Trip to the Land Up North

This past Friday we made the drive up to Vancouver, BC for Canada Day. Really. It was only a coincidence that our friend Martin was in town at the same time. We spent Friday evening enjoying the various Canada Day events, including a lumberjack show. That was pretty cool. We also went to an excellent Chinese restaurant, where we had spot prawns and Dungeness crab. We had to walk down E. Hastings Street to get the restaurant, experiencing Vancouver's "funky urban authenticity" as the guidebook put it. The food was good though.
On Saturday we drove even further north, stopping in Squamish for breakfast, some lunch provisions, and a pocket knife. Then it was onward to Garibaldi Provincial Park, to hike the Garibaldi Lake/Black Tusk Trail. We didn't make it all the way to the Black Tusk, but we did have a nice lunch at the lake. It is hard to see in some of these pictures, but the water was incredibly clear and a nice turquoise blue. There was plenty of snow on the nearby peaks and the air was a little chilly. Dan took some nice pictures on the way back down to the car...that is Martin in his adventure hat.




Here is another shot of Dan and Martin at the lake, with snow in the background. This was right after the clouds came out and right before the rain started.









Martin took a picture of us near the lake too...you can see what I mean about the water being turquoise...reminds you of the Carribean. This was after lunch on the way back to the car.

After we reached the car, we spent another hour eating trail mix and watching the waters of Rumble Creek rumble by. Then we continued on up the road to Whistler, as Martin wanted to show us the town he was a ski bum in before he became a respectable Yale graduate student. We did a little window shopping, visited a Canadian Starbucks, and spotted what looked to be an Amazing Race cluebox. If we see that the race goes to Whistler this fall, then we will have found the cluebox before anyone else. We finished our visit with Martin by eating some delicious BBQ back in Vancouver. We even had BBQ poutine! I wish now that we had taken a picture to send to our friend Ali in Baltimore.

We made it back home to Seattle in time for my cousin Saundra's Air Force Band Concert in Kirkland. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that you needed tickets in advance to get into a free concert. Instead we snuck backstage, told Saundra we weren't going to be able to hear her play the trombone, but made dinner plans instead. She came to our place back in Seattle, we had a good dinner, then walked down to Kerry Park to see the city skyline. Dan took our picture, but it turned out blurry because we didn't have the tripod.

We did get to hear Saundra and the band on July 4th though when they played at Myrtle Edwards Park. The music was excellent, especially the piece they played from the Incredibles soundtrack. The fireworks were good too.We also had a visit from Helen this week...I've noticed that a lot more people visit us now that we live in Seattle...something about the water in New Haven? It is really great getting to see everyone though. So if you are coming to Seattle, look us up! Or just plan a trip to visit!