Vancouver, B.C. 9/11-9/15/08

Vancouver, oh Vancouver... We never thought we'd say this... but we wish we were Canadian.
The Bikes built and fully loaded, ready to ride!















The $15 rack that Josh bought from a bike shop in Seattle and two bags he got for $30 from the army surplus store. Ghetto rigged in order to move some weight to the front of the bike and alleviate some of the shake.

What a beautiful city! Immediately upon embarking on our bikes we encountered a local who told us where to see and where to avoid. East Hastings was a disgrace said the man, so stay the hell out of there. West Hastings, however, was a wonderful street to say the least.

Our first night in Canada, we decided on stealth camping in lovely Stanley Park. A ginormous park along the coast which was used abundantly by the locals. Bikes, walkers, runners, and rollerblades galore.
As we made camp, we decided to start cooking dinner just after dark. Simeon shined his flashlight around the perimeter of camp with a red lens covering the flashlight. About 7 pair of 'demon eyes' glimmered in a half circle not 15 feet away. We had been surrounded by ravenous raccoons. These little scamps must have heard our tarp crinkling like a dinner bell. Plus, a cup of soup had spilled all over inside Sim's food bag giving everything a tasty soup smell.

These coons were like nothing we had ever seen. Unwaivered by flashlights and only mildly scared of being charged and yelled at. We even tried chucking rocks at them,

"Our cooking pan full of ammo!"

but this only made them retreat about 5 feet before circling back around. After about 30min of attempting to scatter them, we decided to just hang the food from a tree and be done with it for the night. Aside from awaking once with a raccoon 2 feet from his face, Sim slept well enough in the Canadian woods. Josh, however, was bothered for the first of many nights by Simeon's snoring.

-The morning after the attack-

The second night we chose to bed down in the Cambie house hostel just off of West Hastings. Wandering around the downtown area was great and we visited Stanley park a couple more times before departing. There was a slight worry as Josh misplaced a 2GB memory card that held our pics from Seattle when we were shooting pictures of the sunset by the beach in Stanley Park. Immediately upon noticing the missing card we bolted on foot down to the areas we biked past the previous night. Amazingly, eventhough it must have been passed by hundreds of people, there the memory card was- glimmering like a treasure exactly where we dropped it in the grass.

The Xtacycle showing off her "down low glow" Thanks Tony!

We wandered a few blocks down East Hastings half by accident and half by curiosity only to find more street zombies than we ever encountered in Seattle. The homeless and drug addicted were everywhere amongst the stench of human waste in the streets. We hastily walked our way back to a more friendly area without incident.



We frequented the New Amsterdam Cafe and a couple similar 'cafes' in the area. Right next to the cafe we stumbled on a museum of herbal medicine which contained a decent amount of literature and trinkets describing how various herbs and narcotics have been used as medicine by cultures around the world.



















When in Rome....

We found Vancouver to have an even more laid back attitude than Seattle and again, abundantly helpful to strangers. It was at this point that Josh said it was almost unnerving how helpful everyone had been to us. It seemed whenever we were lost, unsure, or without something- someone or something appeared to help us on our way. It seemed we were meant to make this journey at every turn.



Our last night in Canada, we stayed right on Jericho beach on the South side of Vancouver. While finding our squat spot, we ran into another bicycle tourer that biked to Vancouver 27yrs previous and decided to stay. He proclaimed that he was staying under the no camping sign inside the park. We however decided to go right next to the water and set up in the sand.
While we relaxed and enjoyed the night view of Vancouver in the distance we enjoyed some of B.C.'s finest- "when in Rome they say". A few minutes into our 'relaxation' time we were passed by two policemen on four wheelers who didn't shed but a passing glance in our direction. It was so strange not to be hassled in that situation- camping on the beach and enjoying a luxury we don't get in the states. They passed us up a couple times that night but didn't bother us once.


In the morning we rode over to a ferry that would take us to Vancouver island. Once we arrived there, we rode through a town named Sydney and encountered a couple elderly British women who were hilariously delightful. One of them said she just loves Americans and they don't see many there. As we filled our water bottles she yelled-- I didn't know you two were dogs.. apparently the faucet was for refilling dog dishes in the park. She also told us that we couldn't camp in this park because it was patrolled but wished us well on our journey.

We biked on along a bike path and found a historical park where we jumped the fence and stealth camped- getting out before the gates were opened the next morning. Then we jumped a bus to take us through a tunnel and on to another ferry which would take us to Port Angeles and back to the States.


A few more pics from Vancouver follow:



















Some Stanley park art. Oh, and the vicious coons we had to fend off!




So fresh and so clean clean

Earthdance, a nice little hippie fest. It was a great way to leave Vancouver!