After work on a Friday, we went for a drive up to Vancouver, just to check out the city, do a bit of scouting for a nice place to stay and to check out the route of the Marathon this summer... there's some folks in the family who's going to be running in it. 

 
 
Crossing the border into Canada, I snapped a picture of the Nav...  I know, I'm a bit weird.

 
 
Its always an experience to go through the border checkpoints.

 
Saturday, we got ready for a bus tour around town... before we left, we stopped for a quick snack. 

Ketchup Chips... they were pretty good! 

 
 
We stayed in a nice hotel.  My original plan was to go to a hockey game, and this hotel is RIGHT next to BC Place, where the Canucks play.

I read the schedule wrong, though... they were out of town this weekend. 

 
The tour swept through China Town, which is the largest in Canada, and only bested by the one in San Francisco as the largest in North America.

We also drove through "Gas town", a section of the city still running on gas lights... one of the features there is the Steam Clock, which kinda wierd... a steam engine driving a clock... It made for a nice view in the cool morning air.

 
In Stanley Park, we stopped at the Totems for a bit.

Carved by local native tribes to welcome the new settlers to the region, these totems have been replaced a few times as they wear out in the wet weather of the Northwest.

The craftmanship was pretty incredible!  Since most of the food came from the salmon runs, there was a lot of time to develop art and other expressions not found in some other native tribes... the building of totems is unique to the West Coast, and is an enduring symbol of times nearly lost in the past. 

 
 
Stanley park was one a Canadian Navy base.  This building was the Headquarters Building.  It now houses the Park's offices, and is the only structure remaining from the Military days.

Hi-rise condos dot the skyline along the waterfront in the background... Seattle and Bellevue are now heading this way, as well. 

 
The park has a walking path along the shoreline... which is where the racers will go. 

 
 
This cannon goes off at 5PM every day, a tradition harkening to the days where it sounded the "return" call for fishermen in the area, letting them know that the day would soon be over.

 
This is a statue of a Lady in a Wetsuit. 

 
Its supposed to bring mention to the recreational opportunities of the water.

Its sort of weird, if you ask me. 

 
One place we went in Stanley Park is the Aquarium and Zoo... they had an assortment of local coastal animals.

This snake was very striking. 

 
 
Not so striking was the Cockroach exhibit.

This picture is at the request of the Shadow Lady... or was it that she asked me to NOT put it on the website??? hmmm....

 
 
The Star of the Park, in my opinion, were the Baluga whales.

They were pretty animated, swiming around, checking out the crowd just as much as we were checking them out.

They live in the arctic, which is where their white skin makes sense... its harder for the fish they hunt to see them.

The adult male often swam upside down, which is apparently difficult to do... he was trying to impress the ladies, acording to the park ranger.

 
We took a water Taxi across the river... it was a pretty fun trip, and it gave us some pretty awesome views of the city. 

 
We also stopped at the Granville Island Public Market. 

It was fun walking through some of the smaller shops and exhibits.

We got some roasted chestnuts that were VERY good!  

  A city of 2 million or so, Vanouver has a lot to offer and explore... we only scratched the surface! 

 
One thing that stuck us as interesting is that they had oysters growing right along the city's seawall... the water there was pretty clean. 

 
 
Unfortunatly, the weekend ended and we had to head back.

The drive back was socked in fog.

 
The Peace Arch, which is at the border, was barely visible through the thick soupy fog...  

 
Back in the USA... 

 
We stopped in Darrington on the way home, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to join the Self-Kicking Club.  :-)

In all, it was a fun trip... and we'll be heading back up there soon, I'm sure of it! 

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