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Ignore that this says I'm Meesthare. I'm Patrick using her computer. She's busy making blackberry ice cream for tomorrow night.

This trip has suddenly become very dull without a single major incident in the past two days. It's just a simple whirlwind of fantastic weather, great fun, super food, the great Butchart Gardens today (I left a little of Lee in the mount in the sunken gardens among the azaleas), and lots of laughs here and there.

Oh, should I mention I got stopped by the cops last night on the way back from dinner to Sooke? It was a full fledged road block and they were stopping everyone. Will they know I lied when I said I had only had one drink (I actually had two)? But they let me go. All that food soaked up the alcohol and I was sober as a judge.

So tonight, I'm NOT driving, but riding with Cindy and Steven so I can consume as much as I want!

OK, this is PATRICK again, not Meesthare.

I got out of the house this morning to leave the kitchen to Cindy and Stephen (after Stephen made pancakes with the thickest maple syrup I ever saw!). Magic seems to be happening in there and the house now smells of roasting corn and peppers. And I got a taste of the blackberry (with cinnamon) ice cream.

I decided not to drive into Victoria to join the others for the tug boat ballet (I'm forbidden to, remember?), but I went down to the nearby Whiffen Spit in Sooke Harbor and had a wonderful walk. It's a narrow spit winding through the harbor (maybe about a mile?) littered with giant driftwood, surrounded by playing otters and seals, and the gorgeous snowcapped Olympic range looming across the water. It is spectacular. Of course it took forever because all these friendly Canadians stop me and chat about who I am, why I am here, and then offer a thousand suggestions of what I MUST do and see. I'm avoiding the "we're a bunch of people who met on an internet chat room" line.

Honestly, I have to give the credit to GR - she truly did the lion's share of organizing and planning. I produced dinner for everybody one night, but the gold medal goes to GR for all her work in making this the success that it was. There's no way I could have taken on as much as she did, and I don't know how she managed - but she did so beautifully.