Feelin' All Vancouvery Up in this Bitch

OK, full disclosure - my standard  nite of pre trip planning sort of went to hell with this one dear readers and I must say, as lead navigator, I'm not very proud of my performance. If I was the navigator on the Pinta, the Nina and/or the Santa Maria with Columbus I would have maybe gotten us to the breakwater at the departure port of Lisbon and heading back to land.



I do however have a damned good excuse...a final late nite with Susie and Ron on Orcas coupled with a very early ferry departure yesterday morning had me all flummoxed to the max.


The ferry leaving Orcas Island to the mainland at Anna C......

We successfully completed the 90 minute ferry crossing and picked up the RV in Anna C - by the way, if you are travelling in an RV up this way and want to check out the San Juan Islands, most definitely check your RV in at the Summit Park RV Storage place in Anacortes and hook up with Andie the owner. A home girl who will watch over your RV like it's her own...highly recommended.


Don't lose that number good friends........

Picked up the RV and then gassed up, propane fill and tooled on up I-5.

Next thing we know we're at the Canadian border and passports were courteously presented...where do you guys live, eh? San Diego. Can you put the RV in park so I can check your front license plate....done and done. Canadian immigration official returns to booth...where you going? Alaska, for the summer...business or pleasure? Pleasure, oh yeh, pleasure for sure my kind customs man. You carrying any firearms? No. Welcome to Canada and you two have a safe trip, eh?

We're in.

Now that that was settled, I had absolutely no clue where we were, where we're headed or what route to take. I knew from a limited 65 mph look at the AAA roadmap sans reading glasses that we needed to take Highway 99 North towards Whistler - the Sea to Sky Highway. Suddenly we found ourselves smack dab in downtown Vancouver, BC cruising with a 28 foot RV and a passenger car in tow.

I have been to Vancouver a couple of times so was not really that interested in seeing the sights but Debbie has not visited here before so I ask....want to see much of Vancouver? Well, she responds, since we've been sitting in downtown city traffic for the past 2 hours I'd have to say I've seen it. That's my gal, let's haul ass to points north then.

Truth be told I think she was a bit reticent about staying in Vancouver based on our recent big city stay in Seattle, where I was somewhat...restless. Don't think she was looking foward to a repeat performance, can't say I blame her.

The major positive is that this will be the last big city we encounter until Anchorage in mid July and I'm not sure that will be such a large city to have to deal with. Perhaps San Francisco will be the next big city for us to manage on our way south in September. I'm all in on that proposition.

So off el norte we went along the very beautiful Highway 99, the Sea to Sky Highway (doesn't that sound enchanting?) - huge waterfalls, glaciers and steep, rocky, mountain terrain - spectacular, with an emphasis on sheer magnitude, does that make any sense to you? Well, it did to us.

We posted up for the nite at the Alice Lake Provincial Park right outside of Whistler, a very nice BC provincial park campground with a view of Alice Lake - showing off her glaciers in the background and steep, pine covered mountains in the foreground...that's what we were looking for - stuff your City traffic and teeming masses Vancouver.


Alice Lake on an overcast morning.......

I read a recent City of Vancouver Planning Department memo online where they are estimating 1.5 million new residents in the City before the year 2040. The City is currently shackled by steep, undevelopable mountains and the sea so I have NO idea where all of these people are going to live or work...apparently, neither do the City planners. Just hope that when they designed and built the current highrises they beefed up the foundations to accomodate another 30 or 40 stories, 'cause they gonna need 'em. The only solution I see is to continue to go up and up and up...awesome.

That's it for today good friends...stay tuned, we have another month or so of British Columbia and then the Yukon before we hit AK.

Oh yeh, when checking in here the friendly park ranger said to be on the lookout for black bears....we'll keep you posted.

Heading north later today to Marble Canyon Provincial Park near Lilloet, BC. Hyped as turquoise lakes with 30 "delightful" campsites.....I've heard that one before, we'll see - full report with pics to follow.