Butchart Gardens, Twenty Years Later.

This past weekend, Whitney and I went to Victoria out on Vancouver Island for her birthday. We stopped by Olympic Bagel Company in Port Angeles on our way out and picked up the Apple Crunch bagel. This is of course the notorious bagel that my mom thinks single-handedly ruined her calorie total for life, but really, she's so healthy and trim, it's a ridiculous thought. I, on the other hand, have no qualms about munching on this little ring of heaven. Ahh, the heady days of youth. After spending a pretty relax evening, we got up Saturday morning to go to Butchart Gardens. I came here with my family when I was six or seven years old. We were living in beautiful Boise, Idaho at the time when we came to Seattle and I decided that I wanted to live here some day. Look at me! Achieving goals! These gardens on Vancouver Island are incredible. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Here is the sunken garden.
And the pond at the back of the sunken garden. The new monkey puzzle tree. The old one, which we took our picture in front of twenty years ago has gone the way of the mulcher. Poor thing. Looking down into the Japanese garden. (Just what every garden should be, but maybe I'd go a little lighter on the west-side of the Pac Rim thing.) And then finally, looking down towards their own private harbor. Hello! What a nice yard. Maybe my new goal should be to live on Vancouver Island . . . no. Too far. Too cold. I'll just buy lots of land in Montana and build a sunken garden out there. I could spend many happy weeks. Just me and my bulldozer. Hey, a girl can dream can't she?