If you're interested covering all of Vancouver in a short period of time, I think we have all the information you need. Maybe we'll submit a quick guide "Vancouver in Two Days" to The Star or The Globe (it won't be New York Times worthy, trust me). I'll give you a few of our highlights but basically, all you need is a sense of humor, adventuresome personality and a surly tour guide who's an unemployed transplant from the U.S.
Since we stayed in and fed ourselves to the point of explosion on Super Bowl Sunday we set a goal to walk the next day. So, we walked. And, we walked. And when we thought we were finished walking, we walked some more. I don't wear a pedometer but I'm sure we clocked in twice what Oprah recommends...10,000 or so steps. Plus, I don't know what the metric conversion for steps is but I bet we walked more than we thought.
The city of Vancouver is surrounded by a seawall and you can literally walk around the entire island. We didn't walk that far. But, over 8 km (I'll convert for you...5.5 miles) of the seawall is the amazing Stanley Park, a 1,000 acre city-owned urban park. It's the third largest in North America and even larger than Central Park in New York. We went in and out of that park 4 times over a 2 day period and I kid you not, we didn't come close to covering all the trails and scenery. Besides having deer, bears and coyotes, it also has all types of recreational facilities for residents and guests (lawn bowling, putt putt and a public pool to name a few). Walking the trails is like being in an enchanted forest and if you get the same surly guide we had, you are likely to get lost a few times. But, that's fine because the adventure is worth it.
Stanley Park was hit by an ice storm in December, 2006. The devastation was almost unimaginable and they are still cleaning it up. There are about 1/2 million trees in the park and over 10,000 were destroyed. We saw trees that had 20 ft root systems standing on their sides. There was a 600 year old cedar tree weighing 36 tons that was completely uprooted. Seriously, "don't fool with Mother Nature" has a whole new meaning after traipsing through this forest.
We also happened upon one of the many lagoons in the park. Lots of ducks, swans and a couple of coots (not us...they are black, non-webbed foot ducks) took ownership of the Lost Lagoon. Now, there are signs all over the park warning people not to feed the birds and animals. Down from where we were we saw a lady waving a white flag as if she was retreating. To what or whom we didn't know but as we got closer we saw she had food...and she wasn't the one eating it. As we approached she was quick to explain that she comes down to feed the swans. She has to waive the flag to keep the ducks away while she feeds them or the ducks will steal the food. Apparently, swans are shy birds and the ducks beat them to the punch when it comes to food so if she doesn't feed the swans they will likely starve. Who knew swans were shy? Well, this lady did and she was wearing a volunteer badge so who were we to argue. She was very knowledgeable and after the swans had their fill, she stopped waving the flag, backed-up and we watched as 50 ducks attacked the seed she threw on a rock. It was fascinating to see them all dive beak first in the water to get the chow. I just have to say, I sure am glad I have the luxury of table service because if this was me going after a little bird seed, I'd want to be first in and first out. I can't tell you how many "misplaced" beaks I saw. The guys on the outskirts were doing full on dives into other duck's bum...OUCH!
On our travels we also took a ferry over to Granville, Island where the Emily Car Art School is located and you can see the artists creating their funky work. It also has a great market to buy fresh fish, meats and vegetables. It was a little more tempered than the Pikes Market in Seattle but along the same lines. We picked up fresh dover filets for our tour guide to whip up for dinner because she really hadn't cooked for us all day. We thought it was the least she could do for making us follow her around the city for 6 hours.
We did a lot of driving on our sightseeing tour as well. We headed to Cypress Mountain, a small ski resort 20 minutes away from where we were staying. Whistler is the larger, more well known resort but it was "Pride Week" and I was sure the guys would look better than me in their ski bunny outfits. Cypress was holding the World Cup Freestyle and Snowboarding Championships so teams from all over the world were arriving that day. Competition is this weekend and next but trials were being held on Thursday. We had thoughts about staying for the trials because we would never have this opportunity again. However, our tour guide must have caught a case of laryngitis because she didn't say "oh, you should stay longer so you can see this once in a lifetime event". Guess we'll read the results when we get home.
There's so much more to write about but I'm out of time. My editor doesn't like to read the drafts too late so I'm trying to get my copy in early. Vancouver was the longest we stayed anywhere on this trip and it was worth every minute. Gayle and Sandra were great hostesses and I seriously haven't laughed this hard in a long time. If unemployment was always this funny, I would never work again.
