose garden, a Japanese garden, an Italian garden, a bog garden, and many other minor gardens, like entire sections of just dahlia blooms, or just hanging fuschia baskets. The ambiance perfectly matches the visuals.  The Ross fountain…is constantly changing dancing waters, kind of like the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas, but without the music and noise.  It is peacefully naturally majestic. There is an enclosed carousel with barely whispering music that doesn’t travel beyond the building. The gardens abut a cove.…and those green canopied ten-person tour boats (electrically powered), take you out of the cove into the surrounding bays with deer on the banks, harbor seals, and river otters. This is a well-established garden.There are giant coastal redwoods that were planted as seeds! Every flower bed is at the peak of bloom; nothing looks like it is just about to, or just has, and there is no visible workforce keeping it that way.  They work a Disneylandesque magic, with an army of staff that has from dawn to opening at 9am each day to perform their miracles. Yes. Butchart Gardens is impressive.