O Canada!

We ventured into into Canada and spent a day in the Vancouver area.  We found the border crossing nothing like the many crossings into Mexico we have experienced in the past!


First we went to Stanley Park and took a horse drawn carriage tour of the park.  We really enjoyed the tour, listening to the steady clip clop of the horses hooves, while keeping warm under our lap robes. We learned a lot as we heard the driver tell us the history of the park, about the horses, the trees, the statues, the totem poles, the bridges, and the areas of the park like the famous seawall, the rose garden, Deadman's Island,  and more.  Part of the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes was filmed here too. Lord Stanley who the park is named after, is the same person who brought the Stanley Cup (in hockey) to Canada.  We also chased some Canadian geese in the park, and looked at a salmon creek, although they don't run until the fall.


We headed into downtown  and went up the Vancouver Lookout to see the entire city spread out below with the snow capped mountains surrounding it.  The Lookout is similar to the space needle, in that it is a 360 degree round viewing shape, but it sits atop a skyscraper.

From there we headed out to Burnaby, which is an area just east of Vancouver.  There we visited a village museum.  The city took many of their old buildings and built a village using them.  The village was really fun to explore.  They had an old school house completely filled with desks, and a chalkboard with assignments, a church no bigger than a chapel with a beautiful stained glass window, several houses of all different sizes, all kinds of shops, a bank, and more.  They also had a scavenger hunt, which we completed, and turned in at the General Store for a treat!

After Burnaby, we headed back into downtown Vancouver and went to Canada Place, which is the convention center.  They have a display of native made art, totems, and a cedar canoe which were interesting to look at. 


We then stopped at a souvenir shop.  Rebekah got a magnet and I got a bell.  I had decided to collect bells like my grandmother had.


After Vancouver, we headed back to the US.  We stopped at a Kangaroo farm. It was a cute little farm that had all kinds of animals.  They advertised and posted signs for tours, but the woman there said everything was too muddy from the recent rains and snow and didn't want to give us a tour but we could wander around and look at the animals, so we did. There were chickens, a huge turkey, many peacocks, some guinea fowl, some very curious lemurs, some kangaroos, and even some lamas that we could see. 

We headed south for a ways,  and then started our path east! We traveled all the way across the farmlands of Washington, and stopped for the night in Spokane.