Stanny van in Vancouver

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To start where we last left off:
We went to the drive in and lucky for us it was tight ass Tuesday and we managed to save a couple of $. We actually considered me jumping in the back and hiding myself to save more money but decided that it looked quite desperate and lonely going to the drive ins yourself and Zach didn’t want to “be that guy”. We had also managed to sneak in some snacks as you just know a bucket of popcorn is going to be like $15 at these places and the “strictly no outside food or drinks” sign was swiftly ignored. So anyways we rock up to our conveniently chosen spot - not too far out the back - cos you just know whats going on in those cars. And hey if I am paying $12 to see a movie, I want to see the movie. When we discover that to hear the movie the soundtrack comes through the radio. Problem. Old stannys radio had died as soon as we drove it out of Gregs driveway. We did however have our little pink boombox but it was very staticky and kept cutting out so we watched a good chunk of the movie by lipreading. The first movie was Land of the Lost - a typical non-funny Will Ferrel movie (sorry to Will Ferrel fans) and State of Play which was actually quite a good thriller with Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams. As the movies didn’t start till quite late they finished at about 1.45 (I actually stayed awake to the end, pretty proud of myself. I honestly thought that halfway through I’d end up in the back sleeping). Of course at this time of night nothing is open nor did we want to pay for a night somewhere when only a few hours would be used. So we cruised old suburbia looking for a suitable place to park Stanny when we drove passed the obvious choice. A church! No one could dare kick you out of a church parking lot, and it also made me feel better that there were other cars already parked there (what they were doing at 2 in the morning is beyond me). We also woke to find that this church was right opposite a school, where they were doing PE, at 8 in the morning. What a delight to wake up to screaming kids, ahh the advantages of not paying for accommodation.

So we got up and then made the hour or so drive to Vancouver, we came in from a different direction than planned and ended up a little baffled as to our location. Eventually we made it to the visitors centre - which, lucky us - was right in the middle of downtown Vancouver. We grabbed a whole lot of brochures and pamphlets on places we might want to visit. Zach even managed to grab a “Gay friendly guide to Vancouver” - I don’t know if it was a hint or he just wanted to go to some hip and trendy places. We had found an RV park not too far out of Vancouver and went and claimed our spot. Now if you’ve been following closely you’ll know that we haven’t stayed in a real place for 4 nights, so I was pretty desperate for a shower, we had been swimming though so I wasn’t so much smelly as just grimey and greasy. After our showers we headed to Stanley Park where we hired bicycles and cycled around. Our cycling abilities were much like Stan’s driving abilities in that we got passed by pretty much everyone, oldies and youngies were just over taking us. The bike ride was fun, but I was a little bit sore the next day. After our ride we walked down Denman St and decided to lash out and get fish and chips for dinner. We had a lovely dinner followed by watching the sunset at the beach. We returned to our luxury RV park which had a swimming pool, hot tub, free wireless, nice clean bathrooms and a laundry (it better had been nice for the price we were paying for it).

The next morning we decided to wake up early for once, and by early I mean before 10 o’clock. We stupidly drove to the shopping centre as we thought it was far but in fact was at max 100m away, parked ole Stanny and braved Vancouver’s public transport system. We caught a bus easily enough and headed into Stanley Park to visit the aquarium. Once we had got there we gladly realised that it must have been field trip Friday with scores of screaming primary school aged children around. We stood in line and the group in front of us got stamps to miss the queue, Zach jokingly added that we were with them and the guy stamping was like yeah ok just go through. I think he was just happy to see someone his own age and gave us a free pass. So we managed to save about $40, bam we were happy. This saving also induced us to feel ok about the rest of the spending for the day. We spent a good couple of hours in the aquarium looking at giant fishes, sea turtles and a dolphin show among other things. It was pretty cool and I definitely couldn’t complain after getting in for free! We then caught another bus into Gastown where we got some lunch at a little café overlooking the harbour. We had a quick little walk around before heading to the police museum. This was pretty cool as well and was filled with some old weapons, history, and some gruesome unsolved murders which was quite gross. The whole museum was pretty outdated - they had those creepy mannequins that just looked at you funny - but on the whole quite interesting. We ended up mistakenly walking into Chinatown, which was obviously the dodgy part of town, and decided to jump on a bus pretty quickly back into the nice, clean safe part of downtown. We had wanted to go to Granville island to get some dinner, but like the loving parents we were, we didn’t want to leave Stan by himself for too long. Also the fact that we had parked in a shopping centre where there was a 4 hour limit loomed close as we reaaaally couldn’t afford to get him out if hed been towed (a bit of tough love perhaps). Luckily he was there and Zach had found a skate park that had ocean views. Perfect! He could skate while I lay on the beach and read, pretty much the perfect combination ever. We hung out at miracle park for a few hours before grabbing a pizza and heading back to our RV palace.

Day 3 in Vancouver and we decided today was the day we were going to head to the island. But first I (yes that’s right, Zach let me drive) to Granville Island where we had a look around the markets. There was a whole lot of fresh fruit, vegies, meat, cheese, seafood - pretty much everything and some crafty stuff too. We briefly considered buying a hammock but decided wed probably be too lazy to actually set it up anywhere and listened to some great buskers (one guy even played Waltzing Matilda which I was pretty stoked about, although im pretty sure I was the only one singing along) and watched some pretty cool street performers. The atmosphere of the markets was pretty cool, as there was just so much stuff going on. We grabbed some greek for lunch and then some dessert from a bakery that had the most amazing selection of pastries. I literally stood there for about 5 minutes arguing with myself about what I wanted. I eventually settled on a strawberry tart which was to die for and although it nearly cost as much as my lunch, it was totally worth it and ridiculously satisfying. After Granville Island we drove down to Tsawwassan Bay where we caught the ferry to Vancouver Island. Unfortunately for us, this ferry was not free, far from it. I nearly choked when she said it was going to be $100 for us, just because Stan is a little bit taller than a regular car. Aww gee. Anywho we got on the ferry and it was pretty luxurious, there was a gaming arcade and a café and a business area. Pretty swisho. We even got to see some dolphins which was pretty cool. It took about an hour and a half to get there and we then stopped in Sidney (fun) for some dinner supplies before going to a beach front camp sight. To our shock this camp site was the same price as the one before and didn’t even have proper toilets. Oh the humanity. I guess it was a supreme location though, we were literally on the water front and the view was pretty snazzy. We lay on the beach reading for a while before it got too cold and had BELTs for dinner, pretty delish. Especially as I didn’t even have to cook them!

We had a bit of a sleep in the next day and finally arose and went for a walk on the beach. It was still a little bit chill but we had fun playing in the little pools and seeing crabs and what not. We then drove out of the campground and to the beach right next door and lay about and read some more (I swear we do do other things). After we realised our stomachs were grumbling we got half a roast chicken and went to the park and made sandwiches. Much to my surprise we came across a cricket game, a proper one, where people were wearing white and there were umpires and a proper pitch. So we spent the rest of the afternoon lying in the sun, watching the cricket (and when Zach got bored, reading). I thought cricket to be a very simple game without many rules, but try explaining the rules to a foreigner and it gets to be a bit harder. Especially explaining the differences between a test match and one dayer (they really play for 5 days!?!? Haha)

Well that’s all for this instalment, hopefully there will be another one soon.

Love KJ and Zach


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Comments

[Millipede]

Teehee!
Another hit Miss Russell, I eagerly await the next installment! Gee you're a funny chicken. Miss you sweetie pea xo

[CanMom]

Wow!
What fabulous adventures you two are having. Thank you again KJ for keeping us posted. Have fun and stay safe! Love Mom