Grandpa's 85th - Cathedral Grove

Wednesday

Wednesday we all met at the Shaw house for breakfast and then we left grandpa behind and Carol took us to the Cathedral Grove. First, we went to visit Doug’s grave.

After some time, we bid Doug farewell and headed on to the grove.

The Cathedral Grove is amazing. All the trees are huge, but some are spectacular.

It was a short walk of only a mile or two, but it felt like a sacred place.

At one point we came to a river and a tree had fallen over the river. 

We spent most of our time there playing on the banks of the river.

This is the tallest tree in the grove

When we were done at the grove we headed to a Parksville a park in north Nanaimo. But on the way we stopped at the “Goats on Roof” store. It is nothing more than a glorified convenience store but the fact that they have goats on the roof of their store makes it quite unique. 

Their donuts and ice cream also make it worth the stop.

The park was quite amazing. Some of us headed straight to the beach but others of us hung out in the playground playing with the kids. 

They had a cool zip line that was made safe for little kids, and they had these swings with two seats, one for an adult and one for a child.

Eventually most of us made it out to the beach. For those of us who were used to San Diego beaches it was surprising at how fast and how high the tide came in. It was a fourteen-foot tide and our typical tide is maybe five feet.

The coolest part were the sand dollars. There were hundreds of them and most of them alive.

We searched through them all until we found a few dead ones that we could take home.

We played around in the water until we were all ready to head back to the house. It was an amazing playground right on the beach. They should do this with La Jolla Shores.

Back at the house we just relaxed for a few hours, played games, ate dinner and called it a day.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Every single kernal in a cob of corn has a tube attached to it. It extends from the top of the cob and we see it as "corn silk". If a strand doesn't get fertilized by wind blown pollen, then that kernal of corn won't develop.

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