Vancouver

Vancouver, BC, Canada | August 13-17, 2015 | Now really my weekend was full of Seawheeze activities but I did manage to fit in some sightseeing since I’d never been to Vancouver before. Of course I wish I’d had more time but maybe next year?

I arrived on Thursday after a full day of flying. I’d started at Charlotte, NC leaving around 11am and landing in Dallas for a 4 hour layover. Luckily though I had a chance to get lunch and catch up with Campbell and she made the layover fly by. I’ll have to come back to Dallas at some point as my destination- always wonderful to see friends you don’t see very often. 🙂 Finally though I boarded the flight to Vancouver- now when I booked my ticket there were no normal seats left and I refused to pay for special seats so I was unassigned until that day- and score!! this is the way to go- I got an extra legroom window seat near the front of the place 😀 Small victories. I did some reading and window watching and then we finally landed in Vancouver. I ended up connecting with another solo Seawheezer in the airport who was traveling downtown like me so we waited for her luggage and then set out for the Canada Line train. It was a cheap way to get downtown and seemed like the easiest way until of course the train got stuck for a medical emergency. With no timeframe as to how long we’d be stuck, we befriended a local who was heading to the mall and all jumped into a cab. Glad a made friends! Or I’d still be sitting on that train. Ha. Finally we got downtown and I bid farewell to the girls I had met to maybe see them again over the weekend but who knows and then found the hotel. 

I had emailed my weekend roomie that I was running behind- she had taken me in when I posted in the Seawheeze Facebook group that I was looking to share a room. So nice. I got a pretty comfy pull out couch in the extra room so it was almost like we had a two bedroom hotel suite. Perfect. And then it was time to call it a night since we had to be up early to head to the store!

Now, most of Friday morning was filled with showcase store. But that afternoon we did have lunch at Steamworks (delicious) and walked over to Lululemon‘s flagship store. I purchased a couple of pairs of their famed wonder unders. They are in fact magical. And then we ate a hardy pasta dinner (with lots of other fellow seawheezers) before heading back to the hotel, laying out our stuff for the next morning and heading to sleep.

Saturday dawned early for the race (which you read about entirely here). After returning to the hotel and cleaning up, I went for a short walk and then we grabbed some mid day food at the Cactus Club. It was delicious and of course we were hungry. Then it was sunset festival time and then passing out from all the fun.

Sunday was sightseeing day! We were up pretty early again to head to the Capilano Suspension Bridge park. I had heard it was a must-do and to go early before it fills up. When were the first buses in that day and go to experience all parts of the park with no lines. There was a suspended cliff walk, the bridge and then a treetop walk. It was all very cool but definitely not for people afraid of heights! When we got back downtown we decided we’d walk over to Granville Island. This was a dumb decision on our parts- we could have taken a quick water taxi but instead walked forever over one of the bridges. We finally made it to the island which had lots of cute shops and vendor markets. We ate lunch at Bridges (appropriately named) and wandered around the island (ice cream too!) before taking the water taxi back to downtown. Now at this point my weekend roomie was tired and she headed back to the hotel. I wanted to make the most of the day and headed downtown for some sunny shots (it had been misty and cloudy the other days). Then I felt ambitious and decided to see if I could climb to the point I’d seen in the park that had a great view of the harbor and bridge. 

I started out on my walk around the downtown seawall. I found a cute old man with a map who pointed me in the right direction through the park. I got a little lost on the trails- not being able to use your phone for a map is hard! – but I finally got to the top. Prospect Point. It had really nice views of the area so I took some shots before filling my water bottle and resting on a bench. I had planned on grabbing a taxi back to the hotel but the traffic was so bad that I knew it be a waste of money. So I headed back through the park (on different trails this time) and finally hours later made it back to the hotel. And it was time to eat! All that walking had made me super hungry. 🙂 Because we were both tired and sore and didn’t want to walk anymore, we went around the corner again back to Steamworks. This time I tried out their Passion Fruit Wit beer and had some poutine. Ah Canada. 

Then it was back to the hotel, packing up all my goodies for flying and then saying Goodnight to VanCity. We were up and at the airport very early. I said goodbye to my roomie who took me in and we waited at our respective gates. I saw that when I got to Dallas there were a few earlier flights to Charlotte and made the decision if there were seats I’d see about changing flights. A fee later and I was on my way- arriving back in NC 3 hours earlier than planned. Good thing since I had to drive all the way to Blacksburg. 

But oh what a weekend! I had a blast even though I didn’t know anyone before I got there. Solo-traveling is actually pretty fun. 🙂 Until next time, Vancouver!