When I was growing up, we’d spend just about every summer out in the Pacific Northwest.  My Dad would teach and perform at music festivals (sometimes my mom too!) and we’d spend the glorious summer months in some of the most beautiful and scenic places around.  We primarily stayed in Seattle, a small little island in Puget Sound called Marrowstone, and Victoria British Columbia.  Yesterday for the first time in about 20 or so years I ventured back to Victoria with my mom.  I’d been back before of course but not with her.  It was an odd choice to leave my trusty camera at home but I felt like just experiencing everything fully would be the way to go.  I really did miss my camera though as the day kept treating us to visual delights that my phone’s camera just couldn’t quite do justice.  I still tried anyway.  We took the early morning ferry through the San Juan Islands and over to Sidney in Canada.  We saw several groups of dolphins along the way and I for one, could not get enough coffee in my system.  Once we arrived, we decided to revisit an old favorite, the tourist gem of the island, the Butchart Gardens.  As a kid I enjoyed spending time there, but as an adult I appreciated it on such different levels.  The intricacies of the gardens and flora and fauna were just really indescribable.  I kept joking that we were on Project Runway with our phones scurrying around to find as many interesting print, color, texture and pattern inspirations as we could to design a garment with.  It was just so lovely.  After the gardens we still had a little time in our day trip to head down to the harbor to see the majesty of the Empress Hotel.  It was a bit of a zoo in that area with all the double-decker red tour buses and the water taxies puttering about but it was so fun to just people watch and enjoy the spectacle.  To wrap the day up we were treated to a spectacular sunset on the ferry ride home complete with Mt. Baker towering in the distance looking down on us.  They say you can never go back but sometimes I think going back is the best thing we can do.