One day last week I was watching my Penguins on TV. I had a thought, I wonder if they play the Canucks this year? I quickly looked at the schedule and found out they did, in Vancouver. We HAVE to go. This is the closest the Penguins will be to Seattle until Seattle gets their team in 2021 or until we plan a trip to Pittsburgh. I called mom and asked her what she was doing this weekend. She said as far as she knew nothing at this moment. I ask her, how would you like to go to Canada this weekend and watch the Penguins play the Canucks? She said sure, let's do it. We found pretty good tickets, a hotel within walking distance of the arena and things to do in the area while we were there. I was so excited I could not wait for the weekend. This would be my first time crossing the actual border into Canada. Of course we were going to find some caches.
I got home from work on Friday and immediately started packing. I would have to get up super early on Saturday so we could get on the road. I tried going to bed as early as I could so I could get enough sleep because I knew it was going to be a very long short weekend.
My alarm went off and I zombied out of bed. I didn't actually get up until 4:45 but I knew mom would be late so I took my time getting ready. I made a couple of sandwiches and put them in the cooler with some fruit, chips, drinks and other snack-like stuff. I grabbed my back pack, my duffel bag and put all of it in the back of the Escape. I called mom to see where she was because I was ready to go. She told me she was almost there.
She threw her stuff in the Escape and off we went. I had prepared days before the geocaches we were going to stop for, the food places we needed to try (my friend Jessie lived in Canada for a year), the places we were going to go and information about crossing the border. I found an app called CBSA CanBorder and downloaded it. I wanted to compare it to our WSDOT app to see if the border information was similar. For the most part it was. I made sure we both had our passports because we didn't want to have a bad weekend.
Traffic was pretty minimal and we made our first stop in Bellingham to use the restroom. We found a Haggen and went inside. We had to wait for a bunch of cross country kids from the local high school who were probably going to a meet that morning. I found some snacks and mom bought dad a huge container of black licorice. That stuff is hard to find in the giant circular containers. From there, we found the closest WSECU and each grabbed about $60 in cash to exchange once we got there.
We made our way to the border and got there around 9 a.m. Neither of us had crossed into the Canadian border via car before but we have by foot into the Peace Arch Park. It was a really short wait going into Canada. When it was our turn, we handed him our passports and he asked us why we were going into Canada. I told him for the hockey game tonight and some sight seeing. He handed us our passports back and told us to have a great time, welcome to Canada! We really wanted our passport stamped but we really didn't know where to go so we drove on. I saw on my maps that there was a geocache just ahead. I pulled over and grabbed my first Canadian cache, The Best Place on Earth - Peace Arch (GC1VPXH). I was embarrassed that it took me a little while to find. Mom watched me from the Escape.
From there, we took the highway into Vancouver. I could see why so many people come visit. The city has a great mountainous backdrop to the north. I had to make sure to look at my speedometer every once and a while to make sure I was going the correct kilometer per hour. I was glad our vehicles had both mph and kph. This was the first time my Escape had ever been driven in a foreign country. My GPS didn't really work in Canada so we had to figure it out with my geocaching maps. We finally got into Vancouver and kinda just drove around until we decided where we wanted to go first.
We started in the Gastown area because mom wanted to see the steam clock. We parked near some shops, put our money in the meter, set a timer and walked around for a while.
We took a few pictures and then walked back towards the Escape. We walked past the Escape to see how much time we had on our meter and then walked along Water Street until it turned into West Cordova. I followed the directions to Under the Clock (GC7B6F0) up Granville Street. There, we answered a few questions about the clock and got our picture to prove we were there.
We walked up West Hastings Street to grab another virtual cache, Marine Building (GC7B6MA). I wanted to get as many virtuals as possible because I really wanted to get to 100 virtuals before July 30th. Including this one I had 15 left to grab with a little less than nine months left of my goal. I knew with some of my upcoming trips I would have to grab as many virtuals as possible. There really weren't any close ones around. The Marine Building was completed in 1930 making it the city's tallest building for its time. It's iconic architecture and luscious interior decorations, the building has been chosen as the setting for numerous film and television productions. The cache wanted you to admire the architecture and the exterior stone walls. It was a really cool building.
We continued walking around a little while just to experience Vancouver and to see what all was around. Mom took several pictures of the city, the harbor and the port. For being the end of October the weather was sure nice.
It was almost time for our meter to be up so we started walking back after trying to find a public bathroom. We walked down West Cordova and noticed this Mountie shop that we saw earlier. We decided to go in to see what was in there. Both mom and I found a few things. We chatted with the shop keep for a little bit as well. We asked him if there was a place we could exchange money. He told us there were a few banks around and a couple of exchange places. He gave us an address for one of the exchange places. We thanked him and then paid for our stuff with mom's credit card because we hadn't changed our US Dollars yet. Plus, she earned miles when she used it.
We had a few blocks until we were back at the Escape. I saw this little souvenir shop next to where we parked the Escape and I had to go inside. I got a few things for myself, Ben, his mom and Amy. Mom found some stuff for her, dad, Doug and Erika. I asked mom where we wanted to go next and she said Stanley Park. I checked to see where the park was from the street we were on. We got onto the main road and followed the signs.
When we got into the park we just followed the road. We really didn't have a destination but we did see a lot of cool stuff. We got to Brockton Point and decided to park the Escape. I wasn't too sure of the parking situation so I walked over to one of the parking pass machines and read what we needed to do. It was $6 to park all day long wherever inside the park you wanted. We got a great view of North Vancouver from here.
We grabbed our lunch and found a place in the park to eat. We ate our sandwiches, chips and fruit and did some people watching. A nearby crow really wanted our food but we just ignored him. Mom took pictures while I tried to find a nearby cache. After 10 minutes of looking I decided to call it quits and find mom. We got back into the Escape and drove around the rest of the park.
Our next stop was Prospect Point, at the north end of Stanley Park. We stopped at the view point of the Lion's Gate first. The view of the bridge from here was awesome.
We found a parking spot and walked to the viewpoint. There, I did two caches, an earthcache and a traditional. There were a lot of people around talking group selfies, walking their dogs and being tourists. Mom and I did the earthcache first, Fjord (GC5BEB1). We had to learn a little bit about the geology of the area specifically why this point is the most narrow and why was that? I had no trouble with it and answered it quickly. The other cache, Prospecting Love (GC5EXMN) which was down below the viewing area. I guess this place is known for wedding proposals and date nights especially at twilight or at night with the lights. One of Ben's best friends got engaged at this exact spot.
We continued around the circle and parked near the horse rides. Mom wanted a few pictures of the horses and totem poles.
We walked about a mile towards the Lost Lagoon. There, mom almost got chased by a raccoon. The guy who was sitting near the bench said she was friendly. I tried to get a picture of the raccoon chasing mom but I couldn't get it in time. I did laugh at her though. We took some pictures, enjoyed the view of Vancouver from this spot and some of the wildlife.
I sat down on a pile of rocks and reflected at the Lost Lagoon. Again, a lot of life changing things happened this year and I was still trying to recover from it. I knew life was going to be different and it wasn't a good different. It was a hard different. It was almost like everything wasn't as exciting as it used to be which is really hard to explain to someone else when you've lost someone very special to you.
We walked back to where we parked the Escape and looked at the time. It was almost time to check into the hotel and we weren't sure how busy downtown was going to be. We got onto the main drag and found Howe Street but we weren't sure what block of Howe Street so we did some guessing with the address we had. We had to drive around the block several times and even encountered some construction. We did eventually get there. Mom booked us for a night at The Metropolitan Hotel because it was within walking distance to the arena. We did not want to drive to the arena. We pulled in and the valet helped us unload our stuff onto a cart and he took my Escape to park it until it was time to leave tomorrow. The doorman took us to the desk with our cart so we could check in. Mom checked us in and the bellhop took our cart to our room for us. We were in room 1208. I tipped the bellhop one of my Loonies that I have had for years waiting to use my spare Canadian change in Canada. We thanked each other and he went on his way. Mom and I dug through our bags to find our stuff for the game.
Mom went downstairs to find out if they could exchange our money so we could have some cash on us for the game. We each put in $60 and she came back with $150 dollars in Canadian. We each got C$75.
We got settled in, mom turned on the TV, I decided to upload pictures to my computer which seemed like a good idea for the time to pass before we had to walk to the game (turned out to be a bad idea.) I did some other stuff on my computer before we decided to change our clothes for the game. I got a Sidney Crosby jersey for my birthday last year and you better bet I was wearing it tonight!
We didn't know how long it would take to walk there, Rogers Arena was roughly a half a mile from the hotel, so we left a little bit before 5. We knew we were going the right way because everyone else donning Canucks and Penguins gear were headed the same way we were walking. When we got there we were really early so we had to stand outside for a bit. This is when the rain started to fall very lightly. I was not a fan.
The gate finally opened and we went inside. It reminded me of being inside of Key Arena. They handed us a poster program and we meandered our way to our seats in the upper bowl. These were the cheapest tickets at $75 a ticket. This game was more expensive because the Canucks were playing Pittsburgh. We had a great view regardless. We got the camera out to take some pictures and turns out I didn't put the SD card back in. I was so upset. We could have gotten some really awesome pictures. We had to settle with the ones we took with our phones.
We went and grabbed some food, hot dogs, chips, a drink and some popcorn. It was weird paying with money we weren't familiar with. I felt like I was paying with plastic Monopoly money. They handed us our food and we went back to our seats. We waited for the game to begin. There were more people wearing Penguins jerseys than there were Canuck fans.
The first period was pretty boring. There was a lot of back and forth but we had some great shots on goal. Meanwhile, there were two guys who sat on the other side of mom. They were both in their mid to late 20's. They were hilarious. They were both from Canada and they were huge Sidney Crosby fans as were we. They asked is if we were Canadian Canadians, Canadian Americans or American Americans. We told them we were American Americans who loved watching hockey. They were satisfied with that answer. They asked us where we were from and we said Washington...assuming they would know just across the border. They thought we came all the way from Washington DC to watch this game. Nooo, Washington State. They were like, oh makes more sense now eh? We talked about an array of stuff as we sat there watching the game, like where they were from in Canada, their jobs, etc. They told us they got their tickets at the last minute and took a seaplane into the harbor and then walked to the game. As I assumed, the consumption of beer in a can didn't disappoint either.
The Penguins finally scored a goal early in the second period by Phil Kessel. There were a round of high fives in our little row of fans. Just before the end of the second period, Sidney Crosby scores on the backhand making the score 2-0. More high fives are had by all.
At the end of the third period the Penguins sealed the game with three more goals, two by Evgeni Malkin with less than 5 minutes to go and another one by Crosby with two minutes left of the game. The crowd went nuts. I was jumping up and down high fiving our two Penguin fans. By the end of the game we had 35 shots to their 29. The two guys were so chatty during the game they had me saying eh by the time the game was over. They also said that they liked our accents. I thought that was weird.
Penguins crushed the Canucks 5-0. It was the best first NHL hockey game ever. Mom and I have started the planning process to go see a game in Pittsburgh next fall. We walked the half a mile back to the hotel this time it was actually a steady rain. We got back to the hotel and rode up in the elevator with a guy and his kid (who were from Seattle) who had great seats. He showed us some pictures he took with his phone. They must have had money to sit in a seat that close. We got to our room and I took a shower while mom got ready for bed. I relaxed a bit on the computer before turning the lights off and going to sleep. Today was epically long but awesome.
Next Adventure: Sight Seeing in Canada: Vancouver Lookout, Capilano Bridge and the Drive Home
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