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Thursday, September 21
I got up at 3:30 am. Kelly and Carl were already up We finished packing and left the house by 5.
We got to the airport in plenty of time. There was some confusion at the ParkDIA lot. The automated entry system didn't like the printed QR code. Finally found the one Kelly had on her phone and the attendant "helped" get it read in. Then she gave us the incorrect ticket - the one she gave us was for regular parking, but I had splurged on covered parking. The gates still let us in, so it was okay. Parked and hauled our bags to the pickup point. There were a lot of people waiting for the bus. Too many for the one that came by. However, we managed to get on it anyway. More people were waiting for the next one.
So, on to the airport, checked in, and got through security. Even at that hour of the morning, it was hectic. Both Carl and I got sent through the scanners more than once... Finally we arrived at our gate with time to spare.
We had first class seats to Portland, which was nice. They served us breakfast on board, which was nice.
In Portland, we were placed on a puddle jumper to continue our flight to Vancouver. It was a De Havilland turbo prop - a plane I hadn't seen in decades! The seats were tiny with limited legroom. However, we had a good view of all the mountains for this short flight. Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Ranier, and Mt. Baker were all gorgeous.
We finally landed in Vancouver, BC. There were NO restrooms available until we got past customs...
Finally, we were able to claim our luggage and grab a Lyft (or Uber) to our hotel, which was downtown and in easy walking distance of a lot of places. This would be our home for the next three nights.
The photo on the left shows a street patio next to where we ate dinner (it's slightly to the right). They used some pool floats as overhead decorations.
After getting settled, we walked to dinner (Yaletown Brewing, a brew pub), then back to our hotel. Carl and I had salmon burgers, chips (fries), and the house lager. Fortunately, we had them serve their special sauce on the side. Neither one of us could stand it. Much too spicy for the salmon!
The photo on the right shows the unusual architecture of a building not far from our hotel - our hotel is just out of frame to the right.
We had drinks in the rooftop bar (ugh). The service was slow and the wine was pretentious. We didn't go back...
We crashed early. It was only 7 pm and we're all bushed.