Vancouver Vacation

The time has come to be better at keeping a journal!  The years go so fast and all seem to run together, and I actually have a hard time keeping track of when things happened!  And alot seems to be happening!  So here's the answer:  welcome to the digital world of blogging!

Vancouver Skyline from Stanley Park

Andy and I just got back from visiting Danny and Denise and Liam in Vancouver, Canada.  It occurred to me when I was up there how much more interesting it would be to remember the trip with not only a narrative in a journal, but pictures to go along with it!  So here we go!
We arrived on Wednesday morning January 30th.  Denise and Liam picked us up from the airport.  It was lunchtime, so we went into downtown Vancouver and picked up Danny from work for lunch.  We went to one of his favorite places, "The Falafel King" (middle eastern food).  We ordered a "shawarma" plate:  roasted chicken chunks, hummus, an incredible parsley salad, with rice and pita!  It was extremely delicious!  Danny had to go back to work, but we walked around the downtown area, close to the harbor, and then drove a short distance to Granville Island.  There were lots of shops to visit, my favorite being a crystal shop.  We also had an incredibly delicious dessert from a bakery there, chocolate mousse.  Liam is such a character!  He's full of energy and fun!  He had had a bad experience with ducks, so he was hesitant to walk any place where the ducks were.  But Denise told him just to tell the ducks he didn't have any bread, and they would leave him alone.  So that's what he did!  And it worked!  However, he did get a little nervous when he saw a man with a bag of bird seed feeding the pigeons-probably 20 of them-had landed all over him as he fed them!

Going for a walk in the woods-a huge moss covered tree stump!

 The next day we went to the "Tellus World of Science" or Science World.  It was an interesting and fun place, but Liam didn't like it when the worker took the snake out to be touched!  We ate at "Triple O's" which is Canada's popular hamburger place.  It was good but so expensive, as everything was in Canada!  It was $8-$9 for just a fast food burger, no fries or drink included in that price!

Stanley Park 

Sea Wall Stanley Park

 Friday:  A good day for being outdoors (cloudy, but no rain).  We went to Stanley Park and walked around.  There is a sea wall you can walk along, and we saw lots of boats and sea planes coming and going.  We drove a short distance to get a close up of the Lions Gate Bridge that connects Vancouver with North Vancouver.  There were several huge tankers going under the bridge to the harbor, which Liam loved.  He really liked the buoy, and kept saying "There's another buoy" even though we kept seeing the same one!  That night we had take out Indian food from "Handi Indian Cuisine".  Delicious, but expensive again-$71 for the 4 of us!!!

Lions Gate Bridge

Tanker getting ready to go under the bridge

Happy Walkers

Stanley Park

Day 4, Saturday:  Sunshine!!!  With Danny off work today we went for a ride up the coast on Highway 99 or the "Sea to Sky Highway" to the Britannia Mining Museum, close to the town of Squamish.  The copper mine had closed in 1974, and then reopened as a museum.  We got to ride a train car into one of the tunnels where the guide demonstrated the equipment used in the mine to drill and blast.  It was very loud and therefore most of the early miners went deaf.  They also died frequently from the silica they inhaled day after day!  It's amazing to think that people would continue to work a job despite all the hazards, and that there was no thought as to how to prevent them.
Tonight we had Vietnamese food!  Delicious!  I love the international flavors of Vancouver!

Beautiful Highway 99!!!

We ate lunch here.

There was a pier that went out over the water.

There are three sunken ships here that scuba divers explore.

Giant trucks at the Brittania Mining Museum

The miners rode these cars into the mine

Don't they look like miners!

This is the building where they processed the muck brought out of the mountain.

Inside the building

They filmed an episode of X-Files in here!  It really looked the part!  There have been other movies and TV shows filmed here as well-  I think Scooby Do 2 was one. This was incredibly high!  The stairs that go up originally had no railing!  The poor miners!

They have concerts in here now.  They said the acoustics are fantastic!

Core samples were stored in this building to study the rock in the mountain.   I wanted to take one, but instead purchased a little tiny piece of one in the museum store!  There were probably thousands of large cores in this building in trays.  What a temptation!!

Ready to go in the mine!

"Honey Wagon" for potty breaks-the miners got two each shift!

 After we left the mine, we drove up the road to "Shannon Falls".  They were beautiful!!  We also saw the "Stawamus Chief", which is a massive granite monolith-the second largest  in the world.  Rock climber's paradise!

Sunday: Andy and I  stayed home from church with Liam since he had a cold, and Danny and Denise got to enjoy sacrament meeting for a change!  We got to have some serious play time with Liam!

Unicorn?

Or devil?  Which fits him better?

Totum pole on the UBC Campus

 Day 6, Monday:  Danny and Denise live relatively close to the water and beaches.  We went to one called "Wreck Beach", close to the University of British Columbia campus.  We hiked 398 stairs down to the water where there were rocks and lots of large pieces of drift wood.  It was a "clothing optional beach", but we weren't worried since it was 45 degrees out!  I had to collect a few rocks to remember our trip by!

Wreck Beach

Looking down on the beach.

398 Stairs and sore calves!!!

Day 7, Tuesday:  Today, our last day, we went to a part of the city called "Gastown" which is Vancouver's oldest and first downtown core.  It was named after "Gassy" Jack Deighton who was a Yorkshire seaman who opened the first saloon there. There were neat old buildings and a large clock powered by steam.  We went in a few shops, but came home for the afternoon as it was starting to sprinkle. So unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures.  We rested up for our trip home tomorrow, as I was coming down with Liam's cold!

Gastown

Most days we really lucked out with the weather.  It was gray and cloudy, but not too rainy.  It was a wonderful first trip to Vancouver and we look forward to many more!