Crossing British Columbian Borders

Outside of the Museum of Vancouver.

From the beautiful mountain views of California, to the epically gorgeous Oregon coast. All the way past the splendid forests of Washington state, we were finally on the door step to Canada. In planning our trip to visit Canada we had to make sure we had everything needed like a certificate for our cat to cross borders, passports and the storage of certain items that are frowned upon in Canada, like firearms...go figure right. So with all of our boxes checked off we headed towards the border. Now a bit of irony was that we were about to visit Canada on the weekend of American Independence, Fourth of July week. While we thought this is be a bit amusing and figured it would be easier for sight seeing, we were wrong. Turns out it was the weekend of Canada Day. Let's just say everybody and their grandmother was out and about throughout the city of Vancouver.

For our first night in the city we lucked out and found an RV site nearby for around $40 bucks a night. Now if you have ever looked for hotel or motel rooms in Vancouver, especially on a holiday weekend, then you know the rates can be astronomically high. So the find a rate so low is practically unheard, and we really felt quite blessed to have even found the spot. So after arriving at the RV site and setting up we had a bit of celebratory wine and fruits and cheeses to kick off the Canada experience. We also got to meet a nice young couple from Alberta next to our spot who had just recently got married and we're on their honeymoon and experiencing Vancouver for the first time as well.

We were looking at multiple options for things to do the next day, we decided to just play it easy and do a tour bus of the entire city to get a feel and also to avoid the congestion of people and traffic. So off we went to get to a place where we could catch the tour bus. We found ourselves outside of Museum of Vancouver, which had a artistic metal sculpture of what appears to be a giant crab in the center of a fountain outside. One thing to note is there is a lot of amazing architecture in the city from buildings to stand alone pieces of art.

After a little wait sitting outside of the museum, the tour bus finally arrived and we boarded and set out to see the city. Now the tour was set up that if you wanted to you could get on and off at the stops that it made and you could catch another bus when it came by, but we wanted to see the entire city so we stayed on for the whole trip mostly. One thing that I will note is that even though the city was full of extra tourists and people for the holiday, the traffic and pedestrians were still better than California on a normal day, which was very surprising and very impressive to see such civility among the large masses of people.

As we passed by city landmarks and historical buildings the views that I was able to get to take pictures were not always idea, but Vancouver is definitely a city to be experienced rather than see through a lens. From rose gardens and picturesque beaches to historical cultural centers and beautifully architectured buildings. Vancour, British Columbia, is really a diverse and we'll balanced city. This is definitely a place that we will revisit again as we continue to travel.