The alarm went off at 7 AM. Time to move on, but first it was time to shower, dress, pack my luggage, and clean up the house. Oh, and have mediocre coffee.

At nearly 10:00 AM (the checkout time) we said our goodbyes. What a wonderful visit we had, and getting to spend a good amount of time with Erika, Stewart, and their sweet kiddos was a real treat!

Thank you, Ruth Ann, for including us! 🩷

Then Richard drove Diane, Dan, and I to a new city. Or, really, he drove Dan and I to our next destination … he and Diane were continuing on. (Thank you, Richard and Diane, for the rides and hospitality.)

HELLO VANCOUVER!

(The photos above are through windows — thus the odd colors.)

Our check-in time wasn’t until 4:00 PM, but we assumed we could drop luggage off and wander. It was about noon when we checked in and not only did they have a room for us, but they upgraded us! I had originally reserved a room with two double beds because that was the cheapest route, so they did give us two rooms now rather than a king size bed. As Dan said, we should have thought and asked if they had a one room place with the large bed. Oh well, too late! We also were given a bottle of wine and two chocolates. Sweet! (Literally, when it comes to the chocolates.)

Two rooms with a Vancouver view, plus wine and chocolate:

After getting settled it was wander time. We had no plans for today, so we just headed out. We knew we wanted to find a bite for lunch, but otherwise we didn’t care what we would do. While I’ve done a lot of research for the next trip, I did very little for this one. So it’s a bit of a mystery trip, I suppose.

We walked a short bit and wound up eating lunch at a “whatever” place. Then a quick cup of real coffee!

We walked down to the water, right at the train station, and then walked through that station.

We did the obligatory gazing at the Steam Clock. Quite the tourist stop.

We then ended up going into an actual souvenir shop — we wanted some Canada caps for our next trip. (Gee, I wonder why?!) Those were purchased and then it was back to the hotel. Passing by the park that had this memorial, I noticed it seemed to be a spot for some rather sad looking men. I think it’s most likely a spot for drug addicts, but maybe I’m just being “judgy”. There do seem to be a number of homeless here, but that’s a big city for you.

Back at the hotel I continued writing this entry and someone else napped. I’ll let you figure out who that might be.

Okay, okay … then I, too, just might have dozed for a minute or two. Maybe.

After opening my eyes — surely I wasn’t really sleeping?! — I mentioned that we could do dinner at the one place nearby that was nicer, but maybe we’d wait and do that tomorrow and do Original Joe’s, which was located right below us. In looking at the nicer place, though, I saw that tonight was the only day that allowed us to get a reservation earlier and dine inside. So that was the deciding factor, and we went off to the Blue Water Cafe, which was a whopping eight or so minute walk.

We were seated and our server came and chatted for a bit. When he heard we were from California and made a bit of our feelings clear about the state of our country he talked for quite a while. It was pretty funny because he said he wasn’t going to talk about politics but then could barely stop. Needless to say, he thought a particular person in power was nuts, but was clear that he only felt bad for those of us stuck in our circumstances. I won’t go on and on (contrary to him!) but it cracked me up that he “wasn’t going to talk about politics” and proceeded to several times when he came to our table.

We ordered the sushi appetizer and, sadly, I neglected to take a photo but the sushi was wonderful. Then I ordered the halibut and Dan ordered the salmon and … well … YUM! Our server saw me take a photo of my meal and offered to take a photo of the two of us, which you can see between our two plates. (Obviously … hardly needed to tell you that, right?) The fish is brought in daily so it was incredibly fresh.

We had a lovely time. Food was great, and I’m glad we could make it work. Our next two dinners (for we only have two more here) will definitely be smaller and less costly, but it was fun to have this treat.

We took our little walk back to our hotel and here we are, stuffed but happy. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Goodnight!