Vancouver, spring flowers, and 4 wheels for me

Jeff had to work at a work convention in Vancouver this past week, so I tagged along.

I find it so hard to leave my home base at times, and don’t get very excited or make many plans, but once I’m away I have a great time and love it.

This was no exception! I took 4 out of the 5 days off work. I’ve been over due for a vacation, and was looking for a good time to have a chance to relax and read a book, but I did no relaxing! Instead, here’s a list of what I did:

• Walked all over downtown Vancouver, showing my Fitbit my feet still know how to move.
• Got my iPhone battery replaced (for free) because it was known to be faulty. Survived two hours without it.
• Discovered the only shoes I brought were way too small for the wool socks I packed and ended up with friction blisters under my feet. Bought two new pairs of shoes so I could keep walking.
• Had dinner with my cousin Erica
• Had lunch with my coworker Jon
• Had dinner with my friend Colette
• Hiked 3km in the dark on the West Vancouver seawall with Colette
• Rented a car and went to Washington state to visit my friends of Linda & Joanne (breeders of Winger, Surf, & Monty). Petted a golden for an afternoon and avoided getting too weepy that I miss doing so.
• Messed up at the border crossing by having a Nexus card I had never activated for land crossing.
• Messed up trying to fill the rental car before returning it, because I couldn’t figure out how to open the damned gas tank cover?! Why so complicated! After fighting the after work heavy traffic, trying to get to a gas station, and worried I would be late for dinner, I gave up and returned it without topping up which is going to cost me $4.50 a litre. Gah!
• Finally saw Star Wars: Rogue One. I liked it more than the last one. Jeff wasn’t so keen on it.
• Took a couple drives through Stanley Park, one during the day, one at night. Love the big trees.
• Taught myself how to use chopsticks. Made a good mess of my shirt and had a pile of noodles on the carpet but I think I’m getting the jist of it!
• I saw daffodils and tulips in Vancouver. In January!?!

Here are some pictures!

I know you wanted to know how icy roadside outhouses get at -40C. This is on our drive down to Whitehorse on Sunday to catch the flight to Vancouver.

Whitehorse runway. Small enough that your plane drives to the end of the runway, pulls a u-ey, and then takes off.

Look at the sexy suit model I had breakfast with before going our separate ways each day.

Canada Place where Jeff spent each day for the mining convention.

I didn’t even need a coat half the time! It got up to 8C, but we really only had one day of sunshine.

Walking around the outside of Canada Place along the harbour.

The sidewalk has sections for every Canadian province and territory with sidewalk inlays for different towns and cities. I’m assuming these were put in place for the 2010 Olympics. We found Dawson City!

Dinner at the Steamworks brewpub with my cousin Erica.

Had a Guinness in an Irish pub before see the newest Star Wars movie.

Outside the Harbour Centre mall.

I sure miss a set a brown eyes staring into my soul. Here is Monty’s relative Brock.

Colette took us to a Mexican restaurant. Had a beef Chimichanga.

Colette

Had some great beers and drinks this week, including this raspberry margarita at the Mexican restaurant.

Along the sea wall

Vancouver always has such odd, hippie food. My breakfast granola had basil seeds on apples.

Had Pho twice from the Pholicious place attached to the Delta. Amazingly good. Really nice people working there who know their customers by name. Even me by the second visit!

New wheels

I have been looking for a used vehicle for a couple months. I sold my car in Nova Scotia before moving and we’ve been making due with Jeff’s truck and my two feet walking. I had been eyeing a used 2010 Equinox in a Whitehorse listing, so I made arrangements to test drive it when we got back to Whitehorse, but wasn’t convinced I was going to buy. Long story short, we bought it!

It’s an AWD which is nice for here. It isn’t future rich, but has enough nice features to suit me fine. It is over 6 years old and feels new, with just 118k kilometres on it. We bought a set of studded winter tires on rims, got a few supplies, and headed for home. We did the entire 6 hour drive in the dark last night. We probably saw less than 10 vehicles in the entire trip and most of those were transport trucks heading south.