It's nice being back in the land of the internet and cell phone service. I just wish I had both on my phone. But now there is a lot to catch up on!

Day three of the trip we hit two spots in Vancouver: Lynn Canyon first, followed by Grouse Mountain.

After a bus to Lynn Canyon, we hiked up the mountain a little ways, over the river and through the woods to Twin Falls.

The same path the Hobbits were taken on their way to Isengard.

 After another bus ride, we went up Grouse Mountain by cable car. The fast version is: We saw a bird show, a lumberjack show, a wild deer and her two babies, two grizzlies the park was built around, hiked some more, went up a ski lift to a lookout point, and took the cable car back down at sunset. There was a little snow on the ground, but the weather was pretty nice, except for the gnats in certain places. But I got a lot of cool bird and bear pictures!


Have a lot more for later, when I am not being rushed to leave for another mountain/glacier hike in Alaska!

The long version, but made more interesting with pictures, staring with the bird show:


The lumberjack show was way more entertaining than I was expecting, mainly because it was surprisingly funny. More of a you-had-to-be-there thing rather than me going on about the details, especially when there is so much more to write about!

For instance, Grouse Mountain park was built around a rehabilitation idea for two grizzly bears. One of the orphaned cubs was found in a coastal area and the other was found inland. Usually in these situations, the bears are eventually killed because they will just grow to be unmanageable. Someone came up with an alternate, and Grinder and Coola were brought to Grouse Mountain, where a 3 acre deer gate backed-up by an electric fence would keep them safe from predators, give them enough room to grow, and allow humans to put food in without too much interaction with the bears. The plan was to monitor the bears from a safe distance so their contact with humans would be limited. When they would become old enough to take care of themselves, the fences would come down and the bears could be wild once again. Obviously, that didn't happen now that Grouse Mountain is a park full of humans. My guess is that Grinder and Coola already had too much human interaction and the plan was not yet approved by whoever in Canada needs to approve it, so they were just a test run. But it seems to be working out pretty well and maybe future rescued cubs will make it back to the wild rather than become a tourist attraction.

We did some other exploring on the mountain and found a deer and her two fawns. We also went higher up the mountain on a ski lift to a lookout, but it was covered in a cloud... and even more gnats. We left that area pretty quickly and had dinner on the mountain with a view of the sunset. Full of food, it was hard to make it back down the cable car without falling asleep, even with the awesome view of Vancouver at night.

Still have to be brief, still don't have pictures, still don't have Verizon data plan, but DO have free (read: slow) hotel internet so here goes:

We started the day with a tour of the British Museum, which had a lot of interesting things, including a History of Man exhibit, and a LOT of dead things that were stuffed or in jars or mounted. Then we had another tea party at the White Heather tea room which was just as divine as tea at the Empress. It makes my brain explode trying to decide which was more heavenly. The scones were fresher at White Heather though, and we tried a bigger variety of teas. I love afternoon tea more every time, and got some more good ideas for my next  tea party I host... And I hope I can arrange it is on Labor day weekend or something. That way it will be a three day weekend and hopefully my best friend will visit and have tea with me! I want to make everything from scratch though, and that would take way too long... We walked around more before getting on a bus, which got on a ferry, and took us off the island of Victoria to Vancouver. We were too tired to explore tonight, but undoubtedly we will be up super early to do that tomorrow, and we have a few other days here as well. And my dad will finally join us!

Pictures!:

Sadly, I don't have pictures from my phone for this day because it would cost an arm and a leg and a little piece of my soul to use my data plan. It's just as well, because I have to make this quick, but can elaborate on the highlights later.

We left Seattle and took a giant, highspeed, 3-hour catamaran ride from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Sometimes, the boat will stop if whales are spotted, but none were this time. We debarked and took a bus over to the Butchart gardens, where we spent the next three hours. I have a newfound love of Dahlias, and frozen yogurt is still good in Canada. After that, we took a short tour of the bug museum and I held a bug as big as my hand. Then, after washing that particular hand a lot, we had afternoon tea at the Empress hotel, the first hotel on the island, and it was AMAZING. I love afternoon tea already, but this was died-on-the-spot divinely good. And the people were super nice; our waiter gave us more of our favorite sandwiches without extra charge and their famous Empress tea to go (which they gave to everyone, but it's still pretty nice). We toured the hotel and the nearby shopping.

Good night!

A million years later,
Pictures:

This year, my grandparents on my dad's side turned 80 and celebrated their 60th anniversary. To celebrate, they planned a cruise to Alaska and invited to fam along.
This is day 0 because it was primarily a travel day, and the final destination was Seattle, not yet Alaska. I spent time in four states: Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Washington. We had a cheap, 2 stop flight where we wouldn't have to switch planes. Except when we got to our first stop, Phoenix, and there was a faulty door seal.

Luckily, (and I use that semi-ironically) we were at a Southwest hub so there were other planes for us. Everyone got reseated and our luggage transferred, only to prepare for takeoff and find out there was something wrong with the emergency lights and we'd have to switch planes again. What were the odds of all our luggage making it again? And we ended up switching planes twice anyway. Our stop in Reno was much smoother.
After a tiring game of musical airplanes, we finally made it to Seattle (with every suitcase).

We were exhausted and starving, but we only hesitated for a second in our upgarded hotel room at the Seattle Public Market before searching out the best clam chowder breadbowls we could find. We also had crumpets and tea! We explored for a little bit after that, but it wasn't too long before the exhaustion was back and we called it a day.
I was going to try to update everyday but right now I'm on a boat to Canada so I won't be able to use my phone for a few days. I'll also update every post after I get home with photos from my camera. Today it's whale watching, gardens, and afternoon tea!

Sorry for the crappy pictures, I had to do all that from my phone.