Trip to Vancouver, B. C.

1. Vancouver, B. C. October 16-19, 2009

2. Canada Place Cruise ships and military ships dock here

3. View from Canada PlaceIn the distance is the Lion’s Gate Bride from Stanley Park (like the Stanley cup) to North Vancouver.

4. Grouse Mountaincouldn’t help myself, it was just so breathtaking…

5. Driving into the city…

6. Welcome Centre at Vancouver Tourism Centre…home of the media for the 2010 winter olympics.

7. Below the Welcome Centre…

8. Vancouver Tourism Centre on the left, West Vancouver in the distance.

9. Pretty fountain at Canada Place and the biggest sea gull in history…

10. Gas Town steam powered clock and the Lookout.

11. Around town…

12. Vancouver Aquarium…

13. A sea star and a crab really can make friends…

14. First Nation Art

15. Around Stanley Park…

16. This tree is has a longer diameter than my 4 door rental car…

17. My lunch—Fish and Chips—and my date…

18. Just when the rain finally broke…a spectacular sight at Prospect Point. What else could beat lunch with a spider?

20. Tourist photo…

22. Seymour Mountain From Prospect Point in Stanley Park

24. Prospect Point

25. The Lion’s Gate Bridge (see the lions on either side) was in several moviesincluding Thirteen Ghosts with Shannon Elizabeth). It is named after the Lions which are 2 mountain peaks just over the bridge and to the West. The trees are called dancing trees because of their ‘legs.’

26. Below is Dead Man’s Island. It was inhabited by a group of savages that kidnapped all the women and children of a local First Nation Tribe. The savages demanded that the tribe hand over all of their warriors in order to get their women and children back. The warriors gladly went to the island to sacrifice themselves for the women and children but instead of serving the savages, they freed the women and children then slit their own throats. The island became known as Dead Man’s Island. The Canadian Navy now runs the island as a small base. They renamed it Discovery Island with the symbol of a man holding his arms up and a yellow circle over his head. The actual pronunciation is Discover-Y Island as in discover why. The symbol represents the dead First Nation warriors. The warriors were ‘buried’ in ornate hand carved boxes that were hung in trees. The higher up the tree the box was placed, the higher the warrior’s place in the tribe.

27. Canada Place on the Left (floating gas station below it), Vancouver Tourism Centre on the Right (the city is working on a big greening effort and so made the roof of the centre out of grass just in time for the Olympics). The Lookout is just visible in the right top corner. The walkway at the bottom or the picture is the seawall. It protects the park from rising water. The seawall is 10K around Stanley Park but actually extends into the city as well.

28. Another view of the Vancouver Tourism Centre with the grass roof and the Lookout from Stanley Park.

29. Totem Pole Park

31. Black Squirrel???

32. This statue has some significance…a Canadian athlete but I don’t remember the story.

33. Lighthouse in Stanley Park

34. Grouse Mountain

37. Look carefully at the black ship, then look just to the left of it…you can see the Olympic rings being built. They are white.

38. The story goes that the park service wanted to replicate the Little Mermaid statue made by some artist in another country. The artist refused to allow a duplication and so this is the Vancouver version called creatively “The Girl in the Wetsuit.” At high tide, she sits in the water. This picture is at low tide.

39. Vancouver weather changes rapidly…the clouds come in from the North and melt down the mountains and into the city.

40. Stanley Park rose garden.

41. Okay, the last tree was big, but you could park two of my rental cars inside this tree.

42. A Japanese man is counting 1, 2, 3 for me in Japanese. I wore pants, jacket, shorts and sweatshirt throughout the day…weather changed very rapidly.

43. So majestic…

44. Breakfast of champions…sitting in my underwear in a high back wing chair at my big bay window at 3 am wondering when everyone else would wake up. Because that’s right, I forgot to pack PJ’s and my work-out alarm was still set on my phone, EST. Oops.

45. My favorite gloomy day picture of Lion’s Gate Bridge headed North to Grouse Mountain. Funny that here, this weather would have made me sad, but in Vancouver it was almost consuming and inviting. Though, I know the clouds look creepy in the picture.

46. Because every travel album needs a badly taken photo from the car…

48. This was the 2nd of 5 zip lines. Looks creepy and spooky in the fog.

49. Not so scary grizzly bear who needs a pedicure.

51. Creepy guy asks me to take his picture. So I do. Then he wants to take mine…with his camera. I finally convince him to use my camera. Then I run away. Tame grizzly licking a big bone in the background. It was really big and I wondered what kind of animal it was from???

52. Oddly tame deer that was eating grass outside the Grouse Mountain Flight Centre.

53. Another creepy zip line and the tourist photo smile…I begged them not to make me wear a helmet. I look like a bald smurf.

54. “Quick, look back at the camera and try not to worry about careening with birds or the power line above your head…” These trees are about 10 stories tall by the way. The prior zip line can be seen in the middle to bottom left.

55. These trees at the base of Grouse Mountain were so beautiful and overwhelming. You had to ride up the mountain in the gondola. It took about 8 minutes to climb to the 5,000 foot summit. You could walk up on the Grind Trail. I didn’t want to embarrass anyone so I rode the gondola. The girls at the front desk told me to look out for flying vampires in the trees…they filmed a scene from Twilight just down the road from here.

56. Wished I would have had time to do the Grind but there was no way to fit it in. The hikers swipe their season pass over the timer below and then again at the timer at the summit. It’s about 1.5 miles straight up the mountain. Most hikers were wearing survival gear and carrying ski poles.

57. Then again, didn’t know I would be risking my life or signing it away just to hike.

58. Capilano River Park—Cleveland Dam

59. Look familiar Twi-hards?

61. From the top of the dam…

62. From the top of the dam. Notice the fence in the upper left corner. This is a parking lot/lookout point. There are what look like logs standing up without branches or leaves. These are fake trees/props for a scene from the TV. show Human Target. The filming notice was posted and appears below…

63. I must have a thing for creepy looking scenery…

66. What you can’t see is the 150 foot drop to the river below. The bridge sways as people walk on it. An Englishman took my picture here. He and his buddy looked like they were still rocking the Paul McCarthy bowl cut.

70. The bridge can hold two 747s and then some…they say. A wind storm brought down a tree on it and it took them 30 days to repair the damage. It moved the Western anchor (a giant hunk of concrete the size of a car) about 6 feet. So that the cables didn’t snap or retract, they had to cut the fallen tree off the bridge one piece at a time to slowly release the pressure/weight.

71. At one point the area around the Capilano river was a logging area. They built the first log flumes along the river, about 100 feet above the river bed, and used water to float the logs along the flume. It was a popular tourist attraction before the bridge was built. When the bridge was built, there was no access to it except by foot. People would walk about 1.5 miles up hill (about 1000 feet in elevation) just to see and picnic near the bridge.

72. Pacific Northwest Rainforest

74. Under the bridge…no gold or elves or anything. I would know, I looked.

78. Random creepy fish picture…

79. This view , from the morning I left, made my heart stop. The clouds broke just enough for me to catch the mountain top. The busy street to the bottom right is Robson…the shopping district. I actually opened up my window, that’s right--at 17 stories, and took this picture.

81. I could barely hold my camera still to take this picture from the airport terminal…I was too busy having the ugly cry.

82. What Vancouver looks like without the creepy fog…though I didn’t care that I missed this view. I want to go back and never leave.

83. Just because I can…yes please, I’ll take two.