Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia:
June 21st, 2015:
Well, I guess I better write in this blog... I mean, I AM travelling. I know my Grandma loves to read these blogs so this one's for you!!! :)
Yesterday we started our 10+ hour drive out to Vancouver. I've never driven anywhere this far before, so it was a real experience. I slept the whole way while my dad drove, so I guess there wasn't really much to it. The scenery was pretty much all the same the entire way. Fields, mountains, more mountains... trees... I did manage to catch a glimpse of a black bear though! Of course, after some random object was thrown at me from the front seat to wake me up... I was also awoken to see fences. Yes, fences. The ones that protect cars from falling rocks? Yeah, I don't know what my mom was thinking waking me up for THAT. But we eventually got closer and closer. I dozed off probably about 5 times and drooled on myself like 8 times. (If you know how to do simple math, you'd know that I drooled on myself while I was awake...)
Seeing as my mom was the navigator, she had the maps in hand and was directing where we went. My dad was getting tired after 9+ hours of driving, so we decided to pull into the Harrison Hot Springs. It's an adorable little town right by the water. It has an amazing floating island for kids to jump and climb on, and tons of tiny little shops. We arrived at around 8:30 pm, so we didn't have much time to look around. Instead, we got our hotel room, and passed out. There wasn't much to it! We wanted to go to the Hot Springs, but sleep sounded much, much better.
The next day, my dad woke me up with my stuffed moose plushie's butt in my face. They made farting noises so that it looked like my moose was letting it rip right in my nose... So, you know, that was a nice way to start my day... We got our stuff semi packed and headed down to the streets to find some breakfast. Sure enough, there was a cute little breakfast restaurant right there in the square. We were having bacon and eggs when I realized- Uh oh... Today is Father's Day!!!! We went back to the hotel room where I pulled out a gift bag and a card. It's tradition now that I give him a card that is humorous and revolves around me instead of him. So this year, the card read, "Dad, since it's Father's Day I figured I better give you a nice compliment." And inside it said: "You have the most perfect, beautiful daughter in the whole wide world. Cause you know, like father like daughter." So he giggled at that a little.... Then he pulled out hi Father's Day t-shirt that reads, "FATHER MOWS BEST" which is absolutely perfect for him since he takes more pride over his lawn than he does over me... It's an XXL though, it was the only one left. Hopefully it'll shrink to his size with a few washes!!!
Anyway, after breakfast we packed up and were back on the road. We saw multiple signs for Surrey, which is apparently the highest crime rated city in Canada... So we avoided that. We also saw tons of gas stations that were advertising a whopping 135.9/L... And that's not including the GST and PST!!!! Ouch!!
After successfully avoiding Surrey, we ended up in Steveston as requested by my mom. HER mom, my grandma, used to live in Vancouver and used to talk about Steveston all the time (apparently.) It's got a lot of Japanese culture in it, including sushi! One mention of sushi and I was hungry... So after walking around for a little while, we found ourselves at an adorable little restaurant Called Pojo's. "Famous for it's fish and chips." So naturally, we wanted the fish and chips. Thinking that the line wouldn't take very long, we ended up waited for over an hour for our food and for a seat, in the hot hot sun. This was while Calgary was having tornado warnings. But nope, out here there wasn't a cloud in the sky! I could actually begin to feel my feet starting to burn... I hid my tattoo as best as I could, and eagerly awaited some shade... Finally a family left one of the 5 picnic tables and I snatched up the seats... Luckily we got a table with an umbrella!!!
I'd say the food was worth the wait... Maybe not worth the price, though. For three orders of deep fried halibut and fries, and one order of onion rings... $65!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy crap!!!!!!! I definitely didn't expect it to cost that much... (I'm sorry, Dad!) Poor guy, he had to pay on Father's Day.. What kind of deal is that?
Well, after lunch, we went over to fulfill yet another one of mom's requests: The Cannery Museum. Steveston was home to the west coast's salmon cannery. I'm not going to lie, it WAS really really interesting. We took a guided tour of the place and learned more than I've ever needed (or wanted) to know about canning fish... Thankfully it didn't smell like fish anymore, but it looked really realistic! I've posted pictures on Facebook of the museum. It was fun! :)
After that, we walked a little more into Steveston. There were little shops all along the water where people were eating ice cream. Fishermen were selling fish straight out of the back of their boats! We walked into tons of tiny little shops, and saw lot's of neat things... I was getting a little tired though. The heat was getting to me I think.
We headed back to the car and drove to Vancouver. We toured around a little bit of the downtown area, and found the Vancouver Film School!!!! It is... Um... NOT as exciting as I thought it would look. There are homeless people everywhere in that area, and tons of sleezy, druggie type stores... A little upset, we left and tried to find somewhere to stay for the night. Unfortunately, all the hotels we wanted to stay at were either all booked up, or way too expensive. We ended up staying in the dirtiest, saddest motel room ever. For $115!!!! What a rip off! The sink leaked, the cable TV sucked, and most of the plug ins didn't even work!!! Oh well, at least it was better than sleeping in our van...
I was so ready to fall asleep and call it a day, but ALAS, Dad wanted to go out to a pub..... And of course, I had to oblige since it was still technically Father's Day!!! We ventured out for one last hoorah and ended up in a cute little pub up the street. We shared some nachos and toasted to the beginning of our road trip!!! That one tiny glass of alcohol we each had must have done us all in, because once we got back to the motel, our heads hit the pillow and we were OUT COLD!!!