On to Vancouver BC

On Saturday we finally made it to Canada. In Portland we stayed at the Hampton Inn, had a nice breakfast, and were over the river into Washington State before 9 AM. At Kelso Washington, we stopped at Safeway for some supplies: sparkling water, trail mix, and turkey jerky. While I’m sure that we could find all of these in Vancouver, we weren’t taking any chances.

Back on the road, we made a call to David and Debbie Grisanti, to see how Debbie was doing after her knee surgery, and to touch base with them since we wouldn’t be stopping in Seattle. We talked together for more than half an hour, and had a wonderful time of fellowship. However. David couldn’t help bringing up (again) the fact that when David di Sabatino interviewed us for his 2003 book, The Jesus People Movement, he mistakenly attributed David’s famous “carrot story” to me.

When I was planning this trip, I used Google Maps extensively, making sure that we never travelled more than 6 hours a day. After the first three days, I realized that Google Maps was excessively optimistic when it came to travel time, even ignoring rest stops and meal breaks, Friday was no exception. According to Google, it should have taken us roughly five hours to travel from Portland to Vancouver. Instead, it took us a little more than eight.

Of course, at least an hour and a half of that was because we stopped to get gas in Edmonds, Washington, and ended up at the Rick Steve’s Europe headquarters and store, where Kathy got a new backpack and coin purse. I also got a chance to look at all of the different models of travel luggage. It’s one thing to look at it on the Web, but an entirely different thing to touch and feel them. We left without buying any new luggage. We did pick some more blackberries, though.

From Edmonds to the Canadian border reminded me of rush hour in LA—slow moving, bumper-to-bumper, with occasional complete stops. One of these was caused by a stalled car on the freeway, but most of them were just unexplained. Perhaps it had something to do with it being a Saturday?

Crossing the border was easy. We needed our passports of course, but the questions were pretty cursory. We probably looked pretty harmless. Of course, if they actually did do any in-depth interviews, the traffic would probably back up even further. As it was, there were six or seven lanes open, and we only had about a ten-minute wait in line.

Once across the border, we immediately knew we were in a foreign country. On the USA side, the speed limit was 65 miles-per-hour. Once across the border, it went to 50 kilometers-per-hour. Kathy was driving (since I had sort of fallen asleep while driving about an hour earlier), and both of us were trying to figure out exactly what that meant, since our Subaru didn’t have a kilometer ring on the speedometer. Fortunately, after a mile or two, the car popped up a little notification, automatically converting the KPH to MPH.

We got to our hotel (the Burnaby Best Western) at 5:30, got checked in, and went looking for dinner. Our son Judah, and his wife Mari Kristin (MK) lived in Vancouver a few years ago and before we left, she stopped by and told us that we needed to try two things: Ukrainian pierogi and poutine. I Googled pierogi and found a highly-rated Ukrainian bakery and restaurant, the Kozak Ukrainian Eatery, only a few miles away.

Remembering how much she loved them when we visited Poland, Kathy went with the lamb and cilantro pierogi, while I want to try something a little more adventurous. I ordered Mama’s Combo, and added a bowl of goulash as well. The goulash was as good as it looks: rich, spicy, and meaty. Delicious.

In addition to the goulash, the combo included some pierogi, a kolbassa sausage, and a cabbage roll. Neither Kathy, nor I were that impressed with the pierogi. Perhaps the Ukrainian and Polish ones are different. However, the cabbage roll and the sausage were just great.

Next morning was our full day in Vancouver. Our plan was to take the Sky Train (Vancouver’s light-rail system) downtown and, to perhaps bike around the sea wall at Stanley Park. After breakfast at the hotel, we walked the six blocks to the Royal Oak station on the Expo line and purchased two day passes ($11CA each). A few minutes later, the train came and we set off for downtown.

When we reached the end of the line (Waterfront Station) we saw that the Sea Bus was leaving for Lonsdale Quay on the other side of the harbor. Hoping to get the most out of our day pass, get a free harbor tour, and see a different part of Vancouver, we hopped on. 

Lonsdale Quay was fun. My guidebook calls it a “miniature Granville Island public market”. I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t comment on that. We browsed, I had some gelato, and took some pictures of Phoenix Toys and Phoenix Books. (One of our granddaughters’ name is Phoenix.)

By now it was getting close to noon. We knew if we wanted to ride bikes, we’d better get over to the park, so we got back on the Sea Bus and headed back to Waterfront Station and Canada Place. It turns out that even though on the map everything looks very close together, it’s really not. Our guidebook says that Vancouver is “eminently walkable”. I guess it is, if you like walking long, long distances. I do not, so we went looking for Bus 19 which goes to the center of Stanley Park.

By this time, it was pretty hot, and I was pretty tired. Instead of an early afternoon bike ride, we looked into a horse-drawn trolley tour that circled the park. On hearing that it cost $75 per person, though, we settled for an amble around the park. We sat down on a bench overlooking Lost Lagoon, and a stork flew up and landed in the branches just over our head. I tried to get a picture of it, but couldn’t.

By two, even ambling was a little taxing and so we caught the bus, and then the Sky Train back to our hotel. Since we hadn’t eaten yet, we took the car to go get some poutine. According to MK, the best poutine is at the Costco Food court. For those of you who don’t know, poutine is French fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Kathy liked it, but I just couldn’t get into it, so I got a slice of pizza instead, and, on the way home, some Chinese food. I guess I’m just not that adventurous.

Tomorrow morning we’re leaving for the British Columbia interior, and I’ll have another chance to try something new.