When we planned our trip to North America, early in the planning we considered going to Cuba as well. We decided to travel in May because this was the best time to avoid the hurricane season. Tampa is not far from Cuba and this week marks the start of the hurricane season. Guess what, we’re flying into a tropical depression. Not a hurricane, but the flight could be a little bumpy. Click on the image for more detail.
Another fine day in Vancouver and today started with breakfast at the shopping centre across the road that doesn’t abide by it’s own shopping hours. Our hotel is across the road from city hall and city centre shopping centre. The hours are clearly posted around the centre, but everytime we go there they are open early, or open later than the signs indicate. We’ve both had enough of egg and some form of pig in either a bun, or crepe. I just wanted some toast.
Today we headed to Gastown to see this steam powered clock everyone keeps talking about. The clock was reasonably easy to locate, it was on the corner with all the tourists. We hung around the old town for a while before heading to Granville island. Granville island isn’t really an island, but more of a peninsula because we could get to it with the public bus.
We started the day by going to Grouse Mountain. Grouse Mountain is on the northern side of Vancouver and overlooks downtown. Today was another clear day so we could see as far as the hills of Vancouver Island.
Yesterday we started our day at the Royal British Columbia Museum. The museum has many displays about British Columbia which could take days to peruse. Although these are interesting, this isn’t what we came to see. The museum has a special exhibition on the titanic. The museum has an entire themed section complete with boarding passes on entry. We started with a 45 minute IMAX movie about how the items were recovered along with the events leading up to the sinking. At the end of the exhibition we compare our boarding passes against the live and lost list. I was lost, Meg Lived. This was despite my first class ticket. There were quite a few themed actors going around the halls who had stories to accompany the exhibits.
Today we went to the Butchart gardens. These gardens are over a hundred years old and are the result of the Butchart family filling in a limestone quarry. It’s a slick operation and kind of like a Disneyland for flowers. My idea of gardening is making up a batch of Round-up, so this was pretty impressive. (more…)
We drove from Port Hardy at the northern end of Vancouver island to Victoria in the south. This was a 6 hour drive which meandered along the highway 19A coast road. We passed through many fishing towns before arriving in Victoria. (more…)
Not a lot to report again. We arrived in Port Hardy (on Vancouver Island) last night after 15 hours on the ferry. I didn’t even get seasick!
Not much to report since the last entry. It is currently 4:30 in the morning, and we are catching a ferry at 7:30 to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. For some reason they want us to check in 2 hours before departure. I’m really not sure why, since we don’t have a car, it’s just us. But the ticket clearly says that if we haven’t checked in 90 minutes before departure they will cancel and re-sell our tickets. So another early morning for us. (more…)
On our last day in Jasper, Meg awoke early to go looking for elk. Near our bungalow Canada Parks has placed signs warning about elk activity in the area and that the elk are very protective of their calves. Unfortunately the elk had decided to sleep in on the very day Meg got up early, so only vocal squirrels to be seen and heard. (more…)