By Maryanna Gabriel
After Tod Inlet we just
had to go to the Butchart Gardens. It was right there after all. The Butchart Gardens were developed by Jenny Butchart to compensate for the mess left the family company from quarrying limestone.
The garden has been continuously developed for over a hundred years and has close to a million visitors annually. My daughter and I were herded into the parking lot by a bevvy of attendents and then left to our own devices with a map as we explored. She decided formal gardens were not for her, too manicured, too proper, too inaccessible with lawns one could not scamper across and benches that were hard to procure amid the crowds. She peferred the natural gardens of the forest. Still, it is an impressive legacy to leave the world and much better than the mess it once was.
Afterwards we decided to go out for dinner as it was her birthday. We went to The Blue Bayou Cafe which was on the water in nearby Brentwood Bay. To the strains of Louis Armstrong's nostaligic s trumpet we munched on Fried Green Tomatoes and Jambalaya while a stuffed crocodile lay on the roof surveying the scene.
All perfectly wonderful.
