Grouse Mountain
Ruth had to go to work today, like a sucker.
We had a plan: Grouse Mountain, “The Peak of Vancouver”. But first, breakfast, which we bought at Cafe Zen a few blocks from Ruth’s house. Today, as yesterday, the waitress forgot to give us cutlery, but other than that it was a good filling American style breakfast.
Then, we spent 15 minutes washing the bugs off Ruth and Dave’s car windscreen, and meandered our way towards Grouse Mountain, failing to properly follow our GPS instructions, since the GPS was unfamiliar (borrowed from R&D), and the car was manual and had the gear stick on the right. Debbie drove, and once she’d adjusted, did a fine job.
Grouse Mountain appears to be a privately owned mountain - something I have trouble adjusting to. I suppose they have many to go around. It’s a short drive out of Vancouver, there are cable cars to near the top, where there are “attractions”.
I was a little taken aback in the car park, when the pay and display machine accepted my Visa card without asking for any form of authentication.
As the cable car swung into place at the top, Debbie took ill! She suddenly felt dizzy and sick, and experienced migraine-like visual problems. She sat down on the gondola floor for a couple of seconds, then I guided her to a bench. We’re blaming the rapid ascent into thin air. A bottle of full-fat Coke, while admiring the spectacular view of Vancouver, seemed to revive her.
We made our way to the lumberjack show, because one was about to start. We hadn’t been seated long when a toothsome Daisy Duke-alike in a gingham shirt and a cowboy hat started warming up the audience.
… oh and there were some lumberjacks too. They did some lumberjack stuff, and let me tell you, that show had everything. I don’t want to give away anything, because the details don’t belong on the Internet.
Next attraction: bear enclosure. We didn’t see any bears, but we did see a seat dedicated to Sandy Struble. He was really passionate about bears you know.
After a lunch of pizza slices, we went to watch a raptor show - an owl, a hawk, a turkey vulture, a peregrine falcon and a bald eagle doing tricks for our amusement. The trick of flying from one perch to another. They were magnificent.
When the hawk landed right next to me, I cried “DUDE!”.
Boldly, we decided to trudge to Grouse Mountain’s peak. It only took about half an hour, and hardly anyone else seemed to be bothering. The views were fantastic and it was nice to get away from the crowds.
The bears were out and frolicking by the time we got back down.
The last thing we had to do was a guided walk. We got to the meeting point just in time, and there was one other group waiting alongside us. When the guide arrived, he explained that nobody could go to the peak because there was a bear on the loose up there. Oops. He also explained that half of the usual route was off limits because of unmelted snow. This left nowhere we hadn’t already visited, and the other group were in the same boat. They decided not to bother. We decided that it would be worth seeing places we’d already been, with new commentary.
This turned out to be a wise choice. Our guide was knowledgeable and friendly, and when we got to the out of bounds part of the route, he blithely decided to take us anyway.
With that done, we took the cable car back to the car park, opened all the car doors to let it cool down a bit, then drove back. It was fine until our approach to the Lion’s Gate Bridge, where four lanes merged into one. Once that was sorted though, it was a reasonable drive through the city centre to get back to Ruth and Dave.
Before dinner we had time to walk to Future Shop. Debbie had set her heart on an iPod Touch, and once we’d established it was really cheaper here, buying one was a very quick process. She’s playing with it now.
Ruth and Dave fed and watered us handsomely, and forced us to watch Top Gear.