Duke and I returned from our Fall road trip a couple of weeks ago and I am just getting to updating the blog. This blog entry will be about our travels from Jasper Alberta in the Canadian Rockies to Vancouver and Victoria British Columbia, and then back to the U.S.
We left Jasper heading west and stopped to spend the night at the SunPeaks Resort near Kamloops, British Columbia. The SunPeaks Resort is a ski resort but since ski season hasn't started we got a great room for a great price on PriceLine.
The next day we drove to Squamish, British Columbia. Along the way we drove through Whistler where the 2010 Winter Olympic Games were held. We drove around a bit and stopped to check out the bobsled track. As we were walking around we kept hearing a whistling sound. We finally realized that it was the zip line going down the canyon behind us. It looked like a wild ride.
From Squamish we drove to Vancouver and spent two nights. We visited Chinatown in Vancouver and went to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. In the picture below you can see the man using a gong to call the fish before he feeds them. The next picture is of the garden too. It is the first full-size "scholars" garden built outside of China. We took a tour and learned all about the culture of the garden.
The other great thing we did in Vancouver was visit the Museum of Anthropology – University of British Columbia. The building was designed to display the collection of carvings and totem polls. It had a wonderful collection of everything from clothing to boats to art to masks of the native people who lived on the west coast of what is now Canada. I could go back and spend days exploring the collection.
On the way back from the museum we stopped at Granville Island and explored. We visited the public market and watched the sunset overlooking the water. Then we took the pedestrian ferry back to near our hotel and walked the rest of the way.
Tuesday, October 2 we took the ferry from Vancouver to Vancouver Island. We drove up the coast and spent the night in Courtenay. Wednesday we drove to Victoria stopping along the way to hike and explore. The giant Douglas firs were amazing.
In Victoria we went to see Butchart Gardens. While deciding what to do that day I was debating whether it really was worth the drive and the cost. But when we got there I was blown away. They have to be the most stunningly beautiful gardens I have ever seen.
After visiting the gardens we took the afternoon ferry across Juan de Fuca Strait to Port Angeles, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula. It was a gorgeous day, there was no wind and the water was as flat as glass. We even saw some dolphins as we were crossing.
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