Harrison Tulip Festival

It was a great day for a Tulip Festival,  Sunshine blue sky and warm spring weather. I still bundled Madigan the cockapoo into his Canucks blue and green hockey sweater. I dressed in leathers thankful to Murray for finding my equestrian chaps when he worked on the storage locker the day before helping me apply silicone sealant to the camper.  It was a busy weekend and this ride to the Tulip Festival would top it off. I’d slept in so missed church but still we could enjoy God’s country and drink in the sensational vibrant explosion o spring tulip colours.  I think of it as surprise candy for the eyes or even LSD for the eyes.  It’s such a glorious uplifting experience each year I participate in the wonder.

This year I rode my Harley Nighster Spcial out past Port Moody on the number 7 road. It’s a great ride I’ve taken so many times. Lots of other bikers enjoying the sunshine and dry.  I love passing Ruskin where my good friend lived.  There’s the river and the smells of the saw mill.  The lakes have ducks and the gas stations on either side of the road bring back many memories.  I’d ridden my Buell Blast out this way to Harrisons and later took Laura on the back of my Harley Roadster for great weekends at the Hot Springs .  Sometimes we’d leave the bike in the big parking lot behind the Hotel and Spa or stay at the Beach hotel with the locked underground parking lot I felt safe leaving my Harley in.  Leathers and back packs and a weekend in the country with walks by the lake. Fabulous memories.

I enjoyed passing Harrison River and crossing the bridges into Agazziz.  I almost missed the Harrison Tulip Festival when I came down the hill.  It was suddenly there so I had to do a U turn and find the entrance. I’d thought it was more over by the town towards Rosedale.  Yet here it was a short way before the Harrison Lake and Agazziz turn off. 

I had to ride the bike on gravel and grass but the Nightster special was light enough to tolerate it well.  Parking was a problem because the stand sunk in the soft soil so I had to lean the front wheel against a fence post.  

Madigan had been a real trooper on the way out riding with his head out of the Harley Box , trying to look around my wind blocking body. I could watch him in my mirrors. Now he wanted out and quickly ran about the bike peeing on everything stretching his limbs and loving the freedom. When I’d packed my gear in the saddlebags I put a leash on him and headed to the entrance.  $20 for adults. $15 for seniors and pets welcome.  They had line ups for hot dogs , Greek food pouting but all I wanted was a coke. Then Madigan and I were among the tulips.  

Surrounded by colour.  What a blast of heaven!   The Mount Vernon tulip festival is much larger and the first I really enjoyed.  There are several farms so it was an adventure years ago when I first went, riding on the motorcycle to one tulip farm after another all within a dozen miles radius.  The first tulip festival I experienced was in my 20’s in Holland when it wasn’t a festival but just farms forever of tulips in their radiant splendour.   

This Harrison Tulip Festival was a joy for its proximity and for its location. The snowcapped mountain back drop was terrific for photos They’d also put out old tractors and cars around the field that kids and girls loved to have their pictures taken on, There were many beautiful women in frilly spring frocks with their daughters similarly attired for this fabulous photo op. It’s a family event and really multi ethnic.  The tulip festival really brings out the young families with the men glad to take pictures and walk with their wives and children about the rows of tulips.  Young romantic couples are definitely into selfies along with the laughing groups of teen girls.  I was the old guy with a dog and probably fit more with the single photographers out taking advantage of the photographers dream.  Such a spectacular setting and so many interesting people among glorious tulips.

Madigan and I mounted the Harley and headed back to the sitting making the mandatory Macdonald’s  burger top in Mission. He loves his Macdonald’s burger patty as long as I break it up for him. I was happy with the quarter pounder and cheese and thankful for the coffee. It’s essential to be alert and not day dreaming on a motorcycle. I ‘d started out at 1230 and was returning at 630.  A long day for me building up the stamina for motorcycling once again.  Madigan was a great partner enjoying jumping up onto the motorcycle after his burger stop.  He’d appreciate the water breaks too in the warm weather.  

It was good to arrive home.  He went straight to his water dish having had to use up his reserves piddling on everything to mark his new territory.  I put the tulip magnet on the fridge door and considered it a great day.  

Thank God for spring and the wonder of nature, 

Civilian Seal Visit and Decapitated Groundhog

I enjoyed waking on the boat this morning. Looking out my window I first had a troop of Canadian geese go by. That was followed by a dashing flock of young grey sea gulls competing for the mouldy bread I’d found in the freezer and threw out to them. The sea gull ruckus then attracted  a couple of young seals.  What a great visitation for the morning.
The temperature in Vancouver is steadily warming up.  There are crocuses showing all over the city.  I found myself already thinking of the Mount Vernon spring Tulip festival. We’ve been to Harrison Hot Springs and probably will be back sometime in March. That always seems to heal the ravages winter does to the aging bodies.  But the Mount Vernon Tulip Festival just blows the mind. The bright colours wake up the year.  
Laura’s sister has texted her asking if she’ll open her Maine Island Art Studio  April 19th. That's the first day of the Gulf Island Bird Festival.  Caroline annually puts down her paintbrush and picks up her running shoes to come to  the Vancouver Sun Run.  My Winnipeg friend Wes is right now doing his annual pilgrimage to the Mexican beaches. My Vancouver friend Richard has just returned from Puerta Vallata. Richard’s return  really must mean the worst of the Vancouver winter is over here.  Doug’s still fishing off the Mexican coast but Doug’s migrations are as much influenced  by fish movement as weather change.  He’s posting tuna catches on Facebook to the envy of all. Yet Bill just caught a monster trout here and put the picture of that 13 lb beauty up on Facebook.   That means more snowbirds will start their migration north.  I doubt Johnny off in Thailand will be affected by these local movements. He’s more affected by the elephants playing in the ocean off his beaches.  He was putting up pictures of that last month when insane Canadians were participating in the annual polar bear swims.  
I know there’s a ground hog out there somewhere doing computer projections of Climate Change.  I saw on Facebook that an eastern wolf ate it when it gave depressing news before their latest blizzards hit.   I’ve grown suspicious of the United Nations Climate Change predictors because their political hot air about Palestine and Israel seems to throw off all their instruments.  For all I know Islamic Nation beheaded the ground hog.
Personally I rely on evidence of Facebook friends. Laura posted the  pictures of crocuses.   In my office the wave of suicidal complaints that begin in November is cresting now that we’re at the end of January.  My accountant friends are becoming frenzied in the rush to meet the annual taxation jihad by our government.  Gilbert’s hair was so matted with winter growth that I’ve had him shorn last night so he’s half the dog he used to be.
Around me on the dock one or two other skippers are getting their boats ready for spring sailing.  There’s notices out of the spring Motorcycle Runs. It’s hard to believe that February begins tomorrow and the book launch for my book, Psychiatry and Addiction, Personal Perspectives is just a month off, March 1st, Sunday, at the Alano Club 6 to 9 pm.  When Bernice was helping me get that project completed it was fall and a spring launch seemed an eternity away.  Where did Christmas and New Years go
I spent the first couple of weeks of January in Turkey so the build of work that I returned to has had me run off my feet. Time just seems to fly with age. Looking in the mirror I ask who’s the guy with the white santa claus beard.  But I remember December when the ice was on the boat and water pipes on the dock were frozen I wondered if the winter would ever end.  Now I feel sorry for my friends out east.  This week I had the top down on my Miata sports car and lots of motorcycles were back on the streets of Vancouver.  In the rest of Canada people are envying their neighbours who traded their cars in for snow plows. Soon the ice from sleet and frozen rain  will have families  wondering how much their cars will get for a trade in on a Zamborni machine.
I’m so thankful in Vancouver that spring comes a couple of months before the rest of Canada. There has to be some advantages to living in a city where the average house price is a million dollars for a hundred square feet, you can’t park your car anywhere for the bike lanes, and free empty syringes of drug addicts litter the streets.  Thankfully the spring rains will wash the roaches away.
Of course, when I skied at Whistler each weekend I never noticed how sullen Vancouver was in winter.  I might well talk about that as yesterday but it’s been a decade now since I skied at Whistler.  Somethings just seemed silly as I got sober with age. One of them was putting boards on my feet and flying down hill only to wait in lines and do it all over again.  I remember I loved that for decades but today what I miss most is the cross country skiing I fell in love with years ago in Winnipeg.  I last did that a few years back only because there’s no ‘dog friendly’ ski trails hereabout.  So much of my activity depends on  dog friendliness.  Gilbert and I would rather walk on the sea wall than go up the glorious Grouse Mountain where he’d face all the existing predjudice dogs encounter here in this city that prides itself on tolerance.
It really is paradise here.  Every day above ground is a good day.  I must focus more on gratitude because I’ve become a little snarky with winter hibernation.  Fears,resentments and self centeredness are really such an easy ‘default mode’.  As my Christian psychiatrist friend  is fond of saying, the world doesn’t have much need for any more bitter old people.  
Just as spring is coming again this year after winter seemed like it might not end, so each day is a new day.  I loved most the cartoon posted this week on Facebook with twins in the womb arguing about life after delivery.  One insisted there was no life after delivery and everything would be just darkness while the other had hope that there’d be more light and they’d meet their Mother.  That was awesome.
I think in Vancouver the seals know more than the ground hogs.