Vancouver Canada Day Trip

Marci texted me saying she wanted to go to Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada to use her new passport and get a stamp in it. At first, I said no, but then Kyle said go ahead. So we went! We just went for a day on Saturday January 24th. Marci drove up early to my house and we left around 8am. The weather was awful. Lots of rain and low visibility. We were hoping it was better up in Canada. Before we made it to the border, Marci suggested calling Verizon to see what charges we would incur for using our phones since we were leaving the country. I called since she was driving and ended up changing my phone plan for the day so we could use it to find directions. It was a blessing and a curse. I'll say why later. 

The peace arch at the US/Canada border crossing. We drove up to the stall and the man was immediately mad at Marci for not stopping where she was supposed to stop. We didn't know. Then he ripped her passport out of her new cute passport holder (I had an enhanced drivers license so he didn't need to rip my passport out of anything. ha). THEN he didn't even stamp it! Marci was all sad and asked if stamped it and he said they don't stamp them anymore. What?! That was one of the main reasons Marci wanted to go to Canada! hahaha. We died laughing as we pulled away. Not only was he rude (welcome to Canada), but she didn't even get a stamp! We laughed until we cried so our makeup came off. A good start to our day. 

We made it early to the Vancouver Temple where we had an 11:00am appointment for initiatories. Thank goodness for the Google map app on our phone to get us there! The Temple looks deceiving because it looks tiny from the outside, but when you go it there are 2 stories with a beautiful staircase like from Gone with the Wind. It was pretty with all the trim and molding and detail. We were in awe. There were ladies from a Spanish Branch and they would greet one another with air kisses on each side of the cheeks. It was fun to watch their mannerisms in a different country. 

On our way to find Harvey's (a fast food place that Marci's friend recommended), I checked my phone for the weather. This is what it said! Yeah right! 

This is what it was actually like! We were laughing and joking that it was the best season for traveling because of the awesome weather. Who chooses to go sight seeing in this weather?! haha. We laughed lots on this trip. We had to because lots went wrong. On our way to find Harvey's (we were in different cities or areas so we relied on our Google maps A LOT!), I had typed in Harvey's and found several options so we chose one along our route on our way from the Temple to the suspension bridge. They were 45 mins or so away from one another. Well, when we pulled into the location of Harvey's it was NOT a restaurant. It was an industrial area and the location of Harvey and Sons! So dumb!! hahaha! So we got back on the road and off to another Harvey's location. We joked that we were going to go visit all the people named Harvey in British Columbia. 

 This is the Harvey's we found near where we were going. It is the bright red awning next to the other restaurant. It was Take-Out only! This is hilarious because we couldn't even eat inside! hahaha! See why we laughed so much? No kids and we could eat anywhere and we eat outside under an awning in front of a coffee shop with a strange lady staring down at us. So funny.  

I tried Poutine fries. They are fries with brown gravy and cheese curds. The cheese melted. Marci said she's tried it before from a kid at school and hated it. I was nervous to try it. It wasn't too bad! I actually liked it. The burger was pretty good. Nothing spectacular. We were also hungry at this point so anything tasted good.  

We drove to the Capalino Suspension Bridge and right as we were parking I got a text from Verizon saying I had incurred $50 of roaming charges. I was annoyed. I thought I already took care of it before getting to Canada. So I called Verizon to sort things out and Marci went to the bridge place to see if it was even worth going with the weather being so bad. After 15 minutes on the phone with Verizon he helped me get things figured out. Marci came back saying the lady thought we should still go because we could still see things. We decided to do it. We were glad we did. 

Waayyy down there is the water! Yikes! It was nerve wracking at first, but by the time we left the main bridge was the easiest part of the whole thing! 

The bridge was shaking and moving as we walked across it. That made it more scary. I was proud of Marci because she is afraid of heights and she conquered it!

There were also a tree bridge walk where you walked across bridges from tree to tree. It was cool. 

Looking at the suspension bridge from underneath. 

This is the cliff walk. These walkways were attached to a granite cliff and this semi circular part was terrifying for both of us, but we did it! Originally, we thought it was just the main bridge we were going to walk across, but ended up being 3 different bridge walks so it made it more worth it. It was a fun experience. We were wet and our hair was wrecked by the end of this. Even with umbrellas and hoods. It was non stop raining. We both took extra time in the morning curling our hair and we should have just pulled it back into a pony tail. haha! We cried our make up off from laughing too much and looked like drowned rats from the adventurous bridge walks. :)

We drove around downtown Vancouver, Stanley Park and then out to Burnaby where there was a Target to go shopping. These pictures are from downtown Vancouver. Marci liked the saying, Time is Precious on that building. It was a cool area of downtown where they had brick roads/sidewalks and big clocks and lights on the sidewalks. My biggest mistake was that I didn't have my phone plugged in while using the map app and so it drained my battery. It was basically dead by the time we were done with the bridge and we still needed to get around! We made it to target and stood in Target by the ipads while my phone was plugged in to charge because Marci's car charger stopped working. That was a stressful part. Well and trying to decide what to eat for dinner. We couldn't make up our mind. We wanted to eat somewhere different. We ended up at Wok Box. It was okay. Again, it tasted better when we first started eating because we were hungry and then by the end we were like, that wasn't that great. haha. We went to Walmart too and Marci got a new car charging cord so after that we were able to make our way to the border crossing and go home. It was a fun trip. We had lots of good and fun memories. Even when things went bad we still were able to laugh about it. 

I brought home chips from Canada to taste test. The kids liked the Dill pickle ones best. Our neighbors liked the Ketchup ones. The dill pickle tastes similar to salt and vinegar. An update on the Verizon phone mess. I got charged over $100 worth of data fees so I had to call them when I got home. Come to find out I had to add a different package to my plan, but they didn't tell me that when I had called them. Nor did the guy tell me that when I called them while in Canada. So thankfully, I got them to adjust most of the fee. Traveling outside of the country is crazy!