Here we are in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We had a pleasant drive up from Seattle and found the hotel easily. The hotel is a regular downtown type of hotel. We are in a corner suite on the 18th floor (actually 17 floors up since there is no 13th floor). The weather here was very rainy, misty and foggy (sounds like a standard situation for the Northwest) when we arrived and on into the night. We could not see much from our balcony the first night.
As soon as we got settled in, we walked down to the city center for a shopping spree. If you want to know what makes Sheila happy, I can tell you it is shopping for purses. I found there were side benefits to waiting outside the many stores and watching the scenery. Sheila found just what she was looking for (twice!). I was also brow beat into purchasing a nice leather jacket for about $100. I haven't figured out why it was so inexpensive other than that it was on sale. By the way the current exchange rate is C$1 for US$0.95 so we get a little break there also.
By the time we finished all that walking around, we caught a cab back to the hotel. I learned to pay a little more attention to the change thing after I gave the guy $20 for the $5.05 fare and told him to keep the change when he got down to the coins. Anything less than $5 dollars here is in coins ($1 and $2) so I gave him about a $5 tip plus the US$2 I had intended to give him. I knew about the no dollar bills thing, I just wasn't paying attention. No big deal, but that cabby sat outside our hotel the whole rest of the day waiting for us to go out again!
After resting up a bit, we set out again. This time we drove and headed down to a section of the city called "Gas Town". It is an area with brew pubs and more shopping places. However, the Tour de Gas Town was going on and the streets were blocked off for the bicycle riders. Who holds a bike race in the middle of the week? Anyway, I was determined and we managed to find a place to park in China Town and walked to Gas Town. We were looking for a place called the Steam Works Brewery that I had seen on one of my favorite TV shows ("Beer Nutz"). We found it and had a great meal as well as some very good beer. For our walk back to the car, we decided to follow a different route to avoid a somewhat seamy area we had walked through on our way to Gas Town. We ended up getting a little confused about our exact location. I was certainly not lost and thought we were doing quite well, when Sheila stopped someone to ask for directions! I cannot imagine why she would do that. Sure, it did help us avoid wandering around for a couple more blocks or so, but asking for directions. What's up with that?
Today (Thursday, 7/19, Day 10) we went on a harbor cruise around the Vancouver harbor. It was very pleasant and not too rainy. We saw lots of interesting features around the water front. Vancouver is built all around the harbor which is itself kind of crescent shaped. This really is a very nice city. It is claimed to be one of the 10 best places to live in the world (at least that is what Vancouver claims). The population is very diverse and friendly, the city appears to be very clean (at least what we have seen) and the crime rate is low. As we finished our cruise, it started to rain heavily, but by the time we got back out on the street it had stopped.
We then walked up to a point where we could get on a "Big Red Bus". Those are buses that make continuous loops around the various areas of the city. You can jump on and jump off at any of the stops and ride all day for two days. That meant that we could ride the bus back down to Gas Town for some more shopping. We all bought stuff this time. We also had an opportunity to see the steam clock (a Vancouver / Gas Town landmark) and watch it "chime" the hour at 1:00 this afternoon. The clock runs on steam power that operates mechanisms that keep it going. It has four small steam whistles and one larger one on its top. The small steam whistles play the Westminster chimes each quarter hour and the larger one also sounds on the hour. Mary got excellent video of it, but it will have to be edited down to a smaller size prior to posting it.
After shopping in Gas Town, we jumped on the Big Red Bus and road most of the rest of the tour back to the closest stop to our hotel. The hotel sits in an area called Davie (for the name of the street) that is very diverse. There are several produce markets, bakeries and restaurants for every type of food you can imagine (even good old hamburgers). By the time we got off the bus, the sun was shining (first time for that in three days). We decided to get some cheese and bread for noshing back in the room. We then just relaxed and caught up on the blog.
For dinner, we each went to a different food establishment and got carry out to take back to the room. Sheila went to a bakery for pasties, Mary to a Chinese fast food place for, ummm, Chinese fast food, and I went to a Greek place for moussaka. Once we all got back to the room we started digging in and sharing. It was really a lot of fun. We were sampling several of the foods of the neighborhood. I should also mention
that watching the people of the neighborhood while waiting for my moussaka was an "interesting" experience.
Now that the clouds have lifted and the air is clear, we can see the mountains east of the city. Some of them are snow capped, and the view is very nice. Plenty more pictures have been taking.
So here we are relaxing in the hotel having completed another day in our saga. Mary and I are now well into our second week on the road, and Sheila is finishing her first week. For awhile when we first started, I wondered if I would be able to make it. Now, I've found that I'm sleeping well and just need to make sure I get enough rest so I can be ready to go in the morning. I think we are all holding up well and none of us would miss this for the world.
Tomorrow we return to the Seattle area for the Noll family reunion. Then it is on to Glacier and Yellowstone. I can't wait!
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