A Ship, a Suspension Bridge, and a Speedster

 

Today’s first stop was at the Vancouver Maritime Museum. This small museum 

had some fascinating exhibits. Their pride and joy was the St. Roch, The St. 

Roch was the first ship to traverse the Northwest Passage from west to east and 

the first to circumnavigate North America. The entire ship was inside the museum

and we were able to board the vessel and explore its many rooms and features. 

There were also plenty of placards that taught about the history of the ship and 

the locations it traversed. 

 

After exiting the St. Roch, we walked through the next exhibit, A Wet & Wild 

Coast: Rum Running During Prohibition. I had no idea that Canadians smuggled 

so much liquor to the U.S. during the Prohibition. Huge profit was made from the 

trade which motivated smugglers to find creative solutions to concealing their 

liquor from American authorities. I’m not one to drink, but I don’t think I'd be more

persuaded to drink liquor that had been smuggled in chum as one smuggler did.

There were a couple other small exhibits, including whales, undersea divers, and

some model ships. I didn’t spend much time looking at them.

If you read my last blog post, I mentioned I thought I saw an area that was a 

filming location for the TV show the Flash. That one ended up being incorrect, 

however, my brother Joe told us that Vancouver’s City Hall was filmed as the 

police station in the Flash. So we quickly drove over so I could get a picture of it 

since it wasn’t too far out from our next stop. Thanks for the speedy research 

Joe!

We drove to Canada Place to park and took a free shuttle to the Capilano 

Suspension Bridge. The bridge is over 100 years old, but has been replaced and 

improved over the century. Suspended about 230 feet above the Capilano River, 

it's a good thing I’m not afraid of heights. The bridge is a little shaky at times, but 

I never felt like it swayed substantially, and it was an easy and fun crossing over 

the ravine. On the other side of the bridge was Treetops Adventure which took us

high up into the forests via platforms and smaller suspension bridges. We walked

around the area a bit more as I completed Dr. Woods Rainforest Explorers 

activity pamphlet. Though it was designed for kids, I enjoyed filling it out and 

learning a couple facts about the forest and the animals that live there (maybe it’s

because I’m just a kid at heart). 

 

We decided to cross the Capilano Suspension Bridge again and stroll on the 

Cliffwalk. This narrow wooden walkway is attached to the side of (you guessed it)

a cliff. You could see the river and forest right under you as you walked the 

circular path. Capilano Suspension Bridge Park certainly has no shortage of 

breathtaking views in my opinion. After buying a few trinkets and fudge from the 

gift shop, we waited for the shuttle to take us back to Canada Place so we could 

get our car and return to our AirBnB. Tomorrow is Canada Day, which is the 

equivalent to Independence Day in the U.S., and I think we are visiting the city of 

Burnaby. See you tomorrow.

 

 

If you’d like to read the day’s events from my mom’s perspective, you can read her blog here.
 

International Traveler (Legally This Time)

 

Hello everyone,


Quick note for long time readers: if you want to see any of my old posts from previous road trips, you can find them here. For whatever reason, Google won’t let me access my old blog account.

I’m currently in Vancouver, Canada for the next few days. My mom, brother Joe, and myself are on another road trip this summer. We are spending some time exploring the land of our Northern neighbors before we embark on an Alaskan Disney Cruise this Monday, July 3rd. If you don’t know, and how could you not, I’m a gigantic Disney fan and am ecstatic to go on this magical cruise for a week. But for now, let’s see what Canada has to offer.

We arrived in Canada last night (Wednesday) after a three hour flight that was a bit tight. Usually, I’m not bothered by the limited space on most commercial flights, but this was on a smaller plane and my broad physique felt fairly squished for most of the travel time. Oh well, maybe I’ll upgrade to those spacious first class seats on the return flight.





We landed safely at Vancouver Airport and for the first time, I legally entered a different country than the United States. For those of you who don’t know, back in 2015, I technically entered Canada, but not intentionally. If you want to read the full account of my first true international trip, you can click here. Suffice to say, being detained at the Canadian border is an experience I was happy to avoid this time around as we exited the plane, went through customs, grabbed our luggage and rental car. We made it to our AirBnB and rested for the night.





Today, after a late morning, we headed to Dylan’s Diner for some breakfast and then sped off to Stanley Park for our first road trip adventure. Stanley Park is quite large and filled with lots of trees, walking and bike paths, and a surprising amount of smokers. We spent about 90 minutes walking around this peninsula’s sea wall path, admiring the balancing rock art, geese swimming on the coast, and the occasional tandem bike riding past us. We decided walking around the entire island was going to take too much time, so we took a different path to head back to our car and see a few more sites at Stanley Park. We briefly saw Beaver lake which was filled with so much plant life, it was hard to tell if there was even a lake under all of it. We also walked past a rose garden that featured various colors of the famed flower. Once we found our car again, it was time to drive to the next destination.











We rode on the AquaBus to a few different ports in Vancouver. The first stop was Granville Island which featured a public market with a multitude of shops. We caught the tail end of a street performer who juggled knives while balancing on a skateboard stacked on top of a couple different objects. We walked through the market and looked in a few of the shops. We traveled on the AquaBus again to David Lam Park. Mom and I walked around for a little bit until I noticed the area looked kind of familiar. I thought the area might have been where some scenes from a TV show called the Flash was filmed (the show was mostly filmed in Vancouver), so I took a few pictures in order to compare the two late. On further inspection, it was not the same area, but David Lam Park was still a nice area to visit. Afterwards, we took the AquaBus back to where our car was parked and head back to our AirBnB.









Mom and I went to the grocery store to buy some breakfast and dinner items for our stay in Vancouver. Dinner was pizza, pasta, and salad which was all pretty good. The rest of the evening is being spent relaxing, typing up blogs, and catching up on sleep. Speaking of sleep, I better go get some. Tomorrow, we got more adventures planned. 

If you’d like to read the day’s events from my mom’s perspective, you can read her blog here.