Canada, eh?

We drove from Birch Bay, Washington, over the border to Canada. The minute you see the customs area, you see a big Canadian flag made of flowers. Oh, you Canadians. We drove to the nearest visitor’s center, where we found out that a summer weekend in Vancouver means extremely limited accommodations. No matter… we found a campsite close by in Delta, near Tsawassen, where we could take the bus to Vancouver and the shuttle to Victoria. After settling in at the campground, we navigated Canadian banks, money, supermarkets, and the like. We went to bed that night eagerly anticipating our day in Vancouver. We awoke with big raindrops dripping on our foreheads. Well, that’s how I woke up. Matt woke up by me having a cow at my new wet head. A crappy rain fly on our tent, indeed. We went to the Safeway to purchase bus tickets, and then took the bus into Vancouver. We saw Gastown, the Waterfront, and a big festival in Chinatown. My advice when touring a big city: take a bus tour. Let someone else do the driving, find the parking, show you all the good stuff, and avoid places like east of Hastings St. in Vancouver, which housed probably the worst ghettos I’ve ever seen outside the Tenderloin in San Francisco. At least the Tenderloin is small.


After our foray into a very sad part of town, we took another bus to Stanley Park, where we drank beer and walked around. We saw the Totem poles and then headed back to our bus. We had some trouble finding our bus stop, but eventually found it and headed back to camp. Matt had the great idea to use trash bags on the tent that night, as more rain and thunder was expected. It worked well except for the tiny corner we forgot. Sometime in the middle of the night, we awoke to find our foam pad and blanket slowly becoming drenched. Matt stuck it out like a champ, but I “slept” in the car. The next day, we checked into a hotel. Overpriced, but decent, and had a good pub. The next morning we went to Victoria. The ferry was fun, and we saw some beautiful inlets, coastline, and lighthouses. The boat ride was fun , too. It better be, considering the ferry tickets, and bus from Swartz Bay to Victoria cost us $110. Yes, you read that right. Victoria’s a nice little town, but kinda boring if you’re not on a tour and don’t have money to spend. There’s sea plane tours, the Fairmont Empress, and the Butchart Gardens, but just getting us there put us over budget. We wandered around and saw the Capitol Building, and then headed back on the world’s grumpiest bus.


The next day, we packed up the car and headed for Lake Louise, via Revelstoke. There’s some gorgeous scenery in British Colombia. We camped at our first KOA in Revelstoke. The next day we arrived at Lake Louise and hiked up to the lake from our campground. The lake was beautiful. We watched a fun program at the campground and retired for the night. We had a fitful night, however, and awoke at 6 am absolutely FREEZING. We threw the stuff in the car and drove to Lake Moraine, 13 miles from Lake Louise, and watched the sun rise. Lake Moraine is extremely blue, maybe even more so than Lake Louise. The rest of the day and the afternoon were spent driving to Montana, where we stayed in East Glacier Park. We drove briefly through Glacier National Park, and saw our first and only bear. It was smallish and slowly lumbered across the road! We continued on the next day to Southern Montana where we camped at another KOA just outside of Yellowstone. Next time, Yellowstone and beyond!