Vancouver, British Columbia - May 12th to 15th, 2022

Ever since Keith went to Vancouver for a work convention quite a few years ago, he has wanted to take Ann there. He loves the feel of Vancouver and wanted Ann to experience it as well. We never found the time to go until now. It was a great first stop in Canada.

Thursday was the day we crossed the border into Canada. The campground we were camping at Tuesday and Wednesday night did not have a dump station and the one we were heading to outside of Vancouver didn’t have one either. We searched around for a nearby dump station. Google Maps indicated that some of the rest areas along I-5 had dump stations. For some reason, neither Compendium nor AllStays listed these. So that was our first stop after breaking camp at Kayak Point Regional County Park on Thursday morning. The rest area not only had three dump stations, they had a large area for RV’s to spend the night, up to 11 hours. We emptied all of our gray water containers, threw out the carrots and made one last restroom visit. We were ready to cross the border.

The border crossing itself went smoothly. There was no line, no waiting. The border agent asked for our passports and asked us if we had any firearms. Then he said that Ann was selected for a random COVID test and handed us a test kit with instructions. The test had to be completed within 24 hours and be observed by a certified person. Then we were good to go.

Before heading to the campground, we stopped at an ATM to get some Canadian dollars. Then we stopped in Fort Langley for lunch and groceries. Ann found a place called Planet Java 50’s Diner. It sounded cute, so that’s where we went. It wasn’t as cute in person. It needed a little TLC, like some maintenance and cleaning, but we went inside anyway. The food turned out to be pretty tasty. We just had burgers, fries, and Cokes, but they were very satisfying. For groceries, we stopped in Lee’s Market. We didn’t know quite what to expect, but we were very impressed. The fresh fruits and vegetables looked fantastic and there was a great selection and variety of products for a little, local market. We would definitely recommend this place for stocking up after crossing the border, or if you just happen to be in the area. It’s a great little store.

Crossing the border may have been easy, but completing the COVID test was not, at least not for us. You can do the test via a virtual appointment. All you should need is a good internet connection and a laptop or phone and some hand sanitizer. When we reached the campground, we had a good cell signal. So far, so good. Ann registered the kit online, just some forms to fill out. That went pretty smoothly. There is a video to watch which instructs you how the procedure will go and to open the kit (after sanitizing your hands) to check that it contains everything. Then, for the virtual appointment, you need to download the Microsoft Teams app to your laptop or phone. Ann has a MacBook Pro, but there was a version for the Mac, so no problem there. Then Ann scheduled a virtual appointment. The first one available was in one hour. That's not too bad. They send you an email with a link to join the meeting.

The time came and Ann clicked on the link. Error. The server could not be found. She tried a couple of times, no luck. Ann called the tech support phone number. While she was on the phone with them, the observer called her and left a message saying she will need to reschedule the appointment. The tech support did not know what the issue was. Ann could retry another virtual appointment using her phone instead of her laptop, but she had no confidence that would work either. So she tried to make an appointment to go in in-person. We would probably have to go somewhere anyway because the procedure was to schedule Fed-Ex to pick up the completed kit the next day. It was already too late in the day to schedule for the following day and we were not sure they would come to the campground anyway. There are drop off locations at some Shoppers Drug Marts, but the website wouldn't say which ones until you clicked the selection saying your kit was already completed.

Ann went to the LifeLabs (the people in charge of the testing kits) website and tried to schedule a test at the LifeLabs location in Richmond. However, it required logging in and the credentials she created to register the kit did not work. Called tech support again, they didn't seem to understand why her credentials would not work. They recommended calling one of the Shoppers Drug Marts that are listed on the LifeLabs website to schedule an appointment. She tried calling one of them. She could not get through the maze of prompts to either a person or making an appointment and got caught in a loop. Then Ann tried creating another account at the LifeLabs scheduling site, only to find out that she had to be a Canadian resident. Then she tried calling another Shoppers Drug Mart from the list and still could not get a person. However, this one referred her to the Shoppers Drug Mart website to schedule an appointment. Going through several steps on their web site brought her back to the LifeLabs website where she had started. Now Ann was rather frustrated.

It was now 4 pm. We decided just to drive to one of the Shoppers Drug Mart locations. This went much smoother. After filling out a couple of paper forms (luckily Ann had written down the kit registration ID) and waiting a couple of minutes, the person at the pharmacy did the test for her and will send it in for her. We should have just gone in person to begin with (perhaps after registering the kit online). Long story short, after three to four hours of trying to get the test done, it was finally completed.

For dinner, we made pasta. It was raining, so we didn’t feel like cooking the pasta outside on the butane stove (paid link). We’ve cooked the pasta before in the sauce in the Instant Pot (paid link), but the pasta became rather mushy. This time we decided to try cooking the pasta in the microwave. First we made the sauce in the Instant Pot then turned the Instant Pot off. It stays hot for quite a while and we don’t like to run more than one appliance at the same time that draws a lot of power. Then we boiled some water in our electric tea kettle. We put a serving of the dry pasta in a bowl and covered it completely with the boiling water and microwaved the bowl for ten minutes before draining the water off. The process was repeated for the second serving of pasta. Because all of this was done serially, it took a little longer than boiling it in a pot while the sauce was cooking, but we didn’t have to stand out in the rain to do it. The pasta turned out great! Much better than cooking it with the sauce in the Instant Pot. And since we didn’t cook the whole pound of pasta (or 500 grams in this case), we didn’t have leftover pasta to store in our small fridge.

We could definitely tell we were now in a different country. Google Maps immediately switched over to kilometers when we crossed the border. Speed limits were now posted in kph instead of mph. Underpass height restrictions were posted in meters instead of feet and inches. It’s a good thing we calculated how tall our Red Tail Lodge (our van) is in meters! Restrooms were now called washrooms. Currency is now Canadian dollars instead of U.S. dollars. Green left arrows now flashed along with some of the solid green lights. We learned that this meant a pedestrian could trigger the light to change. Our Verizon hotspot no longer worked. Gas prices were listed in Canadian cents per liter instead of U.S. dollars per gallon. Dates were in the form of dd/mm/yyyy instead of mm/dd/yyyy when filling out forms for the COVID test. In order to be able to relate how far our van would go until empty with what Google Maps was telling us, Keith switched our van to report the number of kilometers left on our tank of gas. While he was at it, he decided to change the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius. We were doing the full immersion, baby!

It may have been Friday the thirteenth, but it turned out to be a lucky day for us. The forecast called for rain most of the day, but we decided to risk it and spend the whole day in Vancouver. The forecast for Friday was actually slightly better than Saturday or Sunday, so we thought it would be our best chance to walk the waterfront and Stanley Park.

Our Red Tail Lodge can be a little hard to navigate and park in large cities. It won’t fit into most parking garages and we don’t like to maneuver it through heavy city traffic. We searched for an alternative way to get into the city. There were buses and commuter trains. We chose the Expo Line train since we would not have to make any transfers to reach the Waterfront and it ran all day with a train every few minutes. A Day Pass for $10.75 per person allowed us to ride any SkyTrain, Sea Bus, or bus operated by TransLink any number of times through out the whole day, without the hassle of purchasing multiple tickets. The end of the Expo Line was in the town of Surrey at the King George Station. Searching Google Maps, it looked like we could find some on-street parking that would only cost $5 for the whole day (until 8 pm). It also wouldn’t cost us much in time either. The King George Station was about a 25 minute drive from the campground and the train would be about a 45 minute ride to the Waterfront. That’s not bad considering Google Maps claimed it would take us about an hour to drive straight to Stanley Park, not counting time to find a place to park. It sounded like a plan!

Everything went smoothly. We found a place to park just a couple of blocks from the train station. Purchasing the Day Pass using the vending machine was simple. It spit out a paper ticket for each of us. The ticket is scanned at the turnstile to enter the train station and scanned again at the turnstile to exit your destination station. The Expo Line is part of the SkyTrain system. The train is elevated for most of the trip, becoming a subway when it reaches downtown Vancouver. Being elevated gave us a nice view along the way. Instead of just seeing what was right next to the tracks, we could see out over the buildings. The train passes by housing neighborhoods, playgrounds, ball fields, and businesses. There are high rise apartment buildings, but they are well spaced so you can see past them. When the skies were clear, you could see the mountain peaks in the distance. Being on the commuter train gave us a feel for what life is like in the Vancouver area, from commuting to work and where they live. It was a pleasant ride, even though it was overcast and drizzling rain.

When we reached the Waterfront, we decided to stop for a hot drink. We’re in Canada, so a Tim Hortons seemed like the appropriate choice. Even though you can find Tim Hortons locations in the States, they are based in Canada and more prevalent here. Keith’s mother always loved going to Tim Hortons. Keith had a coffee while Ann, who is not a coffee drinker, had a hot chocolate. While we were at it, we both also had a croissant.

After our refreshment, we started walking, and walking, and walking. The Expo Line brought us to the waterfront near Canada Place, where the cruise ships leave from. Walking along the waterfront to reach Stanley Park is over a mile, or should we say over two kilometers. Walking along the Seawall along the waterfront is lovely, past the Coal Harbor Marina and the Bayshore West Marina. Vancouver does a great job catering to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. The paths clearly separate the pedestrians and the cyclists, with a strip of landscaping and/or benches or with an elevated curb. It is so nice to be able to walk along without having to worry about being hit by a cyclist.

Stanley Park is a very large park covering the tip of the peninsula that downtown Vancouver sits on. Just the path around the perimeter of the park, along the seawall is about five miles long, or about 8 kilometers. We started walking around the perimeter of the park in the counter-clockwise direction. This took us by the Totem Poles, the Nine O’Clock Gun, and the Brockton Point Lighthouse. The Nine O’Clock Gun is a canon that fires every night at 9 pm. Unfortunately, we did not stay that late in Vancouver to see and hear it go off.

When we reached the Fox’s Den Splash Park, we decided it was time for lunch, so we headed inland into the center of the park to Stanley’s Bar & Grill inside the Stanley Park Pavilion. The restaurant is inside a beautiful building in a beautiful setting of gardens. All of the items on the menu sounded delicious and, from all of the options, we’re not quite sure why we both decided on the burger and fries. However, they were delicious. We both ordered iced teas to drink and Keith asked for some sweetener to go with it. The waitress then explained that Canada serves their iced tea already sweet. Good to know! The teas were not as sweet as what we normally get as “sweet tea” in the States. They also had lemon juice in them and were quite refreshing.

From the restaurant, we walked through the Stanley Park Rose Garden to reach South Creek Trail. It was too early for the roses to be in bloom. We could only imagine how beautiful it must be when they do. The South Creek Trail led us through the woods to Beaver Lake. It was spring and there was a mama duck with her brood of ducklings swimming across the pond. On the other side of the pond, we picked up the Ravine Trail to get us back over to the Seawall Path.

Continuing counter-clockwise around the Seawall, we past the Prospect Point Lighthouse and Siwash Rock. Along the way, we spotted a seal or sea lion poking his head out of the water a couple of times. At the Third Beach, we headed back inland on the Tatlow Walk Trail. At this point, we were back in the woods among ferns and moss covered trees. Large red cedar trees towered over our heads. The large tree stumps of former cedar trees were in among the living trees. They all made us feel small.

We emerged from the woods at the Lost Lagoon. Circling around the west side of the lagoon, we spotted quite a few more families of ducks and geese. It almost seemed like the ducks and geese were showing off their young to each other, being proud parents. People along the banks were admiring them. What is it about animal babies that brings smiles to our faces?

From the Lagoon, we returned to Canada Place along the waterfront seawall. It was almost 6 pm by this time. Our feet were complaining that they had enough for the day. Our phones did not agree with how far we had walked. One said 13 miles (21 km), the other said 11 miles (17 km). Either way, it was a lot of walking. We stopped in the food court near Canada Place for a quick dinner. Most of the food stands were already closed for the day since they are mainly there for the lunch crowd. However, we did find something that filled our bellies.

During our first day in Vancouver, we noticed a lot more men wearing Indian turbans or pagri than we’ve seen in the States. According to Wikipedia, the percentage of Canadians in British Columbia with ancestry from India is greater than 6%(Demographics_of_British_Columbia#Ethnic_Origins). We guess this makes sense since Canada and India were both British colonies at one time and are now still members of the modern British Commonwealth.

We made it back to the campground just in time for sunset. The weather actually turned out to not be that bad. It was chilly starting out the day and rained lightly on us off and on most of the day. However, by evening, it warmed up a bit and the sun even poked out briefly. Our campsite neighbors were sitting outside around their campfire and brought us over a piece of delicious pie. We went over and thanked them for their generosity and to chat for a little while. They were locals, living only about 15 minutes away. There were two mountain peaks that were visible from our campground. The locals told us they were the double summit of the Golden Ears Mountain. It was a long but very enjoyable day.

When we woke up on Saturday, there was a family of geese just outside our Red Tail Lodge. The mama was sleeping, with her goslings all tucked under her wings. Papa was standing guard. It was a very cute sight.

The forecast for the day called for a 50% chance of rain, so we spent another day in Vancouver, but with a little less walking involved. Again we took the Expo Line to the Waterfront Station. This time we headed over to Gastown. Gastown is the historic section of the city, with the old architecture. Most of the buildings in downtown Vancouver are very modern looking, with very similar architectural styles to each other. Although it makes the skyline look very cohesive, we not sure how we feel about it. Sometimes we like the character of a little more variety. Gastown is more to our liking.

We found a bakery, Purebread, for our late morning pastry. It was hard to choose from all the wonderful selection of goodies on display.

After strolling the streets, admiring the architecture of Gastown, we finished our tour by watching and listening to the Steam Clock strike noon. The Gastown steam clock “chimes” every fifteen minutes, using steam to activate a series of whistles.

We hopped back on the Expo Line and rode over to the Main St - Science World Station. Had we looked at the map a little closer, we probably would have walked over. From Science World, we hopped on the Aquabus over to Granville Island. The Aquabus is a fleet of cute, small little ferry boats that have eight different ports along False Creek. The boats are covered, so it kept us out of the rain.

Granville Island is not actually an island, but a peninsula. The main attraction is the Granville Island Public Market. We wandered around inside the market buildings, checking out all the wonderful goods for sale. It was Saturday, so the place was packed with people. We picked out a couple of items for our lunch, but we couldn’t find a table to eat at inside. It was only sprinkling at this time, so we grabbed a seat at a picnic table outside. The staff was doing a wonderful job of squeegeeing off the outside tables and benches so there were dry places to sit. There was also a small tent covering a busker, who kept the outside crowd entertained.

After we were done eating, the rain stopped, so we wandered around Granville Island to check out the rest of it. There were shops, bars, a marina, a hotel, a small neighborhood, an artisan district, theaters, a park, a recreation center, and a concrete factory. It was quite an eclectic mix of things, but all very interesting. After our exploration, we headed back into the Public Market for ice cream.

We hopped back on the Aquabus, but as we were heading back to Science World, the sun came out. We decided to get off at the Yaletown stop and walk the rest of the way. The walk alongside False Creek was very pleasant. It took us by some high rise apartment buildings and some sport stadiums. Cirque Du Soleil also had a tent set up for their Alegria show. It seems that Vancouver pays a lot of attention to people’s quality of life. There are plenty of public spaces with landscaping, playgrounds, and off-leash areas for dogs. People were out taking advantage of them, playing basketball, sand volleyball, and tennis. People were out walking, jogging, and riding bikes. We love it when a city feels very pedestrian and bike friendly.

We hopped back on the Expo Line back to our van. Since we were not getting on at the first station, the train was pretty full and we had to stand most of the way back. In fact, it seemed like more people were riding the train on Saturday, on the weekend, than there were on Friday, a weekday.

Again, the weather turned out better in the evening. We were able to cook dinner outside back at our campsite. While we were relaxing outside in our camp chairs, we watched a couple of tug boats dragging rafts of logs up the river. We had seen logs being transported the opposite direction along the river earlier. That seemed rather odd. Were they the same logs? We’ll never know.

The weather predicted for Sunday was the worse of the three days we were in the Vancouver area, and it turned out to be the worse. It rained steadily most of the day and into the night. So we hung out in our cozy Red Tail Lodge for the day. The rain let up a little in the afternoon, so we took that as our cue to drive into Fort Langley to pick up some more groceries, Lee’s Market, and visit a bakery, Blacksmith Bakery. The bakery was wonderful and evidently other people thought so as well, because the place was full of people. We only had to wait in line for a few minutes to pick out our sweet choices and order our chai lattes.

We both felt adventurous and ordered things we never had before. Keith had the cherry clafoutis. It resembled a custard. Ann chose the kouign ammann, which was like a cross between a popover and a cinnamon roll. It was very light and flaky with just the right amount of sweetness and cinnamon. Wikipedia describes it as a caramelized croissant, which Ann thinks is pretty accurate. After our treats, we returned to the campground. It was a very relaxing day which we is just what we needed after spending too long days walking around Vancouver.

We both loved our visit of Vancouver. Although we generally stay away from large cities, this one has a friendly atmosphere along with a nice mix of city and nature. We’ll probably be back, hopefully in warmer and dryer weather.

Check out our related video: Vancouver, British Columbia

(Ann)