Back Home Again

It would be hard to overstate what a wonderful week we had in Whistler, B.C. What a beautiful place! Whistler sits in a valley rimmed by jagged mountains. Its having been the scene of the 2010 Winter Olympics only adds to its charm. Being there with our good friends Deb and Tom Zynda was the icing on the cake. It's been a few days since I've blogged, and so I need to catch up on a few things.

Thursday, Deb and I visited the aboriginal Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre. Deb was an anthropology major in college, and has a wealth of knowledge about the First Peoples of North America. We took a guided tour of the museum and its associated art galleries along with two of the most ill-behaved children and clueless parents I've ever seen.

The museum is a mutual celebration of the Squamish Nation, whose symbol is this eye:

And the Lil'wat Nation, whose symbol is these mountains and their reflection.

The two nations worked in cooperation for generations.

Our guide explained this totem pole, which interestingly, was 200 feet from a Seattle resident's home. Although in plain view, they didn't notice it until clearing some trees from the property.

The Squamish people are noted for their canoe building. These canoes are hollowed from a single tree. This one is about 40 feet long, although canoes of 70 feet are not unusual. Notice the "bumps" on the cross pieces in the canoe.

They represent the spirit selves of the oarsmen.

Our guide explained that the first peoples of the two nations were expert carvers, basket weavers, and cloth weavers, and that it was the abundance of the land that allowed them to engage in these artistic pursuits. There was plenty for them to eat and plenty of natural resources, which allowed them time for other things aside from simply subsisting.

Our tour also included a lesson in rope-making from cedar bark. Here are the strips of bark we were working with that have been soaking in water to make them pliable.

We looped them around a peg and then twisted the individual strands outward and continued crossing right over left to form these ropes.

If you're doing it correctly, you can release the ends without having them come apart.

Then we tied the ends in a knot. Deb's was long enough to form a bracelet. Mine is more like a bookmark.

I only took the image below because I thought it gave a mouse's perspective on Smitty's face.

That's about all I have to say about the museum. It was interesting and well worth a visit. 

Now I have a couple of leftover images from Whistler, and I'll tell you about the trip home. This "leftover" image is a sign from the restaurant where we had lunch in Pemberton, B.C., north of Whistler. It was a great restaurant. Incredible food in huge portions all for a good price. The chef brought out our meals and then checked in with us to talk about the preparation. I was quite taken with this sign at the restaurant's entrance. Perhaps some time I will embroider it for my own kitchen.

On the way home from Whistler, we stopped off at Shannon Falls in Squamish. This was a huge waterfall. I tried to make a video of it, but it wasn't that good, punctuated by someone coughing, and so I bagged it. Sorry I can't give you a better picture. The waterfall was high overhead.

The drive from Vancouver, B.C., to Whistler was one of the most scenic I've ever ridden. It was hard to get good pictures on the way up because we were on the wrong side. On the way home, we stopped in at a boat launch and picnic area where we were able to take some better pictures. The bouys you see in the water marked sunken wrecks for divers to explore and that will hopefully also build some reefs.

This is the view from the other direction.

About an hour later, we crossed back into the USA. We had about a dozen and a half eggs that I expected would be confiscated, but the border agent waved us on through.

We spent the night in Mt. Vernon, Washington, and then headed for home the next morning. It's always fun seeing the Space Needle.

Even better is crossing over the Columbia River into our home state and knowing it's only about another hour to home. I was missing my kitties bad. More accurately, I was missing my bad kitties.

Everyone was happy and healthy when we arrived. We usually separate them when we are gone for a long time, but it seems Mr. Smitty has settled down enough to be trusted not to pester Gracie too much. When I opened the patio door, both were right there and Gracie took a mighty leap over Smitty to get outdoors to the green grass as quickly as possible. Apparently, Gracie is a grazing cat and was Jonesing for her grass.

As for this guy, he's already had his morning mouse, leaving the guts on the carpet for us to find this morning. Yuck. It's good to be home and find business as usual.

Everything looked good when we came home. Erik was up to water a couple of times because the weather was hot and dry while we were gone.

Since arriving home, I've been looking at the quilting competition rules finally posted on the Oregon State Fair website and planning my work for the next couple of months. I've learned that I can only enter four quilts in the fair, and so that means my quota is filled for the 2015 fair. These are the quilts I'm planning to enter:

Shoot for the Moon and Psycatdelic still need hanging sleeves, and so time's a'wasting on those. It means I can slow down on my plan to quilt the Irish Doors and re-prioritize my work a little. The Irish Doors will be first on the list for entry into next year's fair, and I can still enter it in Stitches in Bloom in January. I only bring this up because I was feeling a little under the gun to get things finished, and now I can relax some.

Since I still owe you a quilt shop, I'll stop here and tell you about that in a separate post.