Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Stories from Galiano

OK I have 3 stories...if you have lived in BC for any amount of time and know anything about the islands you will so get this...this is just SO the islands...
1) We went to the local pub to see if we could bring the kids in to have dinner. There aren't many restaurants on the island so we were checking out our options...Shaun walks in. There are 5 waitresses standing around talking. Not one acknowledges him for quite awhile. He tries catching their eye...NOTHING. finally he said "I have some wee ones...can they come in here and eat?" Every single waitress stopped dead and turned and looked at him with real interest. One of them asked him what he had said. So he rephrased it with "I have some small children. Are they allowed to eat here?" They started laughing quite a bit and then one of them said..."We thought you said you had weed! You saw how interested we got."
2) The next morning we went searching for some breakfast out. We went to a cafe and then the grocery store (which the cafe was attached too). It was 9:55 a.m. The gorcery store didn't open until 10 a.m. I finally got the clerks attention through the locked grocery store door. And asked her if there was any place that did breakfast on the island. She paused for awhile and shook her head and said in a long drawn out way, " Nooooo...we don't really do breakfast here." So after the pub and their interest in weed we figured they smoke weed into the wee hours of the morning while munching and just really don't do breakfast. We finally found breakfast at Galiano Inn and it was yummy.
3) There is this land on the East side of Galiano that was sold off by developers...there is a long drawn out story behind this but apparently the Galiano trust changed all the laws after this land was sold so that the people who bought the land cannot build on it because their land size it too small. They have something like 120 acres and you have to have 150 in order to build a house. YEAH! OK so these landowners have been trying to get the laws changed etc. It's been a long drawn out battle and not pretty. The road that runs through their property is the only access to a provincial park that is absolutely stunning (unless you go through Tribal Land...and you have to get permission to do this blah blah blah). SO what the landowners have done is put up a gate across this road so now people cannot access the Provincial park except by boat. Well the thing is I have this husband who figures that any gate is meant to be crossed, especially since he has a 4x4. uh huh...so we drove around the gate in the ditch...it really was no big deal and his cousin followed in his truck (which is a 2x4...so really...NOT a big deal). Now Shaun has done this with his dad, already, on a few occasions but this was the first time I had been here. There is a really nice road that you can drive on all the way up to the park gate. And not a soul around. LOVELY! So off we went. Going around this gate saves you at least an hour of walking on a boring road and makes it possible for families with small children to get to the beauty of the park right away and the beach with only a 30 minute hike. Well we had our nice hike...got back to the car and just as we are opening our car a man, a woman, and 3 dogs walk up from the road. They did not look like they had been walking long. They said "hi". They were looking at us rather curiously. Were very friendly. And then the guy asked "So how did you get it in here". I kind of smirked and said "Oh we have a 4x4". He laughed along with everyone else and said "oh yeah...my dad owns that gate." We sobered up rather quickly. He realized we thought he may be displeased and he quickly reassured us that his dad would find it hilarious and oh by the way he himself owned Bodega Ridge (which we had hiked on the day before) and we had his permission to hike there anytime as well (we had thought it was a Provincial Park...still unclear on that point). He then proceeded to tell us the land story. We told him our breakfast story from that morning and he laughed and said it was true. He ended up being a really nice guy and we saw him putting his girlfriend on the same ferry we left on and he waived and gave us a big smile...never did exchange names but he has a resort there so we know where to kind him and his girlfriend has a white Boxer and she would buy our puppy if one turned out white...nice people.
That's just so the islands...

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