Vancouver

Yesterday morning, we hopped up bright and early so we could make our way across the Canadian border and meet up with the guy we hired to drive our van to Alaska for us while we cruise up there. Since our Airbnb place wasn't going to be ready until around 3:00, we needed an entertaining place to spend the day where having all our belongings with us wouldn't be a problem. We settled on Stanley Park. It was a beautiful day, and the park offered playgrounds, grassy areas, basketball courts, gymnastic rings, a hollowed out tree hideout, beach access, a lovely walking path, restrooms, and picnic tables. It was pretty much a perfect place for us, and we ended up staying until about 7:00 (which was slightly longer than we intended because, frustratingly, Vancouver doesn't have Uber, which we didn't know ahead of time, so we had to track down a cab company that could carry all of us and all our stuff, plus took credit cards. And, when we did finally find one, we had to wait 40 minutes for them to show up. We've gotten so spoiled using Uber that this seemed like a hardship. In truth, everyone was happy hanging out at the park, so it wasn't really too much of an issue.) We did finally make it to our lovely little Airbnb, which reminded us of several places we stayed in Europe. We dropped off our stuff and then walked down to a very authentic Italian restaurant, further reminding us of good times in Europe.

Today has been more about taking care of business, as we needed to pick up a few necessities and get our laundry done before embarking on our Alaskan cruise tomorrow. We did have a wonderful breakfast at Knight and Day and then grabbed some sushi for dinner.

The homeless Watts arrive at Stanley Park

I found the beach for the first time on our trip,
and even though it was colder than a proper
beach trip should be, I soaked it up!

This kid and his amazing strength!

Searching for treasures

Clay spent hours hiding out in this tree

Best hideout ever!

One of two awesome playgrounds

I was bundled almost head to toe, and I never once thought about sunscreen. But the day left me with a lovely
 souvenir on the only exposed parts of my body.
You can't imagine how attractive it is.

Mountain view from our Airbnb