Of Vancouver, Victoria, and a Very Vertical Venture through the Mountains

Hello, again, everyone! Since I haven't posted for a while, a lot of work has piled up for me. You might want to get comfortable. This post will be a little bit longer than some of the others. On Tuesday of this past week, we crossed the border, and pulled into BCRV (British Columbia Recreational Vehicle) Park, in the town of Burnaby. Vancouver, a short distance away by public transit, was first on our list of visitations. Leaving at noon the day after we arrived in the park, Mom, Philip, and I walked to Vancouver's automated transport system, known as the "SkyTrain." From the station nearest to the campground, roughly fifteen minutes away on foot, we travelled to Waterfront Station in Vancouver. Once we reached the station, we stopped to eat an extremely nice (although somewhat expensive) restaurant that was adjacent to the station. We all got very different and very delicious lunches. Mom had halibut tacos, Philip had a chicken sandwich, and I had some exquisite Korean short ribs, with cucumbers and kim chi (a sort of spicy cabbage, which adds a great deal of flavor to the ribs). After consuming our respective meals, we walked across the street to the Harbour Centre, the site of the Vancouver Lookout. The Vancouver Lookout is another one of those observation towers, just like Seattle's Space Needle, or Toronto's CN Tower, except for the fact that it is not a lone structure; it is positioned on top of a building. Anyway, we got some great pictures from up at the top. After our trip to the top, we walked to Canada Place, home of Vancouver's World Trade Center, and a LOT of cruise ships - you can see some of them in our pictures from the Vancouver Lookout. We walked around the piers for a little while, then we went back to SkyTrain's Waterfront Station, and headed back for our campground.

The next day, we got up nice and early for our trip to Butchart Gardens ("Butchart" is pronounced like "Boo Shart," not "Butt Chart") on Victoria Island. Our driving was accompanied by a three-hour round trip ferry ride, so we got some great stretching and picture-taking opportunities. Butchart Gardens is amazing. It used to be some rich guy's private estate, but he converted the better part of his property into an expansive set of Gardens. Unlike many gardens, this one is divided into several different themes. There's the Sunken garden, which was created from an old quarry, the Italian Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Mediterranean Garden. After arriving back at camp, we got to sleep pretty soon, as we had a long drive the next day.

We got up bright and early to disconnect and move out. We got out of our tight spot without damaging the camper. What we weren't prepared for, however, was the terrain of the drive. Before long, we were driving up and down a myriad of mountains. Although the scenery was beautiful, it was also tough to drive on. At one point we even ended up stopping because our brakes were smoking. We stopped around 6:40 pm at a very nice RV camp. Today isn't nearly as bad as yesterday (the driving), and the scenery is very nice. Thanks for staying with me on this post, if you read this far; stay tuned! This is Spencer, signing off.