Day 98

Vancouver, British Columbia

Aug 12, 2013, 2:51 PM

NOT WHAT I EXPECTED!!!!! There have been so many occasions along this trip for that sentiment. We drove up to Canada and I really wanted to get our passports stamped, but sadly they wouldn't. I mean really! You couldn't just reach over to the ink pad and put a little stamp in my freaking book, whatever!! After crossing the border we were probably about 25 miles from Vancouver and the entire way was flat. Not what I was expecting at all. As we got into the city the residential area was kind of strange. I couldn't tell you much about the houses that lined the streets because 99% of the houses were surrounded by a hedge that formed a wall. These walls were so high and thick and filled in, I doubt a hedge hog could get through. Some of the hedges were high enough that they went completely around a gate, hedge to the left, hedge to the right, and hedge above you. Freaky!! I hope crime is very light in this area or muggers have a great advantage. 

After going through this residential area, it was like any big city, traffic that makes it next to impossible to get around, maybe two or three cars get through a light at a time, cars nose to tail for blocks on end, it was horrible. One thing that was very different were the huge residential skyscrapers on the north end of the city. There were so many apartment/condo buildings. They were massive towers of glass. These things were almost on top of each other. 

We went to Stanley's Park for the afternoon. It was a beautiful park in the middle of the city. We had a fantastic lunch and then went in search of the totem poles. We walked around the waters edge. It was a lot of fun. Then since we were in Vancouver I wanted to go to the Cupcake Girls Shop for cupcakes. Now you have to have some background here. I watched a show about these two women in Vancouver that opened a cupcake store. It was a cute show and they were crazy, they only did like 13 episodes, but since we were there we had to have some of the Cupcake Girls cupcakes, that's part one, part two is the flipping GPS was nearly useless in Canada. I updated the maps, it made me go out and get a microSD card to store the updates, you'd think it would be at least a little helpful, but all we really had was the little blue line that shows where we had been. No map associated with the little blue line!  So we are in a strange city, not in our own country, we didn't cross the border at the big border crossing cause a highway sign said there was a 50 minute wait to cross on I-5 and only 5 minutes to cross on 543, just a mile or two east from I-5. What we didn't realize was we weren't going to pass a Visitor's Center using the road less traveled. So we were just wandering with no idea where the heck we were going, are you getting the picture now? Well I had an address for the Cupcake Girls, but we had no idea where the street was, for sure, I thought we'd passed the street on our way, but I wasn't sure and Steve was getting really frustrated with the traffic, and not being 100% sure where we were going to get back across the border, there was stress! I have to admit the signs are not clear, not for following, or parking, or just getting around. Anyway, I thought for sure we'd missed it and that was OK, but then we passed the street it was on, so we turned. Trying to park was a nightmare, but when all was said and done I GOT CUPCAKES. 

Now it was time to get the heck out of Canada, so we are trying to follow 99, which was hard to find, to get back to the US and also following the little blue line on the GPS. We pass a status sign for the wait to cross the border, it says 60 minutes so we are in for a wait. Oh and wait we did. The status sign was pretty much right on the money, we had cupcakes to eat though. Now I don't want to say this line was long, but there was a guy with a cart going up the center of the road selling ice cream and water, that's a long line. 

No worries though, we made it home just fine. As soon as we got close to the border the GPS knew where she was again. Thank God we know where we are again!!!!! 

Steve just found out the main road going through the Cascades National Park was washed out and 65 cars were stuck there overnight Sunday into Monday. How horrible is that? Thank God we weren't there for that. We are going to wait till Wednesday to go to Cascades instead of going tomorrow, to give them as much time as possible to get things cleared. We will check out Seattle tomorrow and let you know how that goes. You lucky people!  LOL