Jun 26 2008
RV Adventure, Day 14: Third full day in Vancouver
Our stretch of good weather came to an end - with the impending arrival of hot sticky weather forecasted for the weekend the weather had changed to cool and drizzly. It wasn’t pouring rain, but it wasn’t terribly great, either.
Todays plans had us going to the Vancouver aquarium in the morning, and in the afternoon we were trekking to Squamish BC (About a half hour short of Whistler BC) to go horseback riding. We had an appointment for 2:30PM for riding, and since we got up early in the morning we planned on being at the aquarium for their 9:30AM opening.
We arrived exactly on time at the aquarium and beat most of the crowds. Since the aquarium is celebrating the widely advertised birth of a baby beluga whale, the crowds were reportedly huge.
Although me and Christie had been to the aquarium during one of our previous visits, this was the first time for our kids, and they had a great time despite the lengthy wait to see the baby beluga, and the growing crowds. Sure enough, as we were visiting the gift shop on the way out the entrance was now considerably lined up - I’m glad we came early.
We crossed back into North Vancouver for our drive to Squamish. The only highway leading north to the Squamish / Whistler area is called the “Sea to Sky highway” and is a mountain road by all meanings of the word - it passes rock cuts, bridges, and at points seems like it’s precariously perched on the side of the mountains. When we last drove this highway I remember it being enjoyable and quite scenic, but in preparation for the 2010 olympic games, the provinces is clearly spending a bunch upgrading the road in order to handle the massive amount of traffic it will carry between Whistler and the city of Vancouver once the olympics arrive. This unfortunately translated into heavy construction delays.
Thankfully we left enough time in our schedule to accomodate this, but what we didn’t expect was a road-block a short distance north of Horseshoe Bay - only 15 minutes north of Vancouver. We were informed that there had been a serious accident approximately 5 minutes north and that the highway was closed until further notice. If we chose to continue we should expect a 3 to 5 hour wait.
We called the stable and informed them we wouldn’t be making it, and rebooked for Friday. My daughter was devastated and asked why we couldn’t just take another road, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible.
Instead we headed south back to the great little town of Horseshoe Bay where we had planned to visit anyways. We found a great coffee shop, the kids played at the ocean front, and we made plans to rent a boat here Friday afternoon. After a few hours we headed out and back towards Vancouver. With little time to do much else today we headed back to the campground for a relaxing evening instead.
Christie went and did some grocery shopping while me and the kids awaited Cameron and his oldest daughter who were coming over to hang out for the evening. We went swimming, we sat in the spa, we enjoyed a few beverages - and the day drew to a close.