(North) Vancouver BC

After Port Townsend I took Spencer to SeaTac airport then drove up to Vancouver BC. I was again given the 5th degree when crossing the border because I have a car full of my life, a USB on my keys with my resume on it (he asked!). I went up to visit my friends from church camp, luckily Aimee was off for the summer from her work in schools, and Scott was off because he didn't start his job for another week. I came up on Friday so I'd also be able to hang out with Kalan who works during the week.

I wish I could remember the name of this lake we went to... but this is what it looks like around Vancouver... fucking beautiful.

I did a bunch of Canadian things, we went to De Detuch for Dutch style pancakes (ok, that's that not Canadian... but it was delicious!), went to a beautiful lake just outside of North Vancouver, wandered Granville Island, got gelato at La Casa Gelato, went to my first hockey game, and tried my hand at 5-in bowling.


La Casa Gelato, my brother's awesome suggestion, is just East of the Vancouver Chinatown. They have so many flavors it's hard to choose. I ended up going to Billberry (on top... still no idea what it is but it was so yumm!) and a chocolate creme de menthe gelato. They were both delicious. I also tried a balsalmic gelato... this was less successful. Really, I couldn't eat the whole tiny spoonful. One lick, then tossed it. The basil gelato, however, was quite tasty but seemed more like a small taste during a 7 course chef's table dinner kind of thing.

On Tuesday my buddy Scott was free all day so he and Aimee and I had "Tourist Tuesday"! Scott kept commenting on how much more touristy Aimee was, but that's because she kept taking pictures :) We started with breakfast in Deep Cove then went on a hike to a great view

If I was feeling like being on my computer more I'd combine those images... but use your imagination

We also went to Granville Island which I don't have many pictures of but we wandered the market, I got a whole bunch of cherries and Scott got raspberries... all of which were delicious (omg I love berries! That's been one of the best things about being back in the PNW). We also did a little shopping, I got some shoes, went to Scott's yacht club for drinks and a sick view:

Have I mentioned how beautiful it is in Vancouver?

Then we needed a break before we went out longer so we went by Scott's place to chill for a bit and catch the sunset. We then met up with Kalan and Duke in Gastown (downtown) Vancvouer for drinks. Scott told me about a giant Jenga but there was some event going on in the bar so we didn't get to do that.


Tourist Tuesday was awesome :) I'd been to Vancouver a few times before but usually just for a weekend and never with friends with cars who could show me around! I would love to go back for another long visit.

Now the order of events is a little hazy, I realize it wasn't that long ago but hey, we did a lot! Kalan had his last hockey game of the season so we went to that and Duke happened to be there too. Kalan's team won and I'm not gonna say it's because we were there but I'm not gonna say it wasn't because we weren't there... :)


I also went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge with Erika, Aimee and Denise. So I'm not that comfortable with heights... all these ladies I was with were walking without holding on and shaking the bridge and looking over the edge holy jeebus that made me nervous! We also did the treetop adventure (looks a bit like the Ewok village out of Star Wars) and the Cliff Walk. If you ever plan to go I highly recommend going with a BC resident. It was not cheap (even with my "student" discount) but BC residents can get a year long membership for the same as one admission ticket, and they can bring a guest who gets 10% (or was it 15%?) off, even a student admission! So that saved me about $5 right there. I decided it would be worth it once, next time I go we'll visit Lynn Canyon- has a suspension bridge too and is free, but it's not as high or long. Although, with my discomfort with heights maybe that's not such a big deal!



I'd been wanting to paint since I was driving through North Dakota and Montana so Aimee and I decided to have a craft day in which we painted. I painted this chicken (the image I got out of an article in National Geographic back at church camp that I highly recommend reading).



We went 5-pin glow bowling. The website said they were open until 10, we got there at 8:45 and they were closing at 9! Yikes! But we got in one game (and he let us stay until about 9:10). Five-pin bowling is strange... the ball is small and the pins are spaced out pretty well so that it is hard to knock over more pins just by hitting one pin. The scoring system was bizarre too... I didn't understand it (but I think Aimee won legit-ly :P)



When I left Canada I passed a warning sign by the border "You are about to enter a high medical cost area, proceed with caution" or something like that... then I headed to our beach house in Lincoln City, OR. I was in Beaverton around 5:30 so I called up my dad and invited myself for dinner. After dinner I continued the 2 more hours to meet my brother and his wife at the beach. That was a long day of driving! (For those of you on the East Coast... it's about 3 hours from Vancouver BC to Seattle and another 3.5 hours from Seattle to Portland, then from Portland to Lincoln City is about 2 hours).

Leaving Canada

Quick post before we head out! We have been staying in the 1000 Islands area in Ontario (birth place of 1000 Island dressing!). This morning, after a stop at Tim Hortons, we'll be heading to Niagara Falls. We are going to check out the Canadian side and then plan to camp on the US side. We don't have a camp site reservation but because it's a Sunday night we aren't too worried about finding a place to rest our weary heads. It's actualyl been pretty chilly here at night and Ashley doesn't have any camping gear so she's been sleeping in the car - good thing I left space for a bed! My tent has been just as cozy as it was when I spent the summer sleeping in it 2 years ago up in Vermont. (Sigh, Vermont!).

I have the intel on a place in Chicago I can look for a used bike now my concern is that if I get there and they don't have a good bike for me I'm bikeless! I do own another road bike that is currently hangingi n my mom's garage... I'm wondering if it's worth it to ask her to ship it to me in Chicago or if I should just cross my fingers and hope to find a decent used bike in Chicago... Any thoughts or advice? I should be arriving in Chicago in a week. After Niagara we're going to slowly make our way on the highway next to Lake Erie and check out the little towns and camp until we arrive in Cleveland on Wednesday. In Cleveland I'm going to be helping a friend who builds playgrounds all over the country! I get to put my construction hat on again... I love that hat! After that I'm on to Chicago!

Catch ya on the other side!

I'm okay, my car is a little beat up, my bike however is totally unrideable :(

I've never had an accident before and yesterday evening, on the road from Ontario to the 1000 Islands Parkway, I had my first accident. The truck in front of me stopped short, so I stopped short so did the 2 girls behind me ending up with 3 cars bumping into each other. I'm glad my bike was hurt and not my car- the back has a ding in it but it's all cosmetic as I can still lock the back door and the bumper is just scratched. If the bike and bike rack hadn't been there the girl behind me probably would have been even closer in her SUV and likely caused even more damage to my car. I really wish I'd woken up in time yesterday to ride it around Montreal like I wanted to; that is hard to do after several rum and cokes though :P

All 3 of us (ladies driving the cars) are fine, actually the girl in the back who hit the girl who hit me had the most damage to her car, the middle car was a SUV and came out with like a tiny scratch and a dent in the license plate. Both girls were young drivers and freaking out about facing thier parents. I'm glad my car is mine and I have to report to no one, save for my readers! And what's a great adventure with a little snafu mixed in? Hopefully the snafu's stay small :)

SO Anyway... I'm at the KOA 1000 Islands in Ontario, Canada. This is NOT roughing it, so don't even think that I'm in my tent, out peeing in the woods... There is a main building with laundry, showers, 3 swimming pools, a TV that is on in the background with cartoons (perhaps the staff saw us two kids, of 27yrs, and thought we needed cartoons?) This is as cushy a car camping site as they come! And I'm totally ok with that, I didn't think I'd be "roughing" anything until I got out West. :) Today is going to be a nature day, and also kind of a maintenance day... check the tire pressure, tidy up the car that seems to have an explosion of stuff inside it... I may also stop at the bike store in town and see what they think about the damage to my bike and what it will take to fix it. Anyway after being in Montreal for a couple days and all that driving in Vermont, I'm ready for a day of calmness and nature :)

I think it's about time to build a fire, cook up some breakfast (veggies and beans! Yum!), clean the car and figure out where we'll hike today!

Please send good thoughts to my bicycle, I love you bicycle, I'm sorry you got hurt! I'll fix you up though! We will ride again, at least by the time I get to Chicago!

I'm in the capital of Canada!

Hi from Ottawa!

After the longest border crossing into Canada I've ever experienced (no I am not looking for a job in Canada, yes I am unemployed, my car is full because I am on a road-trip and no, I am not looking for a job in Canada), Ashley and I made it to Montreal! I will admit it took me a little while to really like Montreal. I think I was going to be more impressed by it. The original plan was to camp outside Montreal but then thinking about the time and money it would take to get into Montreal and that we were only staying 2 nights, we decided to book a hostel.

We arrived Tuesday afternoon and checked into our hostel. I would come back to Montreal just to stay at Montreal Centrale, it was the most amazing hostel I've been to. It was like a hotel, the staff was super friendly and helpful, I met some awesome people, great location... just great! After getting settled and getting the car into the parking garage we decided to go find some dinner. Ashley did a little research on Chowhound and we settled on, of all things, Schwart's, a Jewish deli famous for smoked meat. So we trekked over to pickles and a shared smoked meat sandwich then walked over to Parc Mont-Royal. After hanging out in the sun for a bit we walked down hill, and down to Old Montreal and the waterfront. We had not anticipated being out this long so we were both wearing inappropriate footwear (read: flipflops) and returned to the hotel tired and ready for a drink and some conversation. While Ashley popped in the shower I went to the hostel bar and bought some beer (2/$6!) and went to the "backyard" and sat with the group of boys who were speaking English and had space at their table. That night reminded me how awesome it can be to stay at hosteals (something I haven't done since my travels in Europ 5 years ago). I was up chatting with fellows travelers, from all over the world, until 2am, it was awesome.

Smoked meat, I'm glad we split it cause that whole sandwich would have put me to sleep once we reached the park with its beautiful green grass that I failed to photograph.


We went into a grocery store to check out the chip aisle. The USA does not have a big selection of chips compared to Canada! Today we tried All Dressed, delicious. They have flavors like Hot Dog, Dill pickle, Buffalo Wing and Blue Cheese and even bacon... crazy. I want to try them all!

In the morning we slowly got ready and had some breakfast and chatted with our new roommate, Miguel, from NYC who had just arrived the night before. We were planning to use the bike taxi system, Bixi, and explore more of Montreal with the main goals to see Habitat 67 and Marche Jean-Talon; Miguel joined us and tagged along on our little foodie/architecture tour of Montreal. (I love French btw, and I just want to get an audio track that tells me how to pronounce things, I don't care about speaking it, I just want to be able to read things!) Then when we were heading out we were joined by Sarah, from Winnepeg. So our little group of 4 navigated the amazingly bikeable Montreal. It was awesome, the bike system is pretty sweet for commuting but a bit of a pain for tourists. I should have just ridden my own bike and had my buddies rent bikes (of course then you have to deal with locking it up, but at least you can lock your bike next to where you stop without having to look for parking- it's as bad as driving!)

A Bixi station- awesome... when there is a spot for your bike to park,
or else you can end up walking a lot to find a slot.

Habitat 67 was amazing. We didn't even go inside - we just wandered around the outside. It was warm and breezy on the peninsula where there seemed to be an abnormal number of moths hanging out in the shade. The building is an example of amazing prefabricated concrete architecture. I learned about it about 9 years ago as a freshman in architecture school and it was quite exciting to walk around it. I love architecture :)

Habitat in the distance, it sits on a pier just outside the city; getting there reminded me a little of my trek in Amsterdam to Silodam

Habitat 67 was so cool to walk around!

After we spent a half hour wandering around Habitat we rode back to old montreal and returned our bikes. Then we walked around and ended up in Chinatown where we tried Dragon's beard candy. I didn't think it was that sweet but apparently my tastebuds are messed up cause all 3 of my buddies thought it was super sweet!

Mmmm Dragon's beard - (I'm clearly enjoying it)
this was pre-made stuff; someday I'd like to see it made in person

From there we walked down to Old Montreal and ate at Les 3 Brasseurs, I had the amber beer, brewed on site and pretty good though I've had better. Then we took the amazingly quiet (rubber tires rather than the metal tires of NYC) metro up to the March Jean-Talon, an open air market with beautiful foot laid out in bags and displayed in baskets, ready to be purchased.

Fresh produce at the Jean Talon market

After spending a while wandering the market and drooling over fresh produce we got on the Bixi bikes again and headed back to the hotel. After we started drinking some rum and cokes we headed to La Banquise for my first taste of poutine. I can tell you I was hesitant about poutine- fries, cheese curds and gravy did not sound good to me. Boy was I wrong! It melts in your mouth, so deliciously! The 4 of us shared 3 kinds: Classique, Matty (with bacon, mushroom, onion and green pepper) and Taquise (with tomatoes, guacamole and sour cream). We ate it all!

Poutine is delicious!