Although I am 18 digests behind in my reading, I had to post ! We just
returned from a wonderful two week Pacific NW vacation. I actually got my
husband to drive north from Vancouver B.C.to Horseshoe Bay and we got on one
of those big ferry boats with their bellies full of cars and tooted our way
over to the Sunshine Coast. We had just been on an Inside Passage cruise in
Alaska and the scenery there, near the Strait of Georgia, rivaled it squarely.
This is the place where Joni's property is that she is so lovely perched on in
the For the Roses' cover.
Anyway, we proceeded north through Sechelt and on to Half Moon Bay and
Middlepoint, running up and down that coastal highway trying to figure out
which place had to be hers. We saw Lord Jim's Inn where she stayed while she
was building the stone recluse (mentioned in the PWWM video- the knitting
incident) I hopped out and went in and felt really dumb, but tried to act
nonchalant and asked if anyone there knew her and which direction her place
would be? They were VERY loyal to her privacy and tried to throw me off base
and say they heard it was in Penders and other coastal areas. They did tell me
that yes that is where she stayed when she was building the place in the 70's.
So we went back to looking near that place and stopped in another Inn and a
few folks sitting at the bar in the Jolly Roger were far less loyal and were
able to tell us precisely where it was , but that there was a gate and maybe I
should phone first! Phone first??? I didn't think to look to see if her number
was in the white pages!
So we drove back up to the apex of the highway right before Middlepoint and
the new construction and below the 60KM sign and tried to find it, but it is
so heavily wooded and I really did not want to invade her or her caretaker's
privacy, so we just settled for where we thought it would be and tried to take
some pictures of the waterfront that it looks like on the FTR album. What we
realized was that just a week earlier our mega cruise ship left Vancouver and
traveled through the Strait of Georgia right past her place . The stone
cottage is supposed to be at sea level and could probably be seen from the
water. That made me sad to think that she bought it for its wilderness beauty
and there ain't much of that left now. At least she has a big enough spread
that it keeps snoopers like me at bay. I just wanted to know in my heart that
I was physically close to where she wrote a number of her earlier songs, esp.
from FTR. It is an awesome area with some of the Mts.. still snow capped in
July. When I get some of the pictures developed I will scan a few to the Yahoo
group. Sorry to ramble so, but it was a high point. God bless my hubby who
drove all over the place to help me with my dream and the two teenagers in the
backseat wondering if I had lost it all together. As we drove back through
Sechelt and waited for the return ferry, I wondered how many times she had
driven there and waited on that same ground? In those same lines? Used the
same restroom, okay now I am getting a little weird. I can not wait to see
her in Toronto in October. My best to all, Janine
