Monday, September 5 - Labor Day
We took off late morning and headed north into Vancouver. It really is a very pretty city.
We got out of the van and took a gander at the coastline from Prospect Point – pretty! (Question to self: why doesn’t DC have more pretty water? This is really lovely!)
Then, we walked through the park on a path that led us down to Beach #3, a nice sandy beach that was populated with people enjoying their Labor Day Monday. We poked along the seawall that leads around the circumference of the island, crossed back under the Lion's Gate Bridge, made it back to Prospect Park and climbed back into the van.
Then we did a drive through town. I maneuvered us through Robson Street, Vancouver’s trendy shopping district. Then it was on to Gastown, the charming heritage area of the city with cobblestone streets. Adjacent to that was Chinatown. (Vancouver is home to one of the largest Chinese communities in North America.) The van was a beast to park, so we didn’t get out and walk too much. We ended up finding a place to park and wallow away a lovely afternoon at Sunset Beach, which overlooks English Bay.
I had read that English Bay boasts some spectacular sunsets, so I got into my swimsuit, found a sunny spot for me adjacent to a shady spot for Auggie, took my Potter book and spent hours reading and on the phone catching up with some folks. It was a great, lazy Labor Day afternoon. Aaaaaaaaahhh.
And the sunset truly was spectacular.
Darkness was setting and it was time to head back to the campsite. But before I made it back to the campsite, I had a complete meltdown on this drive. Everything just started to collapse within the space of about 30-60 minutes, making for a drive from hell.
In Canada, I didn’t have data service on my phone since I was in international territory. I therefore could not use my phone to help me navigate my way back, and I did not have a GPS device with me on the trip so far. So I was using a paper map from the visitor’s bureau to find my way.
One of the things I hate about getting older is that I just cannot see small print anymore without my glasses and a lot of bright light. I was trying to drive the van, look at the map and read small print on a dark map with no light. It just didn’t work – if I was lucky enough to get a red traffic light, then by the time I finally re-found where I was on the map, I could not see the street names well enough to tell where I was going before the light turned green and I had to go. I had to pull off the road multiple times to put on my glasses, get out of my seat to look at the paper map under a bright light in the van and try to figure out where I needed to go.
It did not help that I was looking for routes 99A and 1A, and that the road signs in Vancouver used MINISCULE font to display the “A” on both of these road signs, which led me to make several wrong turns thinking I was not getting onto the proper road.
Then, once I had finally found my way back to 99A/1A to take me out of the city, I realized that my shortcut/direct route on these “A” roads was a huge mistake. They were very (read: VERY) local and there were stoplights what felt like every 50 feet. My shortcut very quickly became a long cut, and I was rapidly starting to lose my cool.
To top things off, the compass in the van kept telling me I was headed east, when I was supposed to be headed south or southeast, and I kept worrying that I was headed in the completely wrong direction. The Maps function on my phone would have easily helped me see if I was at least traveling in the proper direction, but again, I did not have access to my data services. I was fit to be tied and losing more cool with every minute that passed.
What should have been a max-40-minute drive turned into an hour-and-45-minute nightmare. I was sooooooooooo tired of driving and just needed to be “home” and out from behind the wheel of this blasted van.
Annoyed beyond belief and after having gotten turned around yet again as I got close to the campsite, I finally pulled into the campground and drove to my spot … to find someone else’s camper on it.
WHAT?!?
Who are you and what are you doing on my campsite?
Don’t you know you’ve got a grumpy female here and she’s about to attack?
I got out of my van and knocked on the door of the offending camper. A sleepy guy answered, and I said, “This is my campsite.”
At this point of the evening and the end of the long holiday weekend, there were plenty of campsites available and I didn’t really need this particular campsite. I just wanted the dog tether I had left tied to the leg of the picnic table and to get out from behind the wheel of the van.
The sleepy offending man told me the office had told him to take any spot that was open. (Great – so you had to pick mine?) He told me he wasn’t moving, and I said that was fine, I wasn’t expecting him to. He climbed out of his camper, found my dog tether for me and then I went and quickly found another spot. I was never so happy to get out from behind the wheel of a vehicle as I was that night.
Oh. My. Word.
So much for the peace and serenity of the sunset over English Bay! It was gone gone gone!!! My bed felt sooooo good that night.
Happy Labor Day, Chris! ;-)
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