Vancouver, BC

I arrived in Canada via train and promptly received a grilling from the customs official. Apparently, anyone with long hair is a drug smuggler because the border patrol seemed very suspicious of me. Regardless, they let me in and I rode Mikey over to the hostel where I was staying. Once settled in I grabbed some lunch and set out for Stanley Park to take on the 10 mile Seawall greenway ride. This ride follows the boundary of Stanley Park, Vancouvers version of NY’s Central Park, which is mostly along the waterfront with excellent views of downtown as well as the surrounding mountains. The next day, I had plans to take on the Grouse Grind and see the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge (the lesser known and much cheaper sibling of the famous Capilano Suspension Bridge), but unfortunately I was too late in the year to take on the Grind, which was recently shut down due to winter conditions. The weather that day was pretty chilly, with highs only in the 40’s and rainy during the morning, making the 10 mile bike ride to Lynn Canyon pretty unappealing. I checked the bus routes only to find that I would need to take three different routes to get there, taking a little over an hour each way, so I decided to scrap that idea. Instead, I went over to the Granville Island Public Market to check things out there. Once done, I went to Chinatown and then back to Stanley Park, this time to do some hiking through the old growth forest. As it turns out, there are a lot of unmarked trails in the park that are not shown on the map, so I just picked one and wondered around for a couple of hours until I crossed one of the marked paths, which I followed back to my bike. By this time, it was beginning to get dark so I headed back to get ready for my return to the US.