VANCOUVER, July 19th

We left Washington and crossed the border into British Columbia. It was a beautiful drive with the Northern Cascades on our right as we headed north. Michelle has been our navigator so expertly directed Rod to our hotel, Patricia Hotel right on the edge of Chinatown on Hastings St. We discovered later it’s a sketchy part of town, with lots of men and women kind of hanging around on the street and in doorways. But the hotel itself is good, right price, friendly staff, but no AC and it was HOT yesterday! We came back after drinking beer at a brewery (where you pick 3 small samples of each to try) too early in the day!! And we had done a lot of walking. We also did the Hop On/Hop Off bus tour – we bought a 2 day ticket but it took us 90 minutes just to ride the whole circuit. We only got off at Grenville Island where the brewery was and walked around and shopped a bit. Then we had to wait like an HOUR for the Big Bus to come back for us – so it wasn’t such a deal!

But we saw the Gaslight area with upscale restaurants, the waterfront with Canada Place (Betty, Michelle and I cabbed back there that evening for dinner overlooking the water).

Steam clock in Gas Lamp area

Memorial for Cory Monteith of Glee at Fairmont Hotel where he died.

We passed the gorgeous modernistic library, some nice churches, shopping areas and then drove through Stanley Park – voted the best urban park in the world! We ended our evening walking through the Chinese Night Market, which was a disappointment as it was just touristy stuff – we thought there would be performances of cultural stuff. We were able to zigzag our way back to our hotel, without passing all the sketchy characters on Hastings St. We all collapsed after an exhausting day!