August 21st - 23rd

We had a great dinner with Andrea & Aaron.  It was really nice to be able to sit down and talk to them by themselves as normally we are with a crowd of people.  Talk about two very outdoors-active people.  Both of them enjoy hiking and climbing!  In fact, they climb "The Chief" 4 - 5 times a week after work and then on weekends, they head for other challenges.  Unfortunately Andrea sprained her ankle walking down from the top of The Chief after a successful climb.  Aaron had to piggy-back her most of the way down.  She has at least 2 more weeks to go before she can return to work... yes, she did a really good job on it.

After dinner they drove us around to see a little bit of Squamish.  We went to the spit where we were able to watch a kite-boarder for a while.  Apparently he was an instructor and was just out "fooling around" as he did not have any students... what a show!  Afterwards we went back the trailer, had coffee and went to sleep.

The next morning (Friday) we said goodbye and headed to Vancouver.  It was a short drive with some beautiful scenery.   Unfortunately there were not a lot of places to pull over and take pictures as there was a lot of construction going on for the Winter Olympics in 2010.

Our campsite was right at the foot of the Lions Gate Bridge which goes from the mainland to Stanley Park so Arda and I decided to ride our bikes around the bike-path.  What a great facility for the people of Vancouver.

On Saturday we met up with Lee and Mike at their house for lunch and then we went to the Vancouver Aquarium where we were able to see a new-born Beluga-whale (June 7, 2009) swimming with his mother.  They are about 120 pounds when born and he has since put on a lot of weight which in this case is a good thing.

That evening we all went back to the trailer where we had a salmon bake... the ladies made a great meal while Mike and I took care of the wine.   

Sunday morning we headed east towards Calgary but only got as far Sorrento, BC  where we decided to spend the night.  The scenery has sure changed from Alaska and northern BC.  There are many areas where there are no trees or at least much smaller trees (around Kamloops for example) and open spaces.  There are a lot of pine trees that are brown (assuming they are dead) but we don't know why.  Maybe the pine beetles?

We are not in a hurry so will leave here tomorrow AM and may spend another night along the way although it is only a 5 - 6 hour drive.  We'll see how the mood strikes us.

Pictures can be found at  Squamish-Vancouver 2009

In the meantime, take care and keep the loops open.


PS  If you are wondering about the picture with "Arda's handi-work", this is a result of HER opening a box of wine!  I happened to open a box one time a put a very, very small hole in the bag and I have yet to hear the end of it so you know what is going to happen here...