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Published: August 7th 2007
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Refreshed from a relaxing day of whale watching and driving, instead of hiking, to the top of Mt. Constitution, we were up for the 8:00 a.m. serving of breakfast at the Kangaroo House and then back out to Mt. Constitution for some hiking. We started at the southwest end of the park and hiked around Cascade Lake. That was a bit more challenging than it looked because of a detour around the Lagoon. Apparently a bridge had been washed out, and that added a mile to our hike. Plus we got lost and had to backtrack a time or two to be sure we were going in the right direction.
After successfully navigating the detour we arrived at the southeast corner of the lake and hiked up to Sunrise Rock, a 300 foot elevation change over about .3 of a mile, which was fairly hard but a nice way to get our hearts pumping again. There we had some nice views of the lake, but the paled in comparison to both Mt. Rainier and Mt. Constitution. From there we headed over to a nice little waterfall, Cascade Falls, and had a nice rest. Check out the video in the upper
left corner of the page, it's the only one we made the whole trip! We looped back to the parking lot, having hiked a little less than 6 miles. It was getting close to lunch time and then our 1:00 sea kayaking tour, so we left the park and drove around back to Deer Harbor.
Sea kayaking was fun. I, of course, had some minor difficulty putting on my splash guard and life vest and getting everything adjusted properly, but Rachel made sure to straighten me out. We were in two-person kayaks, and I was in the back and in charge of steering. The kayak had a foot-pedal operated rudder, so steering actually wasn’t that bad, although I had a hard time keeping my stroke even with Rachel's when I was worried about steering. Two things at once and all. But once we got used to the kayak stroke, it really wasn't very difficult.
Our guide seemed a bit disinterested in, you know, actually guiding us, and he would just say “paddle up to that point on that island” and off we would go, where he would send us on to the next destination. We saw some wildlife:
crabs, starfish, raccoons, and a few other critters, but nothing terribly exciting. It was nice, though, to see the islands up close and from the water level, after having just viewed many of them from over 2,000 feet in elevation the night before. You really get a sense of the ecosystem on a micro level when you can get that up-close perspective. We didn't take any pictures, though, because we didn't have a waterproof casing and we are both clutzy enough that we just might drop our camera into the water. So you'll just have to take our word that it was a nice time. In all, we paddled about three hours. Good and tired, we hopped in the car and headed to the ferry.
We decided to go ahead and head to Vancouver. Our friends Beth and Guillermo went to the area last year and had given us a recommendation for a decent and cheap hotel in downtown Vancouver. They also said the border patrol gave them a hard time because they didn’t have a reservation in hand when they crossed over into Canada. So Rachel called up the Victorian Hotel and booked us a room.
On the way we stopped for dinner in Bellingham, Washington, a neat little college town close to the border. I tried to talk Rachel into Taco Time for dinner, but it would take me several more days to wear her down. You’d be surprised how effective the constant refrain of “Taco Time is my favorite time!” can be. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Anyway, we stopped at an awesome pizza joint called Il Fiamma. We had a great pizza, and I even held off on having a single beer for fear of the border patrol. But what really made the dinner was the sign promoting buying locally grown foods and touting Il Fiamma’s role in doing so, saying they were “Keepin’ it real in B’ham.” Rachel latched onto that little saying, and for the rest of the trip we were keepin’ it real in some way or another.
We finished the drive up to Vancouver (and had no trouble at the border) arriving on the outskirts of town just before sunset. Dark clouds were gathering over the mountains north of Vancouver and they looked quite threatening. We predictably got a little turned around and couldn’t figure out how to get on the Granville Bridge, which was our desired route into town. After several minutes of frustration and turning around, we (and by we, I mean Rachel) figured out how to get there and we found the entrance onto the bridge.
Coming over the crest of the bridge gave us our first views of downtown Vancouver, and it was unreal. The dark clouds behind and above the city were a stark contrast to the fading sunlight reflecting off of the green-gray tinted glass skyscrapers. It defies my descriptive abilities, and I wish I had a photo. It was a good start to the Vancouver portion of our journey, and we barely beat the rain to our hotel.
We found the Victorian, checked in and parked the car in their cheap lot, a real bonus and money saver. We didn’t move it the entire time we were in Vancouver, using public transportation and our own two feet to get around. Another long day down, we headed to bed, excited to explore a new city tomorrow.
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