Canada 2000

In the summer of 2000 I took a two week vacation in Vancouver .

My flight took me from a completely rainsoaked Stockholm over the frozen glaciers of Greenland to an equally rainy Vancouver. There I was greeted by my local guide, my friend Steve, who had a hard time convincing me that it doesn't always rain in British Columbia.

As per usual my main focus was to buy a lot of CD:s (which I did) and eat a lot of food at local restaurants and visit fast food chains (did that too). I also got to do a few things that wasn't on my itinerary... I'll get to those later on.

A few days after my arrival I had settled into the Pacific time zone somewhat, so we decided to brave the 9 kilometer long excercise track that circles Stanley Park... Just to keep things interesting, we did it on rollerblades.

Later in the evening we took a ride on the Skyride to Grouse Mountain. I took a bunch of pictures of the terrific view of the city below. There was snow here and there on the mountain, we did take some photographic evidence of that.

One of the activities that wasn't on my itinerary was a visit to the "clothing optional" Wreck Beach. We decided that if you're gonna look, you gotta show, so we bared all... The lack of sunshine in Sweden was noted and commented by other beachgoers.

We to a one day roadtrip on the Sea-to-Sky highway, a road that runs from the lush green Vancouver to the mountains of Whistler at an altitude of nearly 2000 meters. On the way we stopped at some highly photogenic locations, Anvil Island, the beautiful Shannon Falls and Whistler Mountain.

Unfortunately I didn't notice that the film ran out on top of the mountain, so there are no pictures of the oddly coloured glacier lake nor of the dusty deserts as our trip continued north-west towards the small town of Lillooet. In Lillooet we had the best Greek food either of us had ever tasted... "You never know, do you?"

Another trip took us driving slowly up a long and winding gravel road, then becoming nearly lost in a dark forest, before we finally found the lookout point on Mount Sumas which made the effort worth its while.

Since I stayed in White Rock, the last Canadian outpost before the US border, a trip to Washington State was pretty much mandatory, so we got a swanky rental car and headed south of the border... After I had completed the ever-charming I-94W visa waiver that is. :)

Seattle, WA. We visited the Space Needle and took a ride on the two-station Monorail. That's about it.

Snoqualmie, WA. David Lynch shot parts of "Twin Peaks" in this small town outside of Seattle, most notably the waterfall from the opening titles, and since both Steve and I are fans of that classic TV show we just had to go there. I'm glad we did, watching the water fall from up close was worth the hike along the river's edge.

All good things come to an end and two weeks passed very quickly, I guess that proves I had a great time. I did export a number of things so I can remember and experience Canada, even when I'm home in Sweden.

To quote The Terminator: "I'll be back..."