07/19/04’s illustrious band:

Eh Plus

The moment you’ve all been waiting for: Northwest Notes, Chapter 1!

Brought to you by Brentwood Bay Lodge & Spa of beautiful, bountiful Victoria, British Columbia. That's in Canada, eh?

Last year, my friend Skeeter moved to Des Moines to take a new job as editor of Garden Doctor magazine, a Better Homes & Gardens publication. Look him up; he’s on a newsstand not far from where you’re sitting right now. There’s two things you need to know about this man: (1) Skeeter will henceforth be known as the Garden Doctor, or G-Doc to his nearest and dearest, and (2) he knows the botanical and common names of every plant on this Earth. All of 'em.

A few months back, G-Doc attended a garden writers’ conference. He threw his business card into a fishbowl at somebody’s booth for a chance to win a trip for two to Victoria, BC, and promptly forgot about it. But he remembered right quick when the sponsors, those nice, generous people at ConTech, called to tell him he’d won. I found out about it when G-Doc called me to ask if I’d like to be Traveler #2. With airfare, car rental, lodging, and garden tours paid for? Would I ever!

So on Wednesday, July 7, we took to the skies. G-Doc flew from Des Moines to the Twin Cities, where I joined him in boarding a flight for Seattle. From there, we caught a 16-seat puddle-jumper to Victoria. There were only two other passengers aboard. Pilots Robert and Brian set us down safely half an hour later at Victoria International Airport.

The stringent customs procedure consisted of a nice man in a uniform saying, "Welcome to Canada, eh? What brings you here today?" He glanced at our passports -- mine acquired at great expense in a needless hurry, G-Doc's expired (don't tell anyone!) -- and waved us on through. The young men at the Budget car rental desk were equally glad to see us and hooked us up with a tan Grand Am, maps, and directions without delay.

G-Doc would rather navigate than drive, while the reverse is true for me, so the division of duties was easy. Once I figured out how to turn off the windshield wipers, we were on our way. I had been worried that G-Doc would try to tune the car radio to a country music station, which would have resulted in an unfortunate international incident. Fortunately, he spent the whole trip trying to find his favorite Canadian rockers, the Tragically Hip, on the radio, so all was well. Bounded by mountains, meadows, woods, and sea, we zoomed off down the coast toward the Brentwood Bay Lodge & Spa.

The directions supplied by our good friends at Tourism Victoria were excellent, and we reached the lodge about 20 minutes and only one "Ohmygod" later. The lodge staff had been instructed to treat us like royalty, which they commenced doing as soon as we arrived. PR Director Jessica rushed to the front desk to greet us personally, conduct us to our rooms, and invite us to join her for dinner in the dining room -- which we quickly discovered was not just a dining room, but a Fine Dining Room.

We had time before dinner to iron and change into FDR-appropriate clothing, which I was immediately glad Mother Media had insisted I pack. But before I did that, I spent a few minutes getting acquainted with my room. It turned out to be the most simply designe yet the most posh and comfortable hotel room I've ever stayed in. Key features included, but were by no means limited to:

• a private patio overlooking the BBL&S's aromatherapy garden, where therapeutic herbs for the spa and culinary herbs for the FDR grew in tidy, fragrant rows;
  
• a view, beyond the plantings, of the lodge's private beach and bay, with wooded mountains looming on the other side;
  
• homemade cookies next to the votive candle on the hearth of the gas fireplace;
  
• a mini-bar stocked not only with beer and tiny bottles of booze, but also homemade granola, candy bars from a local confectioner, and a couple bottles of wine from vintners just up the road;
  
• a bed so vast that I couldn't reach the sides while lying in the middle; I had to set my alarm a few minutes early the next morning to allow time to crawl to the edge;
  
• a duvet so fluffy it took 20 minutes to fully squash down under the weight of my purse;
  
• a bath towel so big it could have served as an area rug in my first apartment. And my second. When I towel-turbaned my hair after a shower, I had to duck through doorways;
  
• cotton bathrobes so thick that when I put one on along with the towel turban, I looked like a reject from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade;
  
• an array of touchpads, switches, and dimmers so complex that I had to consult G-Doc to figure out how to turn off the bedside lamps -- and I actually had to call the front desk for help in turning out the last of the four lights in my bathroom;
  
• a two-person jacuzzi with, through a shuttered gap in the wall, a view over the bed, out the sliding glass doors, across the patio, and through the aromatherapy garden, of water and mountains.
  

Why would anyone ever want to leave such a palace? Well, did I mention that the evening's meal in the FDR, hosted by the ebullient Jessica, was on the house? That's one reason, and a really good one. Stay tuned tomorrow, when I reveal what oysters, caribou, and dragons have in common.

Today around the world: July 19 is when the French celebrate the birthday of Edgar Degas.

E-mail the Media Sensation: BandNameoftheDay@hotmail.com

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