It was a beautiful place to work and visit, and I had a great time, and met some really nice folks. In August, Kathy and the kids came out and we toured and hiked around the area. Here are some pictures:
Here’s the shipyard I worked in, I took this picture from a helicopter ride I took down to Vancouver Island. I worked most of the year in the gray office building below, which was brand new and really nice. The “Big Blue” crane in the background is actually quite large, and prominent in the North Vancouver skyline. In front of it is one of the Coast Guard Vessels under construction.
Kathy and I and the kids, along with one of my coworkers and his neice at a mountaintop view near the town of Squamish - which was about 45 minutes from Vancouver.
One day we drove over to Mt. Baker - which is across the border in Washington State. We met my brother Chris there and hiked. The kids climbed up the mountain above the treeline to where they could see the glaciers - Chris and I were too out of shape and couldn’t make it that far - I would have liked to see the view, but apparently you had to ford some cold streams as well. Maybe next time…
One day we decided to climb a famous mountain called “The Chief” near Squamish. It’s a giant granite monolith, about 2400 feet high. On the climb up, I was struggling so the kids left me to climb to the top by myself. It took me 3 hours - at the top you had to climb ladders and traverse ledges with handholds and chains - but the view at the top was spectacular. That’s a 2000 foot cliff down to the town and inlet below.
I was pretty worn out when I met up with the kids on top. They were watching a group of climbers slackline across a gorge. Kind of like tightrope walking. Lindsey talked to the climbers and found out about a “shortcut” back down the mountain. Well the shortcut ended up being a ravine full of tumbled boulders and giant trees you had to climb down - It seemed to go on forever and I got really tired on the way down - the kids thought I was going to die…
This was a pretty waterfall near the road on the way to Whistler - which is a ski mountain. The day we went there was no snow because it was about 95 degrees and sunny. Lots of mountain bikers though. The kids did a zipline trip down the mountain, and Audrey bungee jumped off a bridge.
Right in Vancouver there were several pretty parks. This one has a swinging bridge. One of them you take a gondola to the top of the mountain, and there is a nature park with animal shows and a bear exhibit and many things to do. Drew and I rented electric mountain bikes - which would drive you right up the mountain. They were great, but I got tired and crashed near the end. I think there’s a theme here - me getting tired on the mountains… I think I’m not as young as I used to be.
This is the view from my hotel room. One of the few rainy foggy days we had that summer. That’s the downtown Vancouver skyline through the fog behind the old crane. Every weekend they had a festival with food trucks and live music in the old shipyard where the crane sits. I walked the long pier to the left many evenings for exercise.
The guy who owned the shipyard I was working in must have liked boats, because not only did he own some shipyards, and a fleet of tugboats, barges and ferry boats, but he had not one, but two giant yachts docked in North Vancouver. The closer one is 350 feet long!
