The Dirty Rowlands

First stop in Tacoma was the Museum of Glass. It was sweet - the cone thing below was a huge hot shop. A hot shop is a place where artists work with glass while it is hot. This one was complete with stadium seating so you could just sit back and watch the artist at work. 

             Phil loves the Museum of Glass. 

Lastly in Tacoma, we got to visit with Aunt Frances and cousin Dean. It is always a blessing to get to hang out with family! 

And also hello to my parents and the Middletons! 

We had a great time in Seattle. We arrived on Friday night and had dinner with Kim and Zak, some of my friends from freshman year at Stanford in Larkin. It was so great to see them and catch up. They live in a cool neighborhood called Greenlake and just bought a place. Congratulations! 

The next day got to hang out with my parents. We went to the Olympic Sculpture Park, right on the sound. It was just delightful. Our favorite part was getting to see a piece by Mark Dion there called Neukom Vivarium. From there we went down to Pike’s Place and the first-ever Starbucks. 

Next we had a great opportunity to go on the Underground Seattle Tour organized by our friend Janice. Janice has a travel agency and has organized a cruise to Alaska out of Seattle (that was the reason my parents were coincidentally in town too!). We learned a ton about the history of the Seattle as a gold rush boom town. 

We will post some more photos when we get a copy of my parents’ photos. 

Before heading out for Seattle a few exciting things happened. 

1. We went out for tea. Instead of going to a place that was heavily decorated in doilies, we found a little modernist house on a hill over looking some beautiful gardens. The couple who built the house met in 1926 and hit it off. However, they were separated by World War II during which they were each separately prisoners of war. They met again in 1946, got married and built a house! It was cool. And see, real men drink tea. 

2. Phil was solicited to purchase marijuana. I ducked into a coffee shop to use the little girls’ room. Phil dutifully waited outside when some dude in a red hat says in Phil’s direction, “Bud?” Phil looked around. The guys says again, “Bud?” Phil says, “What?” Red hat says, “Ma-ri-jua-na. Do you want to buy marijuana?” Phil said, “No, my wife is going to the bathroom.” Red hat slunk off to a new block. Wow. I guess what we heard about British Columbia (pot is the third highest grossing industry there) it true. 

3. One last trip to Spinnaker’s Gastro Brew Pub. 

        Victoria and Vancouver Island are beautiful. And truthfully, things are much more our style here than in Vancouver. Victoria is much more walkable than Vancouver. Victoria is not as crowded as Vancouver. Victoria is cheaper than Vancouver. Sweet. 

We have made an outstanding discovery since we arrived here. We found Spinnaker’s Brew Pub. Now, living in Northern Colorado, we like to think we are some kind of amatuer experts in the realm of beer. The wait staff members we encountered in Vancouver did now know what hops were. This is a major oversight when it comes to beer. Imagine our delight when we saw that Spinnaker’s not only brews their own, delicious beer, but they also pair it with locally made cheeses and (and!) they pair it with house-made chocolates. That’s right: beer and chocolate. 

         Our hotel is right around the corner from the local fisherman’s wharf. There were some cool floating houses there and a great fish and chips place: Barb’s. Above, Phil is about to enjoy this tasty treat and the local harbor seals are also hoping for a munch. These fish and chips were second only to the place that our taxi driver in Dublin told us about around the corner from our hotel. 

Today, we are off to have tea, make our last trip to Spinnaker’s and who knows what else. We’ll tell you all about that, our museum adventures, and some local sights here in Victoria. We head back to the States in the morning for a few day romp around Seattle! 

Just north of Vancouver is a great sight: the Capilano Suspension Bridge. It is over four hundred feet long and nestled in beautiful Canadian wilderness, sort of. Phil and I geared up for some hiking (like we were going to summit a mountain) and found something closer to Knott’s Berry Farm. 

 Luckily, we still had a great time and saw some really old trees: ceders, firs, and hemlocks. And also luckily, we left our day pack in the car. 

Then we hung out at Stanley Park, a Vancouver institution, and discovered why everyone loves it so much. It is beautiful, has plenty of trails and lots of fun things to do. We started at the aquarium. 

A highlight of the aquarium was seeing the baby beluga whale. She was born to Quila last Tuesday! In this photo she is feeding. Cute :). 

It is dinner time. Gotta go!

Sarah

I love finding weird things and people when we travel. Today, mission accomplished in both regards. As we were walking to the water taxi this afternoon, I found a fantastic danger of electrocution sign. It truly is the little things in life.

Later, we were eating lunch at the incredibly busy Public Market. While I was waiting for my fried oysters (mmm, mushy, slimy, crispy loveliness) Sarah went to find a table. She found a table in a small seating section upstairs. In our small section there was a man who did not work there but had taken it upon himself to clean up after each table and seat people as they came up the stairs. I ask you, how can you not start up a conversation with a man like this? We ended up talking with him for about thirty minutes. We got a great Canadian history lesson, a few political rants and a great memory.

-Phil

 And so do we! Today we spent the afternoon wandering around Granville Island in Vancouver. So apparently prior to 1979 Granville Island was just a place in False Creek where the port authority decided to dump extra sand dredged from the harbor. In that hallmark year, the artificial sandbar was made into an island. Now the island is home to a great public market, an entire art school, tons of galleries, restaurants and even a brewery (yay!). 

At the public market, we found a whole host of delicious looking things to buy, including these pepperoni sticks. These are not the first pepperoni sticks we have encountered here in BC. They were all over the supermarket, at multiple stalls in the public market, anywhere you can buy food pretty much. And well, they were tasty. 

   Phil had a hard time getting everyone to look away from him at the same time in this photo. 

Sarah

We have arrived in Vancouver safe and sound. To our surprise, British Columbia looks just like northern Washington. Who would have guessed it? What is even more surprising is that other than socialized medicine and an odd affection for the moose, Canadians look and act much like Americans. And much like the vatican Starbucks seems to be a country that extends beyond all political, national and moose loving boundaries. There are a staggering 60 Starbucks in Vancouver, 90% of them are with in a three block radius… I can not substantiate that last statistic, this is my first time here and I haven’t looked around much. But as far as I can tell from my brief hours here, it is absolutely true.

We are off to explore Canada, 

Phil

It really is a city of glass. We are staying on the 19th floor of one of the many high rises downtown. One of our walls is entirely windows and the urban landscape framed by mountains make for a killer view. A great escape from Loveland. 

Tonight, we ate crab. We took a water taxi across a fjord to the restaurant called The Sandbar. It was the best crab I have ever tasted. While we ate the crab, we got to look at the fjord from which it came. Sweet!

We also made it to the Vancouver Art Gallery today. It was filled primarily with an overwhelming exhibit on animae, video games and cartoons. I did get to play a little old school pac-man though. It was more exciting than you’d think. The most interesting exhibit detailed the career of Chinese performance artist/sculptor Zhang Huan. It was really interesting as he really worked in a way that considered the meaning of his works and their position in relation to traditional art and craft making. 

Tomorrow we are looking forward to going to the aquarium and I am looking forward to buying Nutella. (I’m going to get Canadian Pepperoni! I thinks it’s made out of killer whales or something. - Phil)

We will see you all oot and aboot. 

Sarah

Post Script: After exploring Vancouver for a day… I was wrong about the whole Starbucks thing. - Phil

Hey, I just wanted to let you all know that I had a great birthday. Thank you for your calls, emails, coming over and hanging out. Especially all you Coloradans (transplants though we mostly are), both Phil and myself have really been blessed  by your friendship!

Sarah