Super Saturday!

It was only recently that it hit me---our time in Vancouver will be over before we know it! As such, weekend day trips are a must. The weather has been all over the map with chilly, rainy weather happening many days, although, thank God, not all of them. Saturday morning, while not rainy, got off to a gloomy start, however, we were bound and determined to make the best of it, as one does when one lives in Vancouver.

Heading over the Lionsgate Bridge to the North Shore, things were not looking very promising.

"Now what honey?", so asks my sweet husband. Let's begin at Capilano River State, oops, make that Regional Park. I wrote about our February visit to some of the park here. That would be when there was snow on the ground and an amazing rainbow that I won't soon forget. At any rate, we found the downhill road leading into the park, got a parking spot and prepared for the chilliness outside the warm cocoon of our car. It did not take long before the beauty of the spot began to warm our souls, if not our bodies.

That moss on the rocks is seriously green, isn't it? And nearly everywhere, as you will soon see. Not far from here we found the little (lengthwise anyway), bridge leading into the forest.

While the length may be somewhat short, it is high above the river with tremendous views of the raging water.

I told Bruce that although I'd never seen the Jurassic Park movie, I am imagining the real landscape might have looked something like this.

The amount of moss growing everywhere is simply astonishing to me. What must it look like during the summer? Perhaps not quite so pervasive as there are generally some summer months where it barely rains. In any case, my photographs do not do this scenery justice. My skills are not so great as to be able to make you feel as if you were there, although that is generally my goal. We learned that most of the trees make up what they call a "second growth" forest because most of the original trees were either logged, or fell of their own volition.

New trees seed right into an old tree. Pretty amazing, right? We carried on, up the hill until we came to the viewing area where you see the spill from the dam.

Small, you feel very, very small. Then again, you feel sort of young too. Making our way back across the river, we walked along a boardwalk (yeah!), to another viewing stand (pictured in an earlier photograph), providing us with more river views. Raging water...

and just plain beautiful water.

One of the reasons we came to Vancouver was so that Bruce could be a support system to Zarita who is building her first Earls. She'd worked on parts of other Earls, but the new project in Ambleside, located in West Vancouver, was to be her first solo act. Opening in about a month, the North Shore Earls, the first one in Vancouver, is slated to close soon, so we had lunch there enabling me to see the flagship.

Open for more than thirty years, I can tell you it looks nothing like ours in Orlando, but the food was just as good. An added bonus was Bruce had opportunity to talk to Simon, the chef who he worked with during the Orlando opening, who has since returned to Vancouver.  All good.

Back in the car and on to Deep Cove, but not before stopping in at Maplewood Conservation Area first. Two things of note happened here: we met an older couple, and we did not see any bears, although signs suggested that we might. As to the couple, we chatted with them along the shores of the Burrard Inlet and he explained what we were seeing.

That would be Burnaby Mountain in the distance, the sight of a huge controversy raging here in BC. From what I understand, a pipeline project, bringing oil from Alberta to Burnaby, got the go-ahead from the national government which has riled up folks in both provinces as well as those for and against it. Protestors have gone so far as to tie wrap themselves to the fences leading into the property! They do love a good protest here in BC.

I spoke too soon as there is one more thing I wanted to show you. Right near the parking area there are replicas of  three "squatters" shacks that at one time filled this little creek. Perhaps in other parts of the world squatters are celebrated, this I do not know based on my limited experience of such things.

Only a few more miles before we came to the little village of Deep Cove, every bit as charming as billed.

Going on a crummy weather day, parking was easy, and we made our way towards the waterfront.

Because I do not own a wide angle lens I'll show you the scenery in parts. Although you cannot tell it from the photograph, Mt. Seymour, nearly 5,000 feet tall, looms behind the trees.

As to geography, English Bay, which you have now seen a gazillion times from our balcony, becomes Burrard Inlet as it passes past Canada Place and well heck, if you care, here's a map. As it heads North, on the map you will see Deep Cove on the western side of Indian Arm. Okay, back to photos of this spectacular area.

Snow capped mountains shrouded in cloud cover. Boo hoo! There is a long dock you can walk out on,

and it appears as if most visitors take advantage of that fact. Others like to squat on the shoreline and take selfies.

While looking into visiting here, I read that once you go there, you will want to return and they have got that right. So peaceful and pretty. Cute, too.

Only a few blocks long, everything we saw was very welcoming.

As we were walking back to the car, we passed Honey's Doughnuts. a place the article mentioned, saying no visit to Deep Cove is complete without having one of their famous treats. If you can imagine, the folks we met at the bird sanctuary were sitting on the patio! We joined them and engaged in some lively conversation. The man, big and rugged is 77 and still frequently goes hiking in the mountains! We learned from them that Kate Winslet made the doughnuts famous, having eaten them while filming a movie on Mt. Seymour. Bruce, not much of a doughnut man, claims, had he eaten ones like these before, he, too, would be a doughnut fanatic. After our treat, I happened to notice that some of the clouds had lifted, begging my leave to take another photograph.

Meanwhile Bruce continued the conversation, even after I returned and went back to use the restroom. A former union negotiator, Bruce spoke the man's language.

Only eight miles from the house, yet a world away, we drove back into the city under sunny skies.

Easter weekend is forecast to be a mixed bag of weather; let's hope they are wrong about that.

Holy Cow, if it takes you half as long to read this as it did me to write it, I thank you for your time.

yours truly,

Gail