Even though the weather looked cloudy and gray, we wanted to get out and do something with our one full day in Vancouver. We decided to drive over to Stanley Park (a huge “Central Park”-style park adjacent to downtown Vancouver. Nestled inside the park is the Vancouver Aquarium. There were fish, eels, snakes, spiders, dolphins, beluga whales, otters, and lots of people. It wasn’t a huge facility and it only took a few hours to get through.

We headed back to the hotel and then walked out to Chinatown to find some lunch. After browsing around looking for a suitable place that wasn’t too “sketchy”, we ended up at a trendy small place called Wild Rice. We were the only customers in the whole restraunt – but the food was well presented and tasty. It was all served “family-style” but Krissy and I both had our own dishes primarily. She had some salmon and oriental greens with noodles, I had some sweet & sour ribs, brown rice, and szechuan chicken.

Again we had eaten late so dinner wasn’t an option. After another dip in the spa, we drove over to Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club. We took a short break around the corner at a Tim Horton’s to try their famous doughnuts. They were definitely better than Dunkin Donuts, but not as good as a hot Krispy Kreme. Coffee was good too!

The comics were pretty good – but as it usually ends up for some reason, the first guy and the host were the funniest of the whole show. The middle guy and headliner were’nt that good. But it wasn’t too expensive (before we bought a drink anyhow) so it was a fine way to end the night.

Our last day will bring us over to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, and then back to Seattle to fly home.

We woke up bright and early and grabbed some brekfast at the Old Dutch Inn. Surprisingly good food and got a good meal in before heading out to Horne Lake.

The paved road ended and we traveled a dirt and gravel road for a good 15 minutes to reach the Horne Lake Adventure Camp. Our tour guides gave us a description of what our tour consisted of, donned our helmets with headlamps, and grabbed some coveralls to bring along so we didn’t mess up our clothes. After another short drive and a 10 minute hike, we reached the cave entrance. It was a small, square-shaped grate that is usually locked when no one is inside. We put on our coveralls and entered the cave. It was an amazing experience. We got to see incredible natural formations inside – “soda straws”, white calcite that looked like ice cream, stalagtites and stalagmites everywhere. We had several crawlways that we had to get down on our belly and crawl through, and one area had a pump that removed a pool of water so that we could get through to the other side! We also were able to do some rapelling, rock climbing, a few ladder climbs, and lots of hunching and ducking throughout the cave. It was a blast. We took lots of pictures inside with a disposable camera so there should be good documentation!

After emerging from the cave, we headed back to the car and drove back to Qualicum Beach to grab some lunch at “Lefty’s”, and then back out to a park about 20 minutes away called Cathedral Grove. Huge trees with some trunks at least 10 feet in diameter surrounded a short path through the park.

We then headed back to catch the ferry to get back to the mainland and to Downtown Vancouver to our hotel, the Hampton Inn. After unloading our luggage and setting up our last “home base” of the trip, we had a simple dinner downstairs at the hotel restraunt, “Zachary’s“. I had a decent steak and Krissy had a halibut & salmon linguini dish. We had a small slice of cheesecake to end the night.

Next, we head to Whistler to go on the ZipTrek tour.