Day 56 - Vancouver is beautful

We started our day with the sound of the railroad going by and what sounded like a metal recycling plant dropping steel all over.  So, Sebastian, Amy, and I were all up early.  Robinson somehow managed to sleep through it and slept in a bit.  We made some pancakes and eggs (and leftover) pizza puffs for breakfast, but Amy stuck with her usual oatmeal.  And from there, we set out to explore Vancouver.

It turns out that our ASTC membership extended beyond the country border so we headed for Science World!  On the way there we found out that even in Canada, there’s traffic.  But it wasn’t terrible and we got to the museum almost as it was opening.  However, we got distracted because there was a big park that the boys wanted to explore.  It had a fun zip line, but also a great view of the Olympic stadium and village across the water!

Science World had something for nearly all of us.  Highlights included

• A view of the harbor where various groups were training for dragon boat races

• Rotating climbing wall

• Big water play area and garden

• Construction zone for building with blocks

• Lifted a house of garbage - 2 MT - the amount each home produces a year

• My personal highlight - “Challenging the Deep” exhibit - an exhibit about James Cameron’s deep sea exploration including his dive to the bottom of the ocean

• Had his actual clothes, notebook, checklist, etc from 2012 dive to the Marianas Trench

• Titanic props (Jack’s clothes, sketches, necklace) 

• Determined that the Bismark was not sunk, but was scuttled.  It’s in amazing shape at the bottom of the Atlantic

• Had his sketches of the sub he made on his 50th birthday in Laguna Beach

• Very inspirational for someone to be willing to push the limits

After the museum, we drove downtown because I wanted to see the Vancouver steam clock.  It was 2:57 as we were approaching and I was getting anxious we were going to have to wait an hour to see the whistle, but eventually the walkers cleared out of the crosswalk and I invented a parking spot that we could use for 5 minutes.  We jumped out of the car and walked (ran) down the street just as the whistle started.  

We returned to camp to find that we had won the “Camper of the Week” award!  It was a park pin for keeping our area clean and not leaving food out.  Yeah for us - we didn’t feed the raccoons!

After some relaxing we decided to explore the park a bit and walked up to the scenic overlook.  The scenery of the steep mountains diving into the ocean is amazing.  It really made me wish we had a boat and could explore so much more.

After we walked down, the boys wanted to swim again.  We tried to swim on the Pacific side and, while there were people in the water, it was still too cold for us.  So we wandered over to a protected cove in the hopes that it would be a bit warmer.  While it wasn’t more than a few degrees, it was warmer so we stayed there.  The boys swam and I enjoyed the sunshine with my feet in the cool water.  It was heavenly.

Once the popsicles were fully formed, we dragged the boys out of the water and headed back to camp for dinner.  After dinner Amy and I explored the “Day Use” side of the park.  We watched some scuba divers in drysuits head out for a night dive.  The park has scuttled a variety of ships to form artificial reefs so apparently a great place for diving.  But it still sounded awfully cold to me!

We also found an observation tower and, perhaps inspired by the James Cameron exhibit, let Amy feel like she was flying!

We returned to camp to find the boys engrossed watching the entertainment that is raccoons wandering around camp.  They were up a tree when we got back and while I hoped they would stay there, eventually they came down and reportedly grabbed a bag of Doritos from our neighbor campsite while they were eating.  Yikes - they really are aggressive.

As the sun went down, we finished up our day enjoying warm showers and then falling asleep.