Travel Diary

The next morning included some blueberry pancakes for breakfast. I’m usually not a pancake person (not never acquired a taste for them growing up), but these were pretty darn good, and I was fairly hungry. We hung around the house for a while, and then left around 11am.

The drive was nice. We would essentially be just heading north into Ohhh...Canada.

First, we made a stop in a little fishing town. It was quaint, although there wasn’t a whole lot to do, and after taking a few photos, we headed north again.

Before reaching the border, I looked up a few places to visit near Vancouver. Most of the trip would be fairly ad hoc. While I do like to plan out things more, sometimes life just gets too busy to do so. Thus, you do what you can. And plan more for next time.

The border crossing was fairly long. The agents just ask a lot of questions and search some cars. Our agent was just dying to ask question after question. It was then easy to see why the long backups. While we had plenty of sarcastic answers in store, none was offered. I think the best one (again, not actually said) was in response to “Are you carrying over $10,000 in cash?” The comedic response: “$10,000! Are you kidding? That’s nearly a month’s salary!”

Once through the border check, things looked about the same. You do have to adjust to the miles being in kilometers. If not, you’ll find yourself either driving way too fast or way too slow. You see more French signs, but not as much as in anticipated. I had thought all public signs were in both languages, but I was in high school French class when I learned that. I suppose things may have changed over the years. I did ask one girl at a coffee shop with a European-sounding accent if she spoke French. Her reply? “Actually, I’m Mexican.”

Still, being in a new country, I was eager to see the changes in culture, fashion, food, sports, and so forth.  What was mainly apparent was the vast influence of America in most of those categories. From technology to fashion trends, you could easily spot what came south of the border. The biggest thing I noticed was that in Vancouver, they mainly sport apparel from one sports team: the Vancouver Canucks. I don’t think I saw any other paraphernalia on anyone there. (I finally looked up the mascot definition: “Johnny Canuck was a Canadian cartoon superhero who was created as a political cartoon in 1869 and was later re-invented, first in 1942, then in 1975.”

We first passed through Vancouver and into North Vancouver, where we made a trek up to Grouse Mountain, being that it was highly recommended in a travel site. What we found was a ski lodge. The neat thing was that it was so close to town. The entrance just came right smack down into the suburbs.  Parking was only about $2, which was not bad, but that would be the cheap part.

Taking the tram up to the top would be $45.

YIKES!

Now, the tram seemed to ascend right up into the clouds. It was a cool opportunity, even if we weren’t skiing. Notably, it’s only about 15 dollars more to actually ski. But there was no time for that and rentals would be extra. Still, we were there then and who knew when the next time would be. Thus, we paid the money and took the tram up.

Remember how I said that it rose into the clouds? Yeah, it did that--literally. About halfway up, we were immersed in thick white clouds, which reduced visibility to almost 30 yards. Even skiing would be tough, but trying to take some epic shots of Vancouver....

Forgetaboutit, eh!

We did get to use the restroom up there, and that was nice. So I suppose we had paid about $45 each to use the bathroom, but...

I would have paid $50.

I think we got the better deal.

We chatted with a Canadian guy up there and he said it was usual to have so much cloud cover. Just bad timing for that day. Even so, it was worth a shot.

Returning down the mountain, I tried to take some photos as we came out of the cloud, but the front window had too many water drops on it. Nothing could really be seen. Again, worth a try.

Once again in the car, we ventured south and headed back to Vancouver. A short detour allowed for some photos of the grand mountains being engulfed in clouds. A chilly lake was below. While the area was quite cold, there was little snow at that point.

Entering Vancouver again, we took a road to enter Stanley Park and that offered some photo ops of the sun going down over the water. Trouble is that oil tankers were parked out in the ocean, and that sort of spoils the effect of the shots. No real way to get them to move. I tried waving my hand with the “Hey! Move over!” gesture, but that didn’t work.

On the east side of the park, we took the water walkway path and finally found a place to get great cityscape shots of downtown Vancouver gradually fading into night. Those ones turned out pretty well.

Soon, we were driving into downtown Vancouver and locating the hotel.

Our rooms were each $55. There was no bathroom, but moreover a sink. The community bathrooms were on each floor and empty most of the time. Overall, things were very clean and the staff was friendly. It was the Kingston Hotel in case you’re ever in the area and needing a good place to lodge.

Then it was dinner time.

Since Grandville is supposed to be the hip street, we walked along that for a ways. There were many places to eat, or club, or drink. Many people traveled up and down the street, from the well-to-do to the down-and-out. We settled for bar food at a cheap place. The food was okay.

Afterwards, we ventured to a coffee shop to use the internet for a spell. There are many coffee shops around, all with places to sit and sip coffee. Some were very spacious.

Then it was back to crash for the night.

One other note: while we were parked on the street, and in a decent part of town, the hotel concierge did recommend that since the license plate was American, to move the car to secure underground parking. I guess American cars are a highly targeted theft item in Canada. While it was probably safe there, there wasn’t any real need to be cheap and take a chance on it being gone in the morning (Vancouver is a fairly short drive from Seattle, but a VERY long walk).