Day 7 140 miles

 

Today we left Jonathan’s home and headed to Vancouver. The trip was a relatively short 140 miles but the Canada entry took some time. As soon as the border agent found out we were riding through Canada to Alaska we had to go to immigration and have some guy scrutinize us. Next time I’ll just say I’m going to Canada only.

 

The city is definitely foreign to me with all the high rise glass apartment buildings and is a big city. In the harbor they were having the dragon boat races and I guess that’s a big deal here. So much so that the Vancouver maps showed the location of the dragon boat races and every other person was carrying a paddle in their hands. We wandered around the city looking for a place to stay near the downtown nightlife.

 

Of course all the nicer hotels were way too pricey and we eventually settled for a Days Inn that was $105 Canadian. Already it feels like a luxury to sleep in a hotel with beds and a bathroom right there that you can use whenever you want and you don’t have to insert quarters to take a hot shower.

 

 

We were told we had to be very careful with the bikes because there is a lot of theft in Vancouver due to drug addicts looking for things to steal. I triple locked my bike up and took everything off that could possibly walk away and the hotel clerk had a camera supposedly watching the parking lot all night, yeah right. We took turns getting cleaned up while the other had to sit in the pub next store and drink pints. The hotel room was far too small for two people to try and maneuver around with all that stuff in the room.

 

 

Hindsight would tell me that it’s not a good idea to start drinking Guiness in the afternoon if your in it for the long haul. Actually I already new that but didn’t seem to care at the time and in a similar situation will probably do the same thing again. Apparently I’m getting older but not very much wiser.

 

We ended up hoping from place to place until my fun gauge was on empty and I headed for the hotel room and called it a night.

 

Continue to Vancouver Island