Early Morning in Vancouver

Driving Journey: Day 3: Grants Pass

The drive from Crater Lake down to Grants Pass is about 100 miles but it's mostly on secondary 2-lane highways so it takes a few hours. Plus, much of the scenery is quite grand and one has no inclination to rush it.
In Grants Pass I only stopped to get an iced coffee at McDonald's and to gas up the car. It was appreciably warmer here than where I had been, probably because of the much lower elevation.



There's no major road heading right out to the Oregon Coast so I headed SW on Hwy 199, which actually dips into California.

Driving Journey: Day 1: Bend, Oregon

I stayed overnight in Bend. It's a lovely little community with a great number of fantastic restaurants and microbreweries.

Seattle - Day 2

As part of the official welcoming committee at Mike's house, his dog & 2 cats decided to take over the bed of the visitor aka moi!














I had neglected to get a haircut back home so Mike recommended this place. Apparently several of Microsoft's senior executives go here too. I was very satisfied with the end result on top of my own head!













I was meeting a longtime friend of mine, Stanton, for lunch in Bellevue. I got there a bit early so decided to wander around some. I'd never seen anything like this setup before.













Bellevue's architecture is exceptionally modern.


































This Dale Chihuly glass sculpture was in the entrance of one of the many malls there.















I loved the contrast of these two signs!
















Stanton's lunch was more than a little colourful.
















For dinner, Mike & I tried the Mongolian Grill. I'd gone to one many times in Mexico City but never in Seattle before. Very tasty!

A Little Walk with My Friends

I took my longtime friends, Thelma & Jen, on a tour of Vancouver's downtown. Sure, they'd been there plenty of times before, but never avec moi!

Neither had ridden the bus for over 20 years so it was quit the novelty for them! Then as we were nearing our destination Jen (shown on the right here) screamed out, "Look at that man's big iguana!" I'm still not sure if that was code for something! :-)
We got off at the Seabus terminal and then climbed the stairs to view Canada Place from the east.

This vista has dramatically changed now that the Convention Centre has been built. It's a beehive of activity and shows off Vancouver exceptionally well to tourists!
I think this is my favourite photo of the entire bunch. It would be perfect for a jigsaw puzzle!

The ladies were starving so they each grabbed a quick slice of pizza from the food fair connected to Canada Place.
Thelma first noticed this reflection and I immediately captured a photo of it.
Here we see Coal Harbour, with Stanley Park in the distance.
"We are women. Hear us roar!"
I liked this contrast of old & new. Incidentally, the structure on top is the Marine Building.
Here's an interesting view of the Hotel Vancouver.
This had to be the busiest hot dog cart I have EVER seen in Vancouver! Located on Burrard at Smythe, it offers a variety of Japanese style hot dogs. I'm not sure precisely what that entails but my stomach demands I find out on a future visit downtown!
Ain't warm weather glorious?! The only improvement over this would be a different sex for the two drivers! ;-)

Be sure to click on the thumbnail to see the store that captured the attention of the two gals! And "Noooooo", I did not go in there with them!
After a huge mistake by civic politicians in 1974, Granville Street is finally coming back to life downtown! Hey, it only took 35 years! :-(
My sense is that this bus is not really a VW, but I'm going to try to find out.
We finished up the day with a GREAT meal at the Red Door restaurant, along with a number of our other friends from high school. Much fun was had by all! And we discovered that for groups of 8 or more, the table can partake in their Gang Chow Menu. It's an amazing deal where for $25 per person, you get 7 dishes. We were all pretty hungry initially but there was no way we could finish all that food. Highly recommended!