Day 2: Vancouver in the Rain

So here's the thing about airlines in general, and lost luggage in specific.  If something goes wrong, everyone tells you to call someone else.  

It's bad enough the way airlines run these days.  I forget where I read it, but there is a very real economic incentive for airlines to give you crappy service for free if they can (and they will) charge you for services that used to be free.  What are you going to do, bike across the country?

But once they have your money, and there is something wrong, and there is no chance they can wring more money out of you on this trip, it's a whole lot of pass the buck.

United uses a service, called Where's My Suitcase? to track lost luggage.  WMS? doesn't actually deliver lost luggage, it merely tracks it while other companies do the delivering.  Only they don't track luggage out of the country.  But United still gives them the contract to track luggage.  So if United screwed up your phone number, and gave the delivery service the wrong number so it can't actually deliver your luggage, they'll tell you to contact WMS? to find out where it is.  WMS? will tell you that they don't track luggage in Canada, and even though their website will tell you it can track your luggage, they'll just tell you to call United back.  Who will tell you to...you get the idea.

Eventually, you yell at someone in a call center in India long enough, they call the airport, who contacts the delivery service, and you get you bag back in an hour.  Thankfully.

So, having wasted a morning doing this, we finally set out into downtown Vancouver.  In the rain.  

There is a reason why Vancouver is used as "generic North American city" in movie sets.  It's because that's exactly what it looks like.  Just across the way you have mountains and forests and mist and all the natural beauty you can shake a stick at, but the downtown looks like every other downtown.  Which is both cool and weird, and a little boring, too.

But about that rain.  Evidently, the average amount of rain in Vancouver varies widely depending on where you are in the city.  The airport, right on the water, gets ~45 inches a year, roughly similar to Boston.  Downtown gets ~60 inches a year, a bit more than Houston.  North Vancouver, across the Vancouver Harbor gets more than 80 inches a year.  Which is crazy.  Today it just rained all day, contributing to all of these totals quite well.

After walking around for an hour, we stopped in a great used bookstore to dry out.  After that, a small cafe for espresso (you will learn that I love my afternoon espresso) and to check google maps.  We have no data in Canada, at least we don't want to pay $3 per MB on data, so the kindness of cafe's with wifi is what keeps us going.  We were looking for the Vancouver Gallery of Inuit art (inuit.com) which was very very cool, if very very pricy.  All modern pieces, which showed both traditional aspects of what most of us would think of as First Nation's art, but with some very contemporary bits as well (screen printing, slightly more abstract/modern ideas slipped in).

The previous day, we had seen a sign for $12.99 all you can eat sushi.  Typically, Molly is not one for buffets or all-you-can-eat deals, but something like this requires checking out.  Plus, we are on a budget of sorts, still being funemployed for the time being.  We decided to make this a two-meal day.  Light breakfast, and then early dinner (3PM) and not eat the rest of the day.  This was a very very good idea.  The Sushi wasn't the best ever, but it was fresh, tasty, and while not technically all-you-can-eat (they cut you off after 3 orders) it was very filling.

What do you do after stuffing your face like that?  You put on dry socks, since it is hasn't really stopped raining yet, and if you are Molly and me, you go for a long walk. We walked back around Stanley Park (which is, hands down, our favorite place in a long time).

Sawish Rock at night.  50 ft tall spire of rock with a tree growing on top, just off the edge of Stanley Park.

The Lions Gate bridge.  Connects Vancouver to North Vancouver via Stanley Park.

A bit higher than the GW Bridge, but not nearly as large.

It even has its own little lighthouse, just like the GW!

By this time, it's pouring again, and we have at least 3 miles to go back to our place, if we walk straight through the woods.  At least it's lovely.

Good night lighthouse.  We did make it back safely, and relatively dry, too.

Day 1: Vancouver

All journeys of a thousand miles start with a single footstep.  Or, in our case, our journey began with missing luggage.  

We started Tuesday by waking up at 5AM so we could hop on a plane and fly back to the West Coast.  The plan for the next week and a half or so is to fly to Vancouver, spend a few days there, spend a few more days in Seattle, rent a car and go to Olympic National Park, visit my brother for my niece's 6th birthday, drive to Portland, and then fly out to New Zealand, where we will spend the entirety of Boston's winter before flying back in late April or early May.

Whew....

But first, we have to make it to Vancouver.  The first leg, despite starting way too early in the morning, went without a hitch.  We disembarked our plane in San Fransisco, ready to sprint across the airport to make our connection, only to find that our connection is to hop back on the same plane as it travels on to Vancouver.  Keep that in mind.

Upon arriving in Canada, we get off the plane, and go to pick up our luggage.  My backpack, packed with care but still to the gills comes off the belt just fine.  Molly's, also packed as full as it will go, is a no show.  Which is bad.  Very bad.  We had packed everything we will be carrying for the next 6 months in these bags, and temporarily misplaced luggage always has a chance of becoming permanently misplaced luggage.

Undeterred, and still full of hope for this trip, we venture into the city.  After dropping our stuff at our Airbnb, we walk into Stanley Park, a gem of Vancouver.  

Quite lovely, no?  The park is a spit of land sticking out northwest from downtown and is very close to our place.  Natural, full of trees and the wondrous mysteries of Pacific Northwest forests.

After walking along the sea wall for a few kilometers...wait....what's that sound?

Is that, drums?

Why yes, yes it is.

It's a group of wonderfully friendly (and impeccably polite--they are Canadian, after all) people, having a drumming circle.

 They've also lit a fire on the beach, so we warm ourselves, and do what we always do when surrounded by strangers.  That is, make friends.  Soon enough, a man straps a jimbe to my neck, and I'm banging away with the rest of the drum circle.  Molly is dancing, and there are crazy people stripping and diving into the water, which is not frigid, but it is still Fall here, so it is not warm.

So, United Airlines, you still suck.  Vancouver, though, you have started by making a real good impression on us.

End of the first part of the trip, beginning of the second.

So I finally caught up on all of my biking photos.  Sorry to everyone it took so long.  I hope you enjoy the massive dump of them I just posted.

We made it across the country, and then we flew home.

 The only overcast day in Seattle was the day we left, and that even didn't last long.

That's Mt. Rainier!  

It was a melancholy flight.  77 days to get there, and then only 6 hours to get back.  But it was only the first part of our adventure.  I will, now that I have a computer, try to continue blogging our second and third parts:  A second trip to the Northwest, and then we will be living in New Zealand for 6 months!  (Skipping winter seems like a sweet deal to us.)

Keep following the blog and I'll keep you posted.

Nik

Photo Dump 21: THE LAST ONE

 Our last day of biking started ominously enough, with an inky black portal.

 Actually, I love this sort of thing.  It's a 2-1/2 mile long tunnel only accessible to bikes and pedestrians.  

 With no lights.  It's a very straight shot through, so you can see the (for once not metaphorical) light at the end as soon as you enter.

 Of course, it was around now that I realized that my head lamp really didn't work very well.

 But still managed to make it through.

 God?  Is that you?

 Well, my camera doesn't take good low light pictures, but you get the idea.

 Success!  Now only 60 miles of downhill to Seattle.

 Man, was it pretty on the other side.

 Huge mountains, rain clouds lower than you, trees everywhere.  And a rainbow down in the valley.

 And so, on a glorious afternoon...

 ...we rode into Seattle.  

 And straight to the brewery.  Just kidding, we didn't go there for a few days.

 It's funny, you see bridges like this in Boston all the time, but they don't work.  In Seattle, they are fully functional.

 The Olympic Mountains, way off in the distance across the Puget Sound.

 Ah yes, we did get some Fremont eventually.  It was very very very tasty.

 Our first hosts had the craziest view of downtown Seattle.  But only until the construction is finished.

 Our host, Henry, invited us to a great block party.  We love that sort of thing.

 And to finish our trip, we dipped our tires in the Puget Sound.  We rule.

Somehow, I missed this sign on the way in, so I got it on the way out of town.  Seemed appropriate, considering our next little adventure involved a lot of hiking, rather than biking.

Photo Dump 20: Central Washington, more valleys, and mountains

 So we aren't anti-car, per se.  We will gladly take rides.  Particularly when there is 45 mph wind blowing (and it's a rest day.)  Thanks, Carl, for giving us a ride back to the Tri-Cities.

 So yeah, about that 45 mph wind.  When you climb a 1000ft "mountain", the winds can get up to 50 or 60 at the top.

 Crazy, no?

 But we're cute, no?  That's not smoke for once, it's actually just dust kicked up by the crazy winds.

This is what all of the Yakima valley would look like were it not for the irrigation. 

 Dry, but with beautiful women walking down trails.

 The view from my brother's back deck.  Mom always says this is one of her favorite places in the world.  I can see why, pretty much every sunset here is amazing.

 And even better with a beer.

 Nope, not pretty at all.

 So we might have done a bit of wine tasting here.  Yes, that is a dry Rose. Yes, it was delicious.  No, you may not judge me for it.  You would have chosen it, too.  Although the red that Molly had was pretty good.

 Did I mention that the sunsets are amazing here?  

 See?  When you irrigate, everything is green.  Including the wine grapes.  Mmmmmm....wine grapes.

 First corn we'd really seen in hundreds of miles, though.

 Everything was so freakin' verdant!

 Including this field of asparagus.  I am assuming this was a new field, only since more mature plants would have been huge by late summer.

 Also a new field of hops.  Ditto about how big they would have been if it were mature plants.  The corner post was marked "Simcoe", a popular, relatively new type of hop.

 My pictures get a bit sparse here.  Two days later, heading up into the Cascades.  Back to the dry, before it got very very wet.

 The inside of Todd's tiny home.  Everything in it's place, and a place for everything.  And cosy, too.