Hiya,

I write from Seattle this week.  I'm just back here from a week on Vancouver Island at an old lodge perched on a rock.  We flew up on a seaplane which was a big huge thrill.  The pilot gathers the passengers from a mish mash of chairs in a casual room on the edge of a lake and, a few minutes later, pulls back on a knob and - tra la! - the water is way below.  I'd been up here in the middle of the summer too, and was delighted to watch the islands I'd visited then drift by on our way north.  It's all making a bit more sense now.

After a couple of nights in a cabin we moved to "the barracks," airy shelters with a bed, a light, and a wall that opened up to the water.  Shore birds woke us up just at dawn, otters jolted us awake in the middle of the night.  There are loons up there and nothing is more melancholy than their call.  Tug boats pulled logs south, vagabond sailboats wended their way north. 

One day we rented a double kayak and "made the crossing."  Six boats took off from our side of the waterway and slipped across to Thetis Island, about 2 miles away.  From there we paddled up an inlet to its end, a murky, dark glen of vines and abandoned cottages and rotting boats.  Back out in the open water we found a rocky outcropping where we stopped to eat our brown bagged lunches.  Feeling like school children (I did) we unwrapped our sandwiches ("TUNA fish!!!") and ate our cookies under the stern eye of some cormorants and annoyed gulls.  And then, on top of delightfully still water, we crossed back, gliding across with hardly a ripple to break our paths. 

Later, in the drawn-out quiet of the afternoon, a staff member delivered an urgent message to us: there had been a car accident.  It seemd that everyone was fine, but we needed to go - immediately - to the hospital.  Chris and her brother, who had taken an afternoon excursion, were in an ambulance, we were told, and, well, we were on our way.  Imagine.  Kayaking and ambulances and vacation and hospitals all at once.  The short story is that they are fine.  The ambulance was a precaution but the x-rays showed nothing.  The doctor told Chris she'd be sore (she is) but that she would get better over time (that, too, is true.)  Karl is fine too, shaken, but unharmed. 

Their car could not be driven, however, so our plan of driving home with them turned into a return on the little yellow seaplane.  Once again the pilot stowed our bags and, pushing forward on the power stick, coaxed our plane up and off the water.  This time we all pointed out our now-familiar rocks, our lodge, our barracks, our lunch spot.  And, once again, before we knew it, we had landed on the lake, this time the one in Seattle, and were back in Chris's waiting car on our way to this home.

I'll be back in North Carolina on Monday.  See you Tuesday.

Oh, Don't Postpone Joy.