For many of us, summertime means sunshine and travels along
with lots of other wonderful things. With the BC Summer Games being held in the
Cowichan Valley this year, we had a very special reason to go so decided to take the RV and visit Vancouver
Island to watch our grandson compete in field lacrosse at the Summer Games.
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| Vancouver coastal view |
The coastal views are amazing and we had blue sky and
sunshine for most of our visit. There
might come a time that I feel I have taken enough photos of any given place
this beautiful but I doubt it! The next
one I take could just be a bit better! Look at all those layers!
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| BC Ferry 'Coastal Inspiration' |
The main means of travel to the Island is by ferry. Due to taking the RV across on the ferry during
the busy summer season, we reserved a spot to avoid making a long wait at the
terminal. This has to be done a few
weeks in advance in order to make sure there is room for reservations and it
only cost $10 so is well worth it.
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| Town Crier at Opening Games |
Shanel Protap, the sportscaster of BC Global News did a
great job of hosting the ceremonies and kept things moving once it began. Due to the heavy traffic for the area,
certain persons were held up which caused a delay for this celebration. This Town Crier announced the Ceremonies to
begin.
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| The athletes have arrived |
The Opening Ceremonies were held at Laketown Ranch at
Youbou. This incredible stage and set up
was perfect to host the huge crowd that would be there to welcome the 3000
athletes, coaches and helpers that were here to compete in the BC Summer Games. The excitement with these young athletes was
evident as they all marched onto the grounds in front of the stage.
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| O Canada |
These three ladies sang our national anthem and I do not
believe I have ever heard it done as beautifully as this was done. One sang in English, another in French and
one in their native tongue. It was
incredible, I only wish I had been recording them.
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| Dancing ceremony |
Next we saw a welcoming dance done by several dancers of all
ages which was a powerful and exciting dance to watch. The enthusiasm and talent they display makes one
want to join in. I love to see the
costumes and especially enjoy the little ones doing their dance. There were several dance styles done onstage
including Highland as well as modern dance done by local dance groups.
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| Poet Shane Koyczan |
Shane Koyczan is a Canadian poet and writer who recited his
poem for the televised 2010 Winter Olympics and was amazing. I was thrilled to see him perform at these BC
Summer games, he is such an inspirational poet.
I felt he was definitely targeting those teenagers with words of wisdom
but unfortunately, it was quite long and it seems that many of these excited
teens on the verge of some very important events were not able to concentrate
on what he was telling him. As excited
as I was to hear what he had to say, I, too, lost concentration about half way
through.
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| Olympic swimmer Brent Pratap |
The evening was getting long and chilly and many of the
spectators had left due to the heavy traffic volume they would have to deal
with leaving the Ceremony grounds. That
did not discourage
Brent Hayden from telling the crowd about his struggles as a
child to even learn to swim let alone expect to win an Olympic medal, but he
never gave up and did exactly that.
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| Bronze Medal winners |
After four hot days of practice and games, our grandson and
his team won the Bronze Medal for Field Lacrosse. They worked hard and made us all very proud
of their sportsmanship and talents.
Congratulations to the coaches and their team! Well done!
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| Visiting Saltspring Island |
A short ferry ride over to Saltspring Island from our RV Park
for a family dinner at Versuvius before they all headed home was a nice way to
wind down our exciting week. We’d seen
all the games our grandson had played in and were ready for a relaxing week to
come. All that excitement wears us
grandparents out!
The Cowichan Valley with all their organizers and volunteers
did an incredible job of hosting the BC Summer Games!
The only sport we saw was the Field Lacrosse
so can only speak for those facilities but the field was beautiful with
artificial turf!
They did an amazing job
at everything we saw.
Many kudos to them
all!
See more of
Vancouver Island here.
