The Family Comes to Town, among other things

As I previously alluded, four family members miraculously appeared on my lawn and demanded attention, entertainment, and fridge/closet/cupboard space.

 

It should come as no surprise that they arrived laden with food. New things to try and snacks, and cheese and this that and the other. Not to mention the three flats of fruit.


I think my family has a problem with food.

Monday night Mom made my request: Curry. I was gleeful, Leonie was joyous... Leonie also made this delicious saag paneer type dish. I could just eat that with rice for days.

They stayed for a week, and here are some of their (our) adventures. On Monday they came to the nursery. It poured. On Tuesday they wandered around Port Angeles and the Elwha area. On Wednesday...

Victoria

Martha and Orlando were working on a Washington bird list, so she spent a while prowling around looking for birds  before we hit international waters.
(Because those birds don't count for WA...)

While trying to show me a duck or something, we witnessed a seal and a gull get in a little tussle. The gull was sitting on the surface picking up scraps of whatever the seal was eating. Then it got greedy. It went straight to the source, which snapped at its little bird feet. That scared it off for, oh, a minute, and then the tenacious little gull was back. Personally I'd rather do my own fishing than risk losing my feet but... eh.

 It was clear-ish on the way out of the port, so there was a pretty stunning view to be had. Even Rachel, who finds the the whole stunning landscape thing a little overrated, thought it was pretty. Ha! I won!

Complete whale skeleton

There were a bunch of cool (fake) fossils in the natural
history exhibit.

Once we landed and got through what passes as border patrol/customs, we took off for the Royal British Museum. There was a sweet natural history exhibit, and a neat First Nations/First People exhibit as well. The latter was rather labyrinthine and I immediately lost Rachel, although a little later I heard a throat clearing that spoke to my genetics and upon following it... found Martha


Did I mention there was a reproduction of a woolly mammoth?

Part of the First People's exhibit

 She was in an exhibit showing trends from the last century or something, which is where I saw this beautiful dress. Silk and wool I think
There was also a random lynx. So here, have a lynx.

When they went back to explore it more later, they found a whole other  exhibit behind this one, of a miniature logging town or something. You'd have to ask them, I went on other adventures.

Martha treated us to Tea at the Empress. Boy oh boy did I ever feel like a klutzy farm girl.

The tea pots had neat little handle cozies. Fancy!

 Despite my certainty that I somehow would manage to break everything  in our tea service, my only mishap was dropping a knife. And not holding my tea cup by the handle (They're so tiny! What if the handle slips out of my fat fingers and shatters into a million pieces!?).
And for putting chapstick on. I got the frown and head shake for that. Who knew. Not me!

Not the most marvelous of pictures, but  our wonderful server Marylin did what she could.

Super rich scones that made us all flounder

As I mentioned, after tea I took my swollen belly and too tight jeans and went for a walk.
The initial plan was to find the Bug Zoo, hold stick insects, stare at beetles... you know. Have fun. To my dismay however, the Bug Zoo was closed! I walked around the whole building to be certain there wasn't a hidden entrance anywhere. Well there wasn't.

Instead I went to the one block area that is Victoria's China Town. I found plenty to entertain me, got some lovely origami paper for Leonie, and a few longans to eat. Martha and I had them in Hawaii and for some reason I seek them out now.
If you've never had a longan... well you aren't really missing much I guess, they're kind of sweet, remind me of grapes.

After discovering I had more time to kill, I booked it back to the Museum, or more like the little park next to it to check out the totem poles. I got particularly attached to this face.

There's a sizable park in Victoria, called Beacon Hill Park. Part of it is more or less not landscaped; rocky with oaks... I could have been in the foothills of the Sierras (if the oaks were bigger). 

 Orlando got crab while we were in BC, and so we picked out crab and had crabetizers before dinner.

Thanksgiving

As you may imagine, we had Thanksgiving the next day. The Turkey hadn't thawed completely, but that was pretty much the only crisis. All but Rachel went to the Dungeness Spit to wander around while I did the baking. 

Made a lemon meringue and a butternut squash pie, and butterhorn rolls. Did pretty well if I may say so myself

Guess who got bored waiting for the turkey to get done? (Hint: it starts with an R)

It was nice not to have to worry about all the delicate family china and glasses... Although the Cranberry bowl made its
way up from Ca just for the occasion.

Neah Bay

The next day we went to Neah Bay to explore the Makah Museum and wander around Cape Flattery. We kept pulling over to look at birds... I yelled GOLDEN EAGLES!!! And boy did that get their attention, even if I was too excited about seeing eagles to spit out the right name. But dude, (bald) EAGLES!!

We went to the Makah museum, it was interesting if not the best labeled exhibit. In the 70's or 80's a town that had been buried in a mud slide 500 yrs ago was painstakingly uncovered and the artifacts are displayed at the museum. I'm not sure how to describe my reaction to it. Even though it isn't my heritage, it had a sort of visceral pull on me. 

http://www.makah.com/mcrchome.html 

Next stop CAPE FLATTERY.
There was a nice little trail through the woods

Mom wandering along the trail

Just another beautiful day in the Pacific North West... But we saw pelicans! That was pretty exciting.

 One cheesy photo please?

On the way to the cape Martha said she saw some deathcaps, but implied that I was likely to be blasé because doubtlessly I had seen them before. Nope. Nope, I had not. They stopped the car in the middle of the road, I got out, and took pictures. This is in no way atypical of my family.

I suggest opening this file to its original size, and staring...

The road out to the cape was soooo very windy, even mom got green at the gills. Took Dramamine on the way back, slept, missed seeing elk, and snored (according to Martha). But I didn't get sick. 

They left the next day and... I'll see them again in a few weeks when I'm in the valley for the holidays.

Work work work...

Then BELLINGHAM!

Went to the last NSEA work party for the season. The only really productive thing I did was make that sign. And try to hold down the displays when the wind picked up.

D'anna's Cafe Italiano for lunch

Can you spot my otter?

In other news, I have been trying to knit socks. It hasn't proved to be quite as terrifying as I imagined. 

I stole this from the internet

It is a well known fact now (to me) that Leonie really would like to see a raccoon. They aren't native in Germany so one must go to a zoo to lay eyes on such a masked bandit. She's seen a few, but they've been dead. 

Last night Nico drove on a sidewalk to chase a raccoon. Yup. 

Which prompts me to leave you with this

I also stole this from the internet