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Vancouver, BC

an afternoon north of the border.

a daytrip to Vancouver, B.C. on the second leg of our “thank goodness mike didn’t have to work” weekend, we drove up to Vancouver. we knew we wouldn’t have a lot of time to spend there, but this was impacted even more by an accident that closed down I-5 northbound (although we did
enjoy the twisty/rocky SR 11 ride into bellingham to avoid the congestion on the interstate).

in Vancouver, we ate brunch at the elbow room cafe. a restaurant famous for it’s lively atmosphere, large portions, and abusive staff. and when they say ‘abuse’ they mean ‘abuse.’ i don’t blush very often, but i did several times on sunday. leave your thin skin at home. thankfully, the abuse was served up with a delicious pancake the size of a frisbee® flying disc.

these pictures were taken from Vanier Park/Hadden Park in Vancouver, B.C. (near the space museum) on July 6th, 2003.

the big metal crab is the fountain in front of the space museum. there are extremely high pressure jets of water that spray up and deflect from parts of the crab and make a somewhat frightening amount of noise.

basic skyline shot of vancouver	good kite flying park, winds off the ocean
more skyline & kites	an interesting old boat
trying to use the zoom lens to figure out what that big floating thing was	more kites & skyline
trying something artsy with the sculpture & mountain	more skyline…
and more …	and more …
and yet even more …	someday when i have free time …
i will stitch together this panorama…	unless the big metal crab gets me first!

Monte Cristo, WA

a long day hiking.

the going is easy, it’s an old gravel roadbed, 4 miles back to the site of the former mining town. there are still some relatively modern (or semi-modernized) structures on the site, and a few vestiges of old equipment. the last of the original 19th-century structures burned down in 1983, apparently.

a nice walk, a bit long though. 8 miles round trip, an elevation difference of only about 400ft. next time we’ll opt for something that works the muscles harder, but doesn’t abuse the joints for quite so long.

Mount Vernon, WA

the beautiful tulips!

we went up to Mount Vernon, WA for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.

It’s a series of events and activities geographically separated around a few square miles. the centerpieces being several farms who let you pay a nominal fee to wander through their fields. and a lot of people like to ride bicycles in the area, so if you go, keep an eye out for two-wheelers.

we parked at RoozenGaarde and walked around their display grounds, and out into their vast fields of flowers. it was pretty amazing.

Portand, OR

a trip south to Oregonia.

it rained pretty steadily for the whole time we were down there. we still had fun, drank some good beer, saw some nice waterfalls and left with about a dozen ideas of what to do on our next trip.

i especially want to revisit the Historic Columbia River Highway (info here, here, and here). the sky was quite overcast while we were there and we couldn’t see any of the mountains, but the Vista House building itself was quite impressive.

Big 4

a trip to the meadow at the base of Big 4.

what an incredible trip up to Big 4. we were surprised to find that the Mountain Loop Highway was still open to Barlow Pass – it’s usually closed by late November/early December. we only went as far as Big 4, and the last mile getting there, the road was snow-packed and turning into a slushy/icy mess.

Big 4 was gorgeous. there was about 4 inches of snow on the ground at the base, and you could see it snowing up on the mountain. the whole basin was full of snow which reflected the sun peeking through intermittent clouds.

200 miles for cookies

we drove thru Stevens Pass, over to Leavenworth, WA. Leavenworth is a little town on the east side of the Cascade Moutains.

washington pass

we took a ride up to Washington Pass, in the Northern Cascade Moutains. the destination was chosen because of snow – we miss the regular snowfall that we were used to back east (and seeing mountains and driving twisty roads never hurts, either).