It’s day three of our 21st Wedding Anniversary Week where we take a day trip to the City of Vancouver.
You can click here to read about day one and here to read about day two.
So this day, March 30th, is the actual day of our 21st wedding anniversary and I like to try and do something a little extra on the day we’re observing our anniversary. A few months back when we were planning the week, I asked Cindy if she’d like to drive up to Vancouver to spend the day touring the city and she agreed that it sounded like a fun way to spend the day.
We left the hotel in Redmond at 5 am for the approximately 2 ½ hour drive. Our usual practice when visiting a large city for the first time is to take one of the city bus tours offered in order to familiarize ourselves with the history, landmarks, and layout of the city first, and then concentrate on the particular places of interest to us. The tour we chose began at the Vancouver Public Library at 9 am and we knew we’d be stopping for some breakfast along the way on the drive so we built in enough time for that and the possibility of delays crossing the border.
We needn’t have worried about the border crossing. We were the only car going into Canada, although the line coming out of Canada on the opposite side was a mile long. The border crossing patrol officer took our passports and asked the usual questions about why we were coming to visit Canada and how long we would be staying, asked us if we had more than $10,000 in the car with us (hah!), and within 2 minutes we were on our way into the Great White North.
The Vancouver Public Library is a city block in size and we, of course, ended up on the wrong (back) side of it when we arrived and parked. But after a couple of calls to the tour bus company, we were able to find out we needed to be on the front side which is marked, I was told, by “The Words Don’t Fit The Picture” sign, which made no sense when she was telling me this over the phone until I saw the “sign” which is actually artwork.
Since we had some extra time, we used our phone apps to locate a Tim Horton’s Donut Shop and it turned out there was one a half block down the street. My first (and only, at the time) visit to a Tim Horton’s was back in 2011 when I did a day trip to Winnipeg, and I definitely wanted Cindy to experience the goodness while we were in Vancouver. We each got a donut and a hot beverage (guys, I love your donuts but your hot chocolate is pretty gross) and though Cindy liked her’s she opined that it “might be just a little TOO sweet” as we sat and watched the tour bus stop area through the window.
The tour bus arrived at the appointed time and we boarded. I’d say that this turned out to be one of the worst, in my opinion, city tour bus operations we’ve ever been on and probably tied with our New Orleans tour bus ride as the worst ever. It was definitely not worth the money or the time spent.
After the tour we returned to our car, fed some more money into the parking meter and walked around in search of a place to eat lunch. We found an Irish Pub named Dublin Calling and ate entirely too much food. It was a good thing we planned to do some walking around the city!
Anyway, below are some photos we took during the day.
The image on the side of the Randall Building, at 535 West Georgia, was installed in 1993 and is one of the city’s most photographed buildings. The mural is based on a copper engraving from 1698 by German Christopher Weigel (1654-1725). It shows a master goldsmith instructing apprentices.
The world-renowned Rosewood Hotel Georgia in Vancouver where celebrities and royalty such as Elvis Presley, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, John Wayne, and the Prince of Wales have stayed.
The Vancouver Museum of Art entrance.
Cindy and I doing a selfie in front of the Vancouver Museum of Art.
The Totems at Stanley Park in Vancouver.
Cindy in front of the Totems at Stanley Park in Vancouver.
Cindy standing on the shore of Stanley Park with the Vancouver skyline across the bay behind her.
Mountains across the bay on the opposite shore of Stanley Park.
Selfie of Cindy and I with the mountains across the bay on the opposite shore of Stanley Park.
Here’s a video taken from the shore of Stanley Park across the bay from the City of Vancouver.
We finished our visit to Vancouver by stopping and buying a dozen Tim Horton donuts to take back to Redmond with us and then spent an hour and 15 minutes waiting in traffic at the border to get through the crossing.
Hoping for another good night’s sleep because tomorrow we drive to the West in order to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
I’ll buy 50 copies of Action Comics #1, seal them so they remain in pristine condition, place them in a safe deposit box that I’ve paid the rent on for the next 50 years, and return to my time. When I turn 18 years old I’ll remove one of the copies and sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars and keep doing the same at the rate of one each year until February 22, 2010, when I become the first person to receive 
We had a good night’s sleep, enjoyed breakfast at the hotel, and then drove from Redmond to Everett for our scheduled 10 am tour of Boeing’s Future of Flight facility at Paine Field, a small international airport next to the assembly building. In the photo to the right, we are about to enter the visitor center where the tour begins and this is the ONLY photo we were permitted to take. Just inside the doors behind us are dozens of lockers that you MUST leave your belongings (aside from medications) in because “
The tour lasts about 90 minutes and was fun and informative. There was an introductory video in a theater at the visitor center before we were loaded onto a bus to drive over to the assembly building. We started on the nearest side (the assembly building is divided in half and two kinds of aircraft are assembled in each half) where the 747 and 767 aircraft are assembled. Our tour guide was full of interesting facts about the aircraft, the facility, and the people who put these massive mechanical marvels together. While Ransom E. Olds originated the assembly-line process and Henry Ford put it into mass practice, Boeing has put it into practice on a monumental scale and continues refining it to this day.
We then visited the farthest side where the 777 and 787 aircraft are assembled and were fortunate enough to see a massive overhead crane in the ceiling moving a part of a plane into place. Afterward, we took a quick ride on the bus past a line of completed aircraft parked on the edge of the airport taxiway. Boeing test pilots take each finished aircraft on two different flights and then test pilots from the purchasing entity (Delta, American, etc.) also take each plane on two different flights. If any issues are discovered they are corrected and tested twice again before the aircraft sale is considered final. And Boeing does not deliver aircraft; each purchasing entity is responsible for flying their own aircraft away from the assembly plant upon completion.
Amber and Abby dropped Cindy and I off at the Orlando International Airport at 5:30 am for our 7:15 am flight. I had just flown in from Austin the day before in time to have dinner with Cindy, Amber, Abby, Ann, and Heather at Chuy’s, so while I would not have wanted to miss getting to see them, I was tired right from the beginning of the trip. As is my usual custom (though not my choice), I had not slept much the night before, and I had not slept much the night before my flight to Austin, so I was going on little sleep over the previous 2 nights. Thank goodness we were able to book a non-stop flight so I might have the chance to doze a bit during the flight.
Speaking of the Borg regeneration alcove, here is 1 of 1 standing inside an empty regeneration alcove. As she never lets me forget, “Resistance is futile.”
As much as I enjoyed the exhibit at the museum, here’s my favorite part of that day; hanging out with my youngest grandchildren, Jade and Maxwell!
It’s hard sometimes for us to imagine water as something we need to conserve. If you live in a normal city in the U.S., you know you can turn on a faucet and clean water flows out. You know from looking at 
But do you know that 96.5% of that is salt water in our oceans? And the remaining 3.5% is freshwater lakes and frozen water locked in glaciers and polar ice caps.
I had been considering various models of filtered water bottles when one day as I was boarding a flight I noticed that the passenger in front of me had a “Clearly Filtered Hydro Flask” on his backpack. Although I make good use of online reviews for various products, I also prefer to hear directly from someone using a product. And so as we walked down the boarding ramp I asked him how he liked the bottle. “I love it”, he exclaimed, “I fill it up with cold water or ice and water and it stays cold all day while I drink it. And it’s great how the filter removes funny tastes of water around the country so all I taste is clean, pure water.”
