Wasting away in Edmonton-ville

Super short post today with no pictures unfortunately. Basically I got a call this morning around 9:30am with the final quote for the repairs, in the end it cost $466 to get he car all fixed up, this was fine since at least we could get back on the road. Unfortunately they also informed me it would take about seven hours to get the part in and then put it in the car. I accepted this as one of the many uncertainties of life and went and booked another day at the hotel through priceline.

Then I get a call at 11:30am from the repair shop and they say they have all the work done. Somehow magically they have converted seven hours into two. Unfortunately with priceline all bookings are non-refundable, so we just decided to write off the day and claim it as another rest day. Unlike the other two days this was a true rest day, Geoff watched War Movies and played Okami all day, and finally got through the rest of the book I've been trying to get through this whole trip (A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, an excellent read if I have to say).

Suffice to say there was not much to blog about today, although it was a truly excellent day. Tomorrow we're headed to Regina at the break of the day!

To ease your pain of no pictures, here is a video of a cat doing cat things:

Hope to have better stuff for tomorrow!

...Are doomed to fail

So today I got the bad news that although the garage was open, they didn't stock the part. Surprise, surprise. I mean, I really shouldn't be surprised, I roll up in an older model of a car that GM hasn't produced in 6 years, and now no longer even supports the brand itself, and Canadian Tire South Edmonton Branch doesn't have the part. Unfortunately that means they'll get it from a GM dealer, which don't tend to be open on Sundays (At least not around here, or at least their garages) so we were stuck in Edmonton another day. 

Fortunately I have CAA coverage so they should theoretically cover whatever hotel and food expenses I incur while I'm here, but I won't know until I claim it in Southern Ontario.

So we found ourselves at 12pm with no car and no hotel, fortunately we pricelined our way into the same hotel we stayed at last night so we came crawling back and politely asked them if they could pretend we never checked out. They were very accommodating so even though their 'official' check in isn't until 3pm, we got into our room around 12:30pm. Geoff wasn't feeling well so it appeared that today wasn't going to be a very touristy day. We went to lunch and got back around 2:00pm. I decided to say nuts to Geoff while he napped and went downtown anyway.

I taxied there because it's about 6km away from the hotel where I'm staying at but when I got there I was finally able to start taking pictures. I got over to the Alberta Legislature to get the picture for my collection and discovered a very well kept ground. Apparently it has a very nice 'mall' type pond, but it was all closed down for maintenance unfortunately. I still got a good picture of the legislature building itself, which was built in a very similar style to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which makes sense because they all joined confederation very close together.

This is the place were they pass laws to 'freeze the bastards out'

The grounds of the legislature was covered in parkground littered with statues commemorating one thing or the other. I found one that was particularly neat because it commemorated all the people who lost their lives in the line of duty, and not a single one of them was a soldier. There were police officers, parks officers, firefighters, etc. I really think that those occupations really don't often get the commemoration they need sometimes. I mean, they don't lose people as often as the armed forces, but they still do sometimes. I thought the statue was nice.

Not sure what the statue is supposed to be, but the thought is nice.

After all that I went across the Saskatchewan River (via bridge, I'm not some sort of triathlon ironman) to check out the Queen Elizabeth Park over there. It had an extensive trail system that I explored somewhat, mainly the paths near the river. From one lookout point I was able to get an excellent view of the downtown area. It's interesting to see that the downtown is strictly separated by that river, once you get on the other side it's like all commercial development just ends.

Maybe it's a water wall to keep all the businessmen, lawyers and government workers away from everyone

By the time I got a ways down the trail it was starting to get late so I started to head back. Now I knew that the hotel was 6.5km away, and I knew that it was a bit of a cab ride downtown, but I decided to walk back anyway. Now I don't regret the decision, it was a fine walk, but my feet and legs certainly aren't happy about it.

Along the way I was able to walk through the Strathcona Heritage District. Similar to the place in Winnipeg, it was an old CN rail yard that went into disuse. However it had the added charm of having its own his min-history. Basically it was established as a sort of competing town to Edmonton by a rival railway to the CPR. They hoped to run rail development between Calgary and Edmonton, it certainly paid off, as the city grew faster than Edmonton for about 15 years. Unfortunately it worked too well as it was incorporated into a city in 1906, and in 1911 it was amalgamated into Edmonton anyway. The whole area eventually fell into disuse until it was revitalized in the late 70's. Now's it's a bustling business district with an eclectic mix of restaurants, used book stores, coffee shops, artisans and specialty shops. When you walk through it from the West Gateway Drive side there is this big iron wrought gate celebrating that heritage.

They don't really need to call it 'old' Strathcona since there is no new one... yet.

Now we've had supper, Geoff's feeling a little better and we're turning in early. We don't have any reason to be up early tomorrow since the Canadian Tire is going to call us when they have the full quote. So hopefully I'll have this whole car situation resolved by tomorrow and we can be on our way. Don't get me wrong Edmonton is a nice city, but if I'm going to be sitting around in one spot for multiple days, I'd rather be staying for free or just at home.

The best laid plans...

We got to hang out more with Geoff's friend Nikki today, that was entertaining. We hadn't gotten in to Whitecourt until later yesterday so we took the opportunity (We have a plan laid out for getting back into NB for this Friday) to just take it easy today. Geoff wasn't feeling too well so we hung around Whitecourt swapping stories with Nikki. We also got to see the inner workings of an air tanker base so that was pretty exciting as well (Complements to Nikki).

So when we finally got on the road it was about 3pm, but that was OK because Edmonton was only about a 2 hour drive away. After an uneventful drive down we arrived in the capital of Alberta without much fanfare. We decided to pay a visit to the West Edmonton Mall before we checked into our hotel since it was in between the highway and the Travelodge. I have to say, it was a pretty big mall; I've been in huge malls before (I'm thinking Vaughan Mills) but this one takes the cake. It had an indoor theme park, an indoor water park and an indoor undersea adventure world on top of having a hundred bajillion stores (That is barely an exaggeration, it had two floors of wall to wall shopping and it felt like we were walking around in a labyrinth). Did I mention it had an indoor skating rink? It had an indoor skating rink. That means that summer or winter, you could go and swim in a wave pool, travel in a submarine and go skating all in the same day.

This place had it all, the roller coaster was in a special section of the mall with a raised roof:

Great, now I can get those stelleto's AND do the loop de loop

The skating rink was somehow cooled from the bottom, mainly because it really wasn't that cold in the surrounding area until you were practically leaning over the rails:

Skating: As if your feet didn't have ENOUGH to do with those bajillion shopping destinations

The Undersea adventure was really neat too, right in the middle of a section of the mall. It had a pirate ship, a bridge and a sea lion exhibit, although thankfully there was no piracy in this adventure:

This undersea adventure has 3 working subs, the Canadian Navy has 2, that's what I call scary.

Finally the wave pool was in another specially designed area of the mall. It's temperature was so different than the mall, it created a pressure vacuum when you opened the door to the observation deck:

You can call your friends in Florida in January when it's like + 10C there and say 'Ha! It's -30 here and I'm STILL catching the waves, wooooooo"

To give an impression of the size, it had a regular food court for the people who were just there for a few hours to shop, but then it also had a restaurant court where about a half dozen full service restaurants were clustered to service the general public who decided to make a day of the whole thing. Geoff and I checked out a few stores but after about two hours we decided to go check into the hotel.

I should have known things weren't going to end well when we got lost trying to find the hotel the first time. Using our GPS we managed to blunder into a subdivision where all the streets were the same name (Donsdale was the place, and it was a subdivision where all the roads were named Donsdale, so there was Donstale Road, Donsdale Street, Donsdale Crescent, etc). So we called the hotel and got proper directions. Once we found the highway to take us there it was all f'ed up from construction so there was traffic and construction and closed lanes everywhere. We manage to survive that and get off at the appropriate exit.

This is when I thought I could have sworn I saw the hotel from the offramp. Unfortunately it was the wrong way up a one way street so I just kept going straight. I turned onto the first side road I could find to make my way up so I could turn the proper way up the one way street to the supposed hotel. Well unfortunately it was the middle of an industrial park and all the roads were awful.

This road looks so innocent, little did we know it harboured a secret, a deep, dark, watery secret.

Before I could see what was going on I drove into the worlds largest pothole (Or what could be a good contestant for it) and blew up my transmission. Well, it probably wasn't that dramatic but we definitely scraped up the pan that holds all the transmission fluid and it leaked out all over the road.

That line down the centre there is my car's lifeblood that leaked away as I drove from that cursed pothole

I didn't want to risk starting the car so we got on the phone with CAA to call a tow. Apparently it was a busy night so we waited, and waited... and waited. About 40 minutes later the sun is starting to set and we're still in the middle of this industrial park where no one is there (Due to it being Saturday) and no tow. We're about the leave the car in search of the hotel when we finally get through. We get the tow all set up, but it's going to be about 3 hours before they get to the car. So we walk over to the hotel and... it turns out it's not the one I thought it was.

Fortunately for me, not all is wasted because our hotel is actually just down the road from the faux-tel so it's about an extra 5 minutes. Once we get all checked in and settled, the phone rings, it's the tow truck driver saying he's almost there. So we have to run all the way back to the car to meet him, he hooks up the car and tells us where he's taking it, a Canadian Tire which is also fortunately about 10 minutes down the road from the hotel. So that has all been settled, I confirmed the Canadian Tire garage is open tomorrow so hopefully we won't have any delays from there.
It's funny because I was commenting to Geoff that I wasn't going to have much to write about in the blog today, but this isn't what I meant to happen! Hopefully that'll be it for misadventures, Geoff got a speeding ticket and I frigged up the transmission fluid, at least there are supposedly only six days left in the trip, what more could we do to ourselves at this point? *Fingered crossed that the answer is nothing*

The Angry potholes desire more car parts! Om nom nom nom

Precious Jasper

Jasper National Park may be one of Canada's more underrated park. During my talks with people when I was planning this I got many recommendations, 'go to Tofino, it's beautiful' or 'make sure you get to Montreal, it's got a rocking nightlife' etc, etc. However, no one ever suggested Jasper National Park, north of Banff, I think it may be the most exciting park we went to on this whole trip.

This place had everything, climbs, valleys, gorges and Animals! I found that with the other national parks they were very sterile. They had lots of plant life, trees, natural wonders, but they never had any animals bigger than a chipmunk. I don't know if I just went at the wrong time of year to see anything, or if I just had a bad location, but I just didn't see any. Now with Jasper, it seemed that I couldn't go more than 5 feet without seeing something. It was very fun.

Starting off the day we went for a hike to Old Fort lookout. On the way we saw a snooty fox who seemed he owned the path that was ahead of it. He just sauntered across the path, not even sparing us a second glance as he wondered off.

He's a bad mother-shut yo' mouth!

Once we got to the top of the hill we were able to get a breathtaking view of the surrounding area. That is, it would have been breathtaking if it wasn't starting to feel like a 'same old, same old' thing. I have to say if you're going to travel across Canada, space out the time you spend near the mountains, the best thing about them is that you can climb to the top of them and see the sights. Unfortunately after about the 10th climb, the whole idea starts to wear a little thin. It was still really fun though, and we got a great view of the town of Jasper itself.

Not as big as Banff, but better than one gas station as well.

On the way down from the Old Fort lookout we saw a few things worth noting. First, supporting my animal comments we saw a group of mountain sheep, complete with giant horns and all. They were more interested in chewing the grass on the side of the hill than us, so we were able to snap a few pictures. I wanted to get closer, but I also didn't want to end up in Jasper Hospital with blunt force trauma wounds.

Fortunately none of them decided to go all 'RAMbo' on me

Going back down the hill we were treated to an awesome sight of the athabasca river. It looks really cloudy but the water actually was quite clear. It was also freezing, once again we tested this with our own fingers so you know it's legit.

One Panorama of Many

After the hike up the lookout, we went over to a really nice lake, the water was literally clear as day. We were unfortunately not able to do the whole trail since there was a nest of eagles across part of it so it was closed down. However it will offered very nice views of the rest of the lake and it was still a nice hike along a handi-accessable trail (So it wasn't too difficult). As always, the walk was ringed by the omnipresent mountains of the region.

I have to say, don't go to national parks unless you REALLY like Lakes, Trees and dirt

On the way back to the parking lot we encountered a group of deer things. I think they are deer, Geoff thinks they are elk, he's the forest guy so he's probably right but I who knows? Just like the sheep they were more interested in lazing about than worrying about us. They didn't approach us for food or anything, but they just sort of glanced at us and when they deturmined we weren't going to eat them, they ignored us.

Just like when I go to the bars.

The final stop was the Malingne Canyon. This place was huge, basically a really deep, narrow canyon that had been warn away over thousands of years. It got its name when a Belgian Jesuit tried to cross the river with much difficulty, which I thought was hilarious. What was also interesting about the canyon was the surrounding area, the rocky cliffs surrouding it were riddled with underground rivers that came literally out the side of cliffs, feeding into the river. Eventually the river also goes underground, feeding into a lake that apparently is created out of nothingness. We didn't see the lake, but I did see the areas where water just came out of the cliffside. It was neat! Also the canyon was really friggin' deep.

It hard to tell, but that is about a 50m drop. That's 5 tens, and that will leave you in a bad way.

Finally we were on our away again. On the road we got one last shot of the mountains, these ones were wreathed in clouds so they almost looked like volcanoes. Fortunately we don't share the same geological conditions as Iceland so we don't have to worry about stranded flights anywhere around here.

Also, our mountains have pronounceable names

We're up in Whitecourt, AB so that Geoff could visit an old school friend. I have to say this much about Whitecourt, if you're looking for an idylic Alberta town this place is a good start, but for the love of god don't stay at the cheapest hotel. The Howard Johnson here is an absolute dive, I'm glad that we went out for drinks and food before we came back to sleep. Otherwise I think I would be grossing myself right now with thoughts of sleep. Fortunately I think I'm tired enough to ignore that fact for now, but I think from here on in we'll be sticking with Super 8's or Travellodges, at thest they seem to have standards.

Hard Days Drive

I hate to disappoint everyone today but we didn't really do much. We got out of the Vancouver International Airport Travellodge that we were staying at and drove 800km up to Jasper, AB. I think this was our longest driving day yet. Normally, even the days that we drive 'all day' we usually stop somewhere that I can comment on, but today it was really just all driving.

We hit up timmy's for breakfast and then drove flat out for four hours until we stopped for gas, switched over and then drove for another four and a half hours until we got to Jasper. The only thing I can comment on is that we almost stayed at the Fairmont Jasper Lodge but due to the fact that we didn't decide we were going to stay there until today and then it was too late.

Tomorrow we're hiking in Jasper the park and then driving up to visit a friend of Geoff's, so we should have some more interesting pictures. The drive itself today was nice, but it was very similar to the drive from Golden, BC to Vancouver. Basically it went from city immediately to mountains and haven't stopped. According to Geoff about 70% of BC is apparently mountains, and based on what I've seen I'm inclined to believe him.

The motto of BC shouldn't be 'Beauty without diminishment' it would be 'We got all the F*&@'n Mountains'

Also Jasper had lots of Elk. Pretty much 3 elk for every person in Jasper. I hope to take more pictures of them tomorrow on the hike. For now, you'll have to make due with the speedy Gonzalez version I snapped when we drove past a herd of them on the highway.

If you look really close, I think you can find the one that's on the quarter.

Jasper Hiking Tomorrow!

Adventure at the end of the country

Tofino truly is a wonderful place. I'm left with no doubt that this place has lived up to its reputation as a resort town. Basically anything you can do in BC you can do in Tofino, weather you want to Kayak, go whale watching, climb a mountain, go to a beach, etc, etc you can get there from Tofino. Often within a few minutes of the town. The only complaint I have is that the weather wasn't very nice for the time we were there. If it was a sunny day I think we could have taken in the town in it's true glory.

We started off going to Tuff Beans, which has a really amazing breakfast. As well, I got to have a Hollywood moment when I realized it was the same store that the main character ate at in "One Week". The tea is pretty awesome as well, great start to the day.

We chartered a boat to take us over to Meares Island which apparently has really big trees and an awesome walking trail, but we had some time to kill so we went over to the town's boardwalk. The boardwalk itself wasn't very long, but it led down to a really nice beach. It was very pristine and once again, if it wasn't raining and cold would have been quite a beautiful spot.

Imagine this picture as if it was sunny out!

After wondering around the beach for about 30 minutes and scampering up some rocks we decided to head back into town to check in with the charter and make sure we had everything we needed. At around 12pm we were on our way across the bay to Meares Island.

I'm on a boat!

Once we got to Meares Island we were given two hours to do whatever we wanted before the water taxi came to pick us up. There was a nice board walk that went into the interior of the island, so we started there. The thing about Meares Island and many of the other islands that dot the coast of BC is that there really isn't much reason to settle there other than to build cottages. In this case, Meares Island was native territory and they only occupied one part of the island so the majority of it was undisturbed rain forest. The big thing about this walk are the trees themselves, they have a few there that are upwards of 1,500 years old! You could definitely tell based on the size of them (Although Geoff says this is a poor way to determine a tree's age).

What does the scouter say about that tree's power level?

Look at that tree, we don't know how old it was but it was wider at it's base that Geoff and I are wide, which is saying something. What's more is that this wasn't even the biggest tree, this is just the best picture I have representing the trees of the island.

The boardwalk ended about 800 metres in and was replaced by a trail, a very muddy trail, which led to... you guessed it: The Mud Flats! Other than that it went through undisturbed rainforest which was almost like stepping back in time. The trees are so big and so covered moss it seems like no human has been through this place in all of history, other than this muddy trail. It gave us the opportunity to see places like this:

That muddy strip in the middle of the picture is the trail

We were also able to see some of the local wildlife on the trip. I have to say it was less than inspiring:

We didn't linger long, this is the slugs territory.

Finally, what was really interesting about the trail was the minimal environmental impact. The trees in the area are really resistant to decomposition even after they've died. So the boardwalk was made out of planks cut out of a downed tree on site with saws and other traditional methods. In particularly muddy areas there were cut up trunks of tree as hopping pads, and in other places fallen branches were just used as impromptu bridges. There was no modern machinery used on site to make the place and nothing had to be shipped over. It also made for some really interesting furniture.

The boardwalk made from trees, chairs made from trees, EVERYTHING made of trees!

On our trip across Meares Island there was another couple with us and their dog. They were troopers and we kept close together for most of the hike. Sometimes we would be leading ahead and sometimes they would take the lead, that was until the later part of the mud trail which got a little rough. What ended up happening was their dog kept running ahead to us and then back to them, until we got too far ahead and it just started following us. When we got to the end we had the dog, and their owners were nowhere to be found. We weren't sure what happened to them, and there was only 20 minutes to spare, but we went back into the path and managed to find them after much back tracking. They were looking for the dog so they were glad to have it back. We all caught the boat together and returned to the main island and Tofino.

Our motley crew.

Once we returned to Tofino and made our way out of town. Not before stopping at Long Beach of course! Apparently this is the go to destination in all of Vancouver Island, if you go to one place on the whole island it better be there. This was concluded after exhaustive research involving the questioning of one shoppers cashier in Nanaimo, BC. So we went to Long Beach and it was a very nice spot, sandy beach, long shores, it was sort of like Parlee Beach in ShediacNanaimo, BC. So we went to Long Beach and it was a very nice spot, sandy beach, long shores, it was sort of like Parlee Beach in Shediac. Of course it would be much nicer if it wasn't freezing and raining the whole time.

The tide was out, so we had to walk forever to get to the water

Even though it was cold, wet and windy, we still took the tradition step of walking over to the true Pacific Coast, and yes Nancy, I even stuck my feet in the water. Once again, the Pacific doesn't seem that much different from the Atlantic, it's cold, it's powerful and it's really nice to be close to. I guess you'd have to live by it for longer than 20 minutes to start to see the difference.

My feet are white with terror, frozen and not ever getting exposed to sunlight.

After that experience we made our way over to Nanamio to catch the ferry and get back to the mainland. We stopped over at Cathedral Park to take a look at more trees. I have to say, if there is one thing that BC does really well at making you rethink what you know about something, it's trees. Although Geoff thinks differently, he thinks that it may be the best province in Canada, it has pretty much everything, mountains, coast, beaches, hiking, trees, clean cities, everything. I personally think it has plenty going for it, but I'm reserving my judgement for now.

This is what BC looks like when it isn't a city or a mountain.

We managed to catch the 7:30 ferry over to the mainland so we ended up getting in at a reasonable time. Tomorrow if the weather is nice we'll be taking the Sea to Sky highway to get to Kamloops and then Jasper, but if it isn't we'll be taking the Transcanada and then the Yellowhead trail to get to the same place. You'll know tomorrow!

Go West Young Man

Well, I think this is as far west as I'm going to make it on this trip. Today we made it all the way to Tofino, BC, situated on the west coast of Vancouver Island on the tiny Esowista Peninsula. However, before we got there we had another full day of driving and sight seeing.

We got all the way down to Victoria and took in the sights. I was able to see the Legislature of British Columbia, which means that when we go back through Edmonton I'll have seen all the province houses with the exception of Newfoundland.

They're laws are extra removed from reality here. It's so far away from everything.

The grounds were really nice too, as with the others there were lots of statues and other things. However, with this one they had a few totem poles to represent the coastal native heritage of the Province. This one was particularly interesting.

Apparently the coastal native peoples were a fan of multiple piggy backing.

On the way back, running the tourist shop gauntlet I discovered that Victoria is one of those cities with statues than run along a theme. In this case it was leaping whales. They had a bunch of statues around town with these jumping cephalopods in a variety of designs. This one was a mosaic of stained glass and was particularly neat.

This was right before it leaped to freedom into the harbour.

Once we got out of the downtown core we made our way over to Beacon Hill, the location of Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway and a nice park in it's own right. Including lots of really huge trees that BC is famous for, and a fountain/pond that was swarmed with ducks and geese, and even a petting zoo! The zoo was meant for children but it didn't mean we couldn't go and enjoy seeing the farm animals, and as with the Toronto Zoo, there were peacocks everywhere, being quite noisy.

The star(s) for the petting zoo were the two alpaca's, Donny and Osmond. They were pretty tame, but they made lots of noise.

They didn't break out into any duets, disappointingly

Finally, we made it over to the Mile Zero marker. It was a very subdued place, just a park with a nice sign. I think it was a good technical end to our roadtrip. We drove from Sydney, NS the start of the Trans-Canada on the mainland, and made our way across the country, faithfully following Highway 1 all the way into British Columbia until we got down to Victoria, the other end of the highway. Travelling over 7,700km of national highway that in points is a 3 lane divided highway, but other times is a 1 lane (each) undivided highway. While the country lacks a comprehensive national highway plan (highway construction is responsibility of the provinces) I think the Trans-Canada does the trick.

This is the end, my only friend, the end.

While Mile 0 Was the technical end of the trip, as I said we made the trek over to Tofino. If you've never made the trip, the Highway 4 you take across the Island is basically a windy ribbon of asphalt that hugs a mountain on one side and a basin of water on the other. Rocketing up elevation and back down again, and we did this all during dusk. It was fun for a while, then we were just hoping to make it into Tofino before we went careening off the road. Well we made it safe and sound, and after some hiking and beach combing tomorrow we will start heading in a new direction: East!

This was when the road was good, it got much, much worse.

We'll be back soon everyone! (At least for Rothesay and Toronto Peoples)

Vancity Speed Run

I didn't think we would be able to do all the things we had planned to do today, but we managed to buckle down and get it all sight-seen. While it required us to get up a little earlier I have to say it was well worth it (as with many other things from this trip).

We had to drive into the heart of the city since we had to catch the ferry at the end of the day. While that wasn't necessarily the end of the world, Vancouver isn't necessarily the most drive friendly city in Canada. I think this is probably because they pour money into rapid transit of all sorts, and green alternatives to driving, so if you want to drive you have to pay for it I guess (And not necessarily with money, parking was actually quite cheap). The lanes into the city are fairly narrow (But that might have been the route we took).

However, just like every other day we plan for an action packed day of awesome, something went terribly wrong. As we were leaving the parking lot of the hotel we were staying at we discovered the rear left signal light was burnt out. I would have just not worried about it, but Geoff is a real jack of all trades, he may not be a car expert, but he was able to figure out exactly how to fix it. We rolled down to the local Canadian Tire (which was surprisingly open on Victoria Day), got the light bulb to fix it, and figure out how to pop out the rear tail light and replace the bulb. So we were good to go, with only 30 minutes lost. I don't know what I'd do without Geoff, probably get pulled over more for having problems with the car.

So we went all the way downtown, got a parking lot on the outer rim of the built up area and started walking. We started in Chinatown, which is apparently North America's third largest after New York and San Fransisco. It was a pretty neat area, lots of little shops and most intriguing, a large park built in commemoration of a local Chinese doctor from the turn of the century. Stepping into the park was like stepping into a little piece of China. It had lots of exotic plants and a large koi pond.

Also there were geese, but they're everywhere so they don't count.

After hanging out in Chinatown for a while (And failing to find bubble tea) we decided to head down to the Granville District. I wasn't sure what to expect when we went down there but it was a pretty interesting district. Basically for those not in the know Granville was the old 'centre of town' but during the expansion phase of the city it moved further away from the water, leaving Granville to become the 'red light district'. After some beautification in the 70's, it became a prime tourist district. Including a really cool flatiron style of building.

When I approached the building from the side and didn't think it was anything special, but then you get to the corner and it was all 'oooooooooaaah'

Down the street from that was a very awesome landmark. A steampowered clock! This thing was 100% steampunk inspired if it wasn't for the fact that it was built before steampunk was even a thing. Basically a big grandfather clock that is powered by steam, it whistled the time every quarter hour and it had the five steam exhaust at the top. The whole thing was amazing, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it and I don't know if I ever will again.

It's like Abraham Lincoln with a chain gun arm.

After that we took a trip up to the Harbour Tower and saw the sights. So far we've been up the tower of every city that has a tower look out, so it's sort of like tradition now. Again, not as tall as the CN Tower, but it had lots of interpretive posts that let me learn quite a bit about the city without having to travel too much distance. As usual, it also had some pretty dazzling sights.

For 20 years between them, the building with the copper roof, and then the building with the green copper roof were the tallest buildings in the British Empire. Think about that.

After the trip up the tower, we moved out towards Stanley Park, named after the same Lord Stanley that the cup is, I guess he was a pretty important guy. However, anyone who lives in Vancouver or has been there can probably guess our folly, we decided to walk from the Harbour Tower to Stanley Park. I seemed close at the time but it ended up taking about 40 minutes to get there. Once we got there though we made the most of it. On the way to the park, we passed what I dubbed a 'Minecraft Whale'

Minecraft: It's sort of like that (Minus the lady blocking the photo)

At the park, there was an aquarium and giant trees. The aquarium was really great, it had a really wide collection of fish from all over the world. They had also expanded to have a bird and butterfly room and an amphibian room on top of all the fish. We only managed to spend about an hour and half there, but you could easily spend the whole afternoon there, but the whole day at the park itself. I have to say that I was impressed. They had a tropical section, and a really cool 'fish of BC' section. I never realized all the different types of sea life in the inlets, lakes, and coastal areas of BC.

Fiiiiiiiiiiiish!

Then we took a look at the giant cedars that dotted the park. I have to say these things are huge! I'm hoping to see more of them on Vancouver Island, but it definitely redefines your idea of how big trees can get. It makes the trees of Central and Atlantic Canada look a little more piddly. Being in British Columbia forests feels like going back in time to an earlier time when trees were massive things and dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Maybe not that bad, but the trees are still pretty enormous.

This was shortly before Geoff was absorbed into the tree, that was the last I saw of him.

Finally, we made our way down to the BC Ferries Horseshoe Bay terminal to get on the ferry over to Vancouver Island. I have to say, BC Ferries runs a pretty slick operation, but the charge quite a bit of money. I wish I could spend more time here, but we're probably going to end up spending only a day or two, and then forking over more money to the ferry company. Then we will be on our way back.

Old Man River, oh Old Man River, he just keeps rolling...

I guess this is the final leg of our trip before we turn around and start making our way back. I have to say, it has been a blast! But stay tuned! There will still be more blog postings daily until I get to New Brunswick.

It's the final countdown

It was a historic day in the span of our trip. Today we went across the final leg of this roadtrip. While we started at one end in Golden, BC, we ended the day in Vancouver, BC. Now before everyone gets all up in arms about how you can't just 'drive through' British Columbia listen to this first. As much as I would like to give every Province it's fair share, I only have 30 days to make this all work, and anyone with access to a calendar can tell that this trip is nearing its deadline.

However, I didn't just pass through it without note, we went to a few noteworthy stops before getting to Vancouver. As well, the plan is to spend tomorrow day in Vancouver, ferry over to Nanaimo tomorrow night, and spend another day and night on Vancouver Island. After that, it's making our way back through the province but exiting through Jasper way, up through the Yellowstone Highway back to Winnipeg and then the long, dull ride through Northern Ontario.

To focus on the day at hand we started off in Golden, grabbed a quick continental breakfast and were on our way. We stopped in Revelstoke Mountain National Park to get a few walks in. Unfortunately as with the theme of the rest of our trip, the big cedars trail was closed due to Avalanche risk, so we settled on Skunk Cabbage Trail. Now, we didn't go for the name, apparently it was supposed to have lots of birds in it, and while you could hear them, we didn't see much of them. What we did see quite a bit of was skunk cabbage, what is that you ask?

This. In all of it's fragrant glory

I don't know why they use this as the main attraction for the trail, it actually did smell quite skunky. Needless to say, once it was apparent there weren't many birds to be seen, we didn't stick around long.

After that we went to visit the Revelstoke Dam. It is the third largest dam in the BC Hydro infrastructure, and it is the 2nd most productive (somehow?). However, because it was an operating hydroelectric dam, there were really tight security measures which included no picture taking. It was almost not worth going to because we had to submit to a full car search and sign a waiver saying we weren't terrorists. Not really though, the security was a genial old security guard who needed to check our licence and the trunk. The only picture I have of the place was the one I snagged on the drive down to security.

I hope this picture doesn't lead to all that terrorism I keep hearing about.

It was a really neat place, it showed the work behind electrical generation in a non-environmentally impacting way (Other than river diversion). The observation deck wasn't anything to write home about after yesterday, but the information session and self-guided tour made the 2-1 $6 admission worth it. It's also worth noting that they have such a belief that people won't come back that a season pass is the general admission + $1.

The last detour of the day before we hit up Vancouver was the Salmon Arm Freshwater Pier. What made this an interesting spot was that it was 300m long, making it the longest Freshwater Pier in North America. It was a neat walk with lots of bird sightings.

Long Pier is Long

After that it was mostly the driving descent from the mountains to the not-so mountains. I was apparently under the misconception that you completely leave the mountains once you get so far into BC. I was patently wrong, you can actually see the foothills of the mountains from Vancouver, practically as far as you can get west without getting to Vancouver Island.

It goes from this...

To this!

As you can see there is significant improvement, but you're still in the shadows of the mountains once you get to Vancouver.

Tomorrow, we're taking in the sights that Vancouver has to offer, and then over to the island!