It's a hanging sphere in the forest.  My friend told me about this and how she and her friends would go camping there around her birthday.  Well, here they are in the wonderful globual glory.  If you're interested in booking a night, my friend it cost about $300 for the weekend.  The concept is absolutely cool.

Sympatico/MSN carries this article about the Free Spirit Spheres at Qualicum Beach that I stumbled across.  The guy who designed these wooden balls in the sky was originally going to make spherical boats. I guess there's more value in real estate on land than floating on water. It might be a great idea to get some friends together and go for a weekend.  I wonder what the rules on music and dancing are?

Ended up at Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, as the sun was promising to come out. Bummed that we didn't get a room at the Sea Flame Inn, mostly because we liked the sign. Happy to be at the Sand Pebble Motel, and are growing fond of the pink carpet.

Had fish and chips at a pub (sorry, Nancy), then walked on the beach to take pictures and take pictures of each other taking pictures. (Will try to do a second post with Kate's pix.) The blue roof is where we are staying.

The sun came out and we had snacks, sat outside and read and napped.

We've discussed the sound of the word, "lulled", whether or not cutting down on caffeine would relax me (I claim this IS relaxed), why she wants to specialize 10th century European architecture (and dabble in 11th), and who we would choose as our desert island companion (she chose her sister, I chose her dad, neither of us chose each other). She has her guitar and she wants to know how long I could go without the internet.

I claimed three days, if I had to, but wonder why I would want to.

PS. A few false starts for dinner, but ended up at a place on the water called Shady Rest. It was chicken wings night, but we passed and got cocktails and seafood salads instead. Skipped the dessert, because, well, we (avert your eyes, Nancy) had soft serve ice cream before dinner (they had 24 flavors, we went for a beer and they only had ice cream, we were powerless).

Kate wears her Grandpa Bill's Cub Scout ring. It is the longest she has kept any piece of jewelry.

Home for wine in juice glasses, more reading and a sunset.

"Qualicum - where the dog salmon run."

Qualicum Beach ist eine Stadt (seit dem 7. Januar 1983) im Distrikt Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Kanada. Sie liegt malerisch im Schatten des Mount Arrowsmith an der Straße von Georgia... hier leben viele Künstler und die Stadt und ihre Umgebung wurden im Laufe der Zeit ein beliebtes touristisches Ziel für die Einwohner von Victoria und Vancouver und so ist die Gemeinde übersät von Cottages, die für den Urlaub, fern von den Großstädten, anmietet werden können. Aber Qualicum Beach ist auch bekannt dafür, dass viele Menschen diesen Ort zum Altersruhesitz auserkoren haben und so wundert es kaum, dass Qualicum Beach im Durchschnitt die älteste Bevölkerung Kanadas hat. Fliegt man also CAT4 an oder verlässt den Platz, sollte man sich unbedingt an die An-/ Abflugregeln halten, die auch auf Schildern am Platz (zur Erinnerung) aufgeführt sind. Wird dies mißachtet, ist Ärger mit der Nachbarschaft angesagt!

Kommen wir zur Umsetzung von CAT4 für den FS9

Der Platz wurde ziemlich detailgetreu bereits im Sommer 2004 von Ken Peters erstellt – ist also schon fast ein Oldtimer in Sachen Szeneriedesign – stellt aber ein weiteres Perlchen dar, und sollte auf keinem Pacific-Northwest-Simulator 9 fehlen.

Es gibt zum Platz nicht allzu viel zu erzählen, darum schauen wir uns einfach ein paar Bilder an.

Den Platz gibt es als FREEWARE bei Avsim.com und bei Flightsim.com und ist unter Qulicum Beach zu finden.

Hier gibt es noch ein paar Karten zum Platz!

Here’s a quick rundown of some pantomime in the area:
The Chemainus Theatre has Rumpelstiltskin running from Dec. 20 – Jan. 3,
Ladysmith Little Theatre features A Very Sticky Christmas from Dec. 26 – Jan. 6,
Peter and the Wolf plays at the Nanaimo Theatre Group Dec. 26 – Jan. 5,
Echo Players Village Theatre in Qualicum will be putting on Puss in Boots Dec. 19 – 31st,
and Courtenay Little Theatre has Snow White at the Sid from Dec. 26 – 31st.

Do Try and catch some of these showings...

According to our eldest, there's a great advantage to Qualicum Beach over Parksville - there are virtually no pieces of shells in the sand at Qualicum, so she could easily run around in bare feet and didn’t have to be so careful when digging the moat of her castle by hand.

Even better, though, were the geoducks (pronounced goo-ee-ducks), which are the world’s largest burrowing clams – there were hundreds just in the small area where we played. They live deep in the sand (for well over a century!) and feed through a siphon that sticks out through the surface. If you’re walking near one of these siphons, they retract, often shooting up tall streams of water, which produced squeals of delight from our youngest.