British Columbia

Hello Again

 I was intending  to send some photos of wildlife and scenery that we've come across out here, before this, but truth to tell we have been traveling like crazy from the minute  we left Alberta.

On our first day out of Grand Cache

we went to something called the Skytram in Jasper park. Picture a small train car being pulled up the side of a mountain.

 Fill it so full of people that it's standing room only. Make sure that some of the people ( Joani and Me included) have vertigo and fear of enclosed spaces, and voila you have the Skytram.

 This vehicle pulled us 3/4 way up Whistler mountain. The temperature at the top was 12 degrees cooler at the upper base than the lower and to be honest, we were already pretty high up so it wasn't too warm at the lower base. I had bought a couple of souvenir shirts at the lower base gift shop and as soon as we got out of the car the first decision was to pull them out of the bag and wear them. The second decision was to climb the rest of the way to the summit. Like I've already said Joani and I both suffer from vertigo, so this might not have been the smartest decision, but as Joani put it." She knew as soon as I saw there was a mountain to climb, that I would be climbing it and she wasn't staying behind." Joani needed to stop a few times because the altitude made her a little dizzy, and I didn't mind because to be honest, I was having a bit of a time catching my breath.

 When we finally made it to the top the view was breathtaking and well worth the hike.

We went from there to Kamloops, a beautiful city, where we wandered through the shopping district in daylight and caught an outdoor concert in the evening.  Then on to Vancouver where we strolled down Robson street which contains a multitude of bohemian shops and cafes, and then on to Stanley park where we saw our first set of totem poles and some incredible redwood trees that were so tall we couldn't see the tops of them. I didn't get any photos of this day because I was looking at photos the night before and forgot to put the chip back in the camera. In an instance like that, the only sensible thing to do for the lack of photos that day is to blame Joani.

 It has been a terrific roadtrip and  the mountainous scenery has been awe inspiring.

 We spent last night on  Vancouver Island in Victoria. Again a beautiful city with a temperate climate that seems somehow almost too tropical. We actually saw palm trees! We walked to a park right on the coast where we saw a statue devoted to Terry Fox, The largest Totem pole in B.C. carved out of one single tree, and dipped out toes in the Pacific Ocean at what is the furthest point west we have been in Canada.

 As I write this I am waiting in a line at the Ferry to go back to mainland B.C.. I will attach some photos of the scenery with this email

and send you one more short one( I promise it will be much less wordy than this one) with photos of wildlife we have seen.

 Garry