Ryan went on a 10 day Lewis & Clark adventure trip with Bryce and Colter from work. They left on Friday, June 28 in the late afternoon. Drove through Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon and Canada. I flew up to Portland on July 3, to meet up with them on this adventure. My flight left after work on Wednesday with a stop in Vegas and then up to Portland. I arrived around 10:00 pm and Ryan, Colter and Kirsten picked me up. We drove back to Kirsten's apartment in downtown Portland. I met Kirsten's boyfriend, Dylan - I met him over Skype at Christmas but was glad to finally meet in person. Everyone was pretty tired and we were getting up early, so we just went to bed.
Thursday, July 4
Dylan and Kirsten were up early to catch the bolt bus up to Vancouver. I woke up while they were preparing to leave. I decided since I was up, I might as well get ready. We were going to drive up to Vancouver to meet up with them. We ate a quick breakfast before hitting the road. Since it was my first time in Portland, Ryan and Colter showed me around Portland a bit. It was a nice place with a lot of parks, cute shops and a lot to see and do.
The drive up to Vancouver was pretty uneventful, besides the usual stops and we did stop at the DQ for a dipped cone. The wait at the border wasn't too bad. We asked the lady who gave us the OK to cross into Canada if we could have a stamp in our passports - she said we could, but we would need to go into the building to get the stamp. She wrote a note that said what we were in the building for and sent us on our way. The guy at the desk who stamped our passports gave us a funny look when we told him all we wanted was a passport stamp. Oh well, it was my first stamp in this passport and it was worth it! Traffic increased as we got closer to Vancouver but it was fun to be in a new country. We stopped for gas and everything was in liters, not gallons. We ended up driving through a lot of the streets downtown while trying to follow the GPS in traffic with a lot of people walking around. We only got honked at once and didn't hit anyone - which was a good thing. All of the buildings were very similar - they all had a blue glass on them and were very tall - very modern and clean. Every building had a green roof, with trees and other things on it, which was different. There were a lot of people walking around and taking the buses. You could just tell it was a very walkable city and that a lot of people didn't have to drive if they didn't want to since everything was so close. It didn't feel like we had left the states, I knew we were in Canada but everything looked very similar. We finally made it to the hostel where we were staying (St. Claire's) and parked the car in a parking garage where we could just leave it for the time we were there. We met up with Dylan and Kirsten at the hostel and left for some sightseeing.
We walked around Gastown which was beautiful, around Canada Place, watched the planes take off from the water in the Coal Harbour and walked along the waterfront. We saw a lot of buildings like we tend to do on trips with Ryan. We had dinner at a fun place just off the waterfront. The weather was perfect, mid 70's - a nice break from the 100 degree heat we were having at home. We walked wandered back to the hostel. I had a shower once we got home because I didn't know how it was all going to work in the morning. Our hostel was nice, we shared a room with Colter. He pulled the mattress off the top bunk and slept on the floor. We had a sink in our room, everyone on the floor shared the showers and toilets. There were 3 floors in the hostel, we were on the second floor in room 17. Everyone was beat and slept well that night.
Friday, July 5
We left the hostel pretty early and the first stop was coffee for Dylan, Kirsten and Colter - I got a chocolate milk. We walked through Yaletown, stopped at the city library. Their library was designed by the same person who designed the Salt Lake library - they were almost identical in design.
We wandered over to the BC Place where the opening ceremonies were held in 2010. Walked along the waterfront on the other side.
We took an aqua bus to Granville Island. The aqua bus was a 1 minute ride that cost each of us $3.50 each way. It wasn't a big deal, but just funny how much it was for such a short distance. Granville Island was a lot of fun. It is an island with a lot of shops, and little food markets. Everyone found something they wanted for lunch in a big open market.
We wandered through the art's district and past the library again. We walked back to Canada place where we rented bikes from Ezzy Riders - an electric bike place. This was probably the highlight of the day. The bikes were electric and you didn't have to pedal if you didn't want to. There was a throttle you could use and it was actually pretty quick. I didn't pedal as much as I should have, I really liked using the electric part. :) We rode around Stanly park and that was a lot of fun. There were separate paths for people on bikes and people who were running/walking. We rode along the outer part of the park and it was along the water the entire way. It was beautiful, and so fun. There were a few small beaches, but we didn't stop at those.
After biking we went to the hostel to regroup and to get the car. You see, the parking garage closed at 10:00 pm on Friday, and didn't open again until Monday morning at 9:00 am. Since we were leaving by 8:00 am on Saturday, we couldn't leave the car there. We drove to University of BC where Dylan and Kirsten are thinking of going for grad school. It was a nice campus. We made our way to North Vancouver where we ate dinner at a local pub. We drove along the road up to Whistler and made it part way when we decided to turn around since it was getting dark and we wouldn't be able to see much anyway. We took a few pictures and drove back to the hostel. We were driving back and it was still light outside at 10:30 pm! I couldn't believe it.
We wandered over to the BC Place where the opening ceremonies were held in 2010. Walked along the waterfront on the other side.
We took an aqua bus to Granville Island. The aqua bus was a 1 minute ride that cost each of us $3.50 each way. It wasn't a big deal, but just funny how much it was for such a short distance. Granville Island was a lot of fun. It is an island with a lot of shops, and little food markets. Everyone found something they wanted for lunch in a big open market.
We wandered through the art's district and past the library again. We walked back to Canada place where we rented bikes from Ezzy Riders - an electric bike place. This was probably the highlight of the day. The bikes were electric and you didn't have to pedal if you didn't want to. There was a throttle you could use and it was actually pretty quick. I didn't pedal as much as I should have, I really liked using the electric part. :) We rode around Stanly park and that was a lot of fun. There were separate paths for people on bikes and people who were running/walking. We rode along the outer part of the park and it was along the water the entire way. It was beautiful, and so fun. There were a few small beaches, but we didn't stop at those.
After biking we went to the hostel to regroup and to get the car. You see, the parking garage closed at 10:00 pm on Friday, and didn't open again until Monday morning at 9:00 am. Since we were leaving by 8:00 am on Saturday, we couldn't leave the car there. We drove to University of BC where Dylan and Kirsten are thinking of going for grad school. It was a nice campus. We made our way to North Vancouver where we ate dinner at a local pub. We drove along the road up to Whistler and made it part way when we decided to turn around since it was getting dark and we wouldn't be able to see much anyway. We took a few pictures and drove back to the hostel. We were driving back and it was still light outside at 10:30 pm! I couldn't believe it.
Saturday, July 6
Got around pretty early so we could get going. My flight back to SLC was leaving at 3:50 pm and I wanted to have plenty of time to make sure I didn't miss my flight. Bryce and Dianne showed up on time - we packed up the car and left. We had to drop off Dianne in Seattle since she was staying another day with her family there. We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.
The flight home was a little more eventful than I would have liked. We made it to SLC and were starting to land. It was a little bumpy but didn't think much of it. Well next thing we knew we were going back up in the air. About 15 minutes after going back up, one of the pilots came over the intercom and said that the weather was too bad for us to land safely so we were heading to Boise for gas and then back to SLC. Luckily, it was a quick 50 minute flight to Boise. We landed, I called mom who was at the airport waiting to pick me up to tell her I was going to be a little later since we were in Boise. We were on the ground maybe 20 minutes total. The flight back went quickly and we were able to land safely in SLC. I was so excited to see Nolan and my parents!
It was a fun trip and Vancouver was beautiful! I can't wait to go back and take Nolan with next time.
1 comment:
Such a great trip! I'm glad we got to go with you guys :)
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