Vancouver!

 

 

 Vancouver was a pretty good drive from Banff, so we split it into 2 days.  The scenery from Banff to Vancouver is beautiful because you drive through the Canadian Rockies and there is very little in the way of traffic!  After a good 2 hours of driving, we came across the Northern Lights Wolf Center, which made my co-pilot very happy.  We followed the signs for about six miles up and down dirt roads with the trailer in tow!  After finding the place, we were rewarded with a nice learning experience about the wolves.  They even started howling while we were there! Upon leaving we now had the task of turning the 60 feet of truck and trailer around.  The people at the wolf place said you can turn around at the end of the road.  Well....... after a few crafty maneuvers and the trailer being almost jack knifed, we managed to get the camper turned around and headed in the right direction.  Karen would like to mention that I was highly irritated with the whole turning around of the camper! Back on the road again and a few more hours of driving we stopped in a little town called Revelstoke. There was a nice little mom and pop style campground with huge weeping willow trees and plenty of room for the kids to play.  We broke out a ball and played some volleyball and kickball while mom trained Norman.  We found a nice restaurant downtown called The Village Idiot and grabbed some really good pizza!  The next morning we got up and finished our journey to Vancouver.  We rolled into Vancouver around 4:00pm without a campground, so we scrambled to find a place.  We found a place close to Vancouver that sounded great so we settled in for the night to the tune of $72 a night!  For $72 a night we received our postage stamp sized "camp" site that I couldn't get into without someone directing me in!  Background noise was supplied by the freight train depot directly behind us unhooking and hooking up to cars all hours of the night and the highway that ran right past our campground. This place was a parking lot with bushes to separate sites!  I was really missing Banff or even our 1 night stay at Revelstoke. On a good note, we had a place to wash the truck which Bryson and I took advantage of! 

The next morning we went to a local park on the water to get some lunch and just get out of the truck. $60 dollars for 3 hamburgers and fries with drinks later we headed back to the truck wondering, how could we spend $60 on 3 burgers and fries?  Next stop Karen found a place called Granville Island.  We took a ferry over and waked through the markets.  The ferry cost $10 each way for us which I thought was pricey considering with a strong wind you could almost spit across the water!  It was fun though with Bryson and Kaylee chasing all the pigeons and looking in all the toy stores.  I on the other hand looked around and felt cramped and wonder how all these people enjoy living right on top of each other, not to mention the serious outflow of cash people must pay! 

Back to the RV for some down time and a good truck wash with the "B-man".  After a nights sleep full of trains, planes, and automobiles, we woke to the godforsaken alarm clock at 5:30am!  We headed into town again for Norman's show on "Breakfast TV."  The news crew was great! The reporter doing story really enjoyed Norman's scooter as you can see from the picture.  Karen and Norman did such a good job they asked us to say for the next show an hour later, which we happily agreed to do. After the second show we found a bagel joint and sat down for some breakfast.  Next stop on Norman's agenda was an interview with a local newspaper, so we headed that way for his photo shoot and interview.  After some waiting around we met up with the newspaper crew and they got the story of Norman and Karen with a few photos to boot. From there we headed into downtown historical Gastown.  We walked the streets and took in the sights.  We even found a old fashioned steam clock!  The clock sounds every quarter of an hour through a series of steam whistles at the top of the clock. After our walk through the city we headed for home and chilled out for the rest of the night.  The next morning, we packed it in and headed for Seattle!