Day 33: And it's raining again

Two glorious sunny days, timed just right for the long Easter weekend. Barely. Alas, the rain returned as promised on Sunday, and although we continued our exploration of the island, it was difficult to get enthusiastic about getting out of the car for too long. At least here in BC the rain (for the most part) tends to fall steadily and straight down: none of this gale-force, horizontal rain we've experienced in Britain :-) We were still able to get out and wander along a pebbly beach, which we had all to ourselves.

A common theme to places with a slower pace of life seems to be a public expression of light-heartedness through either extra happy road signs (as simple as a hand-painted "Be Happy" seen in Hawaii), or amusingly-annotated road signs. The first time we drove past the sign seen below I had to do a double-take and I wondered if I'd really seen a red nose on the deer. Sure enough the next pass confirmed it and I decided I simply had to get a photo. Well, a rainy Sunday seemed like the right time. If you look closely, you'll see the raindrops as short streaks in the photo. Bowen Island has a significant deer population and all the main roads have these warning signs. We saw another similarly decorated where the rider had a pony-tail. And yes, we even saw a few deer on our travels, though none had red noses, and if they had riders, they had decided to dismount and hide as we drove past :-)

Rudolf the red-nosed rain-deer, with rider...