More from Victoria

I woke up this morning thinking, I'm ready to go home.  Vacations are great, but then it's also great to get back home.  Grace and I miss our kitties.

In the meantime, though, I'm having fun processing pics while Ed and Grace drive around again :)  We had a great breakfast at John's Place, which surprisingly had a bumper sticker that said "I [heart] Santa Cruz Diner."  What are the odds of finding that so far from home?

So here are a few more pictures from yesterday.  First, back to the Butterfly Garden.  Here's another one:

There was a bright white light in the upper corner, so I threw a texture on it.  I think it came out pretty nicely.  Second, here's another picture of the flamingoes:

Linkup to Your Sunday Best

I'm trying different ways of processing them, because of the blown highlights problem.  This one adds some color to their backs, and looks a little dreamy, I think.

Here are some turtles -- we almost missed them, because they were sitting like stones on the log.  There were also supposed to be some colorful frogs in the garden, but they decided not to show themselves, I guess.

Here's one of the many flower pictures I took at Butchart Gardens:

Linkup to Flower Art Friday

I love, love, love tuberous begonias, and they had so many nice ones.  The flowers were overwhelming, especially the roses, and the place was a bit overwhelming, too -- it's so big!  We didn't even go into the Japanese garden.  The weather was okay, it wasn't too hot, but out in the sun it was very warm and the day was a bit muggy, too (why do we so very seldom get mugginess on the Central Coast?), so after a while it became uncomfortable.  Also, I had two fellow travelers who liked the butterflies, but the gardens . . . not so much.  I think they should have left me off to putter around there all day -- it's a lot of walking, but I would have taken many rests.  

So, tomorrow we begin to wend our way home.  We take the ferry through the San Juan Islands (beautiful) and land at Anacortes, where -- yay -- we can turn on our cell phones!  We were so spooked by the fact that I ran up a $50 charge in about two minutes in Vancouver that we've left them off ever since.  We'll leave early Saturday morning, and be home on Sunday, unless we are so eager to be home that we decide to drive straight through to Santa Cruz, as we did the last time we were in Seattle.  It was a loooong drive, but at some point you think, oh, it's only five, six, whatever, hours home, let's just go for it.

I'll try to get around and visit some others tonight.  Hope you're having a great day, wherever you are!