Vancouver - Day 2 Grouse Mountain

We woke up to more sunshine and another great view! The apartment was floor to ceiling windows with little shade. The blinds were for privacy only. I woke up really early every morning we were there. In a place like Vancouver you're doing great if you wake up to sunshine. In fact, after the first rainy day we saw very little rain. By the time we left the clouds were completely gone. It's like Seattle, rain is the norm

We figured since we could see the mountains through the clouds that we would make a trip up to Grouse.

It took us some time to figure out how to get all the way up to the top, we pretty much figured it out as we went. Part of the problem was that it was 4/20. In a liberal city. Aka: my drug dog, I mean my husband, had his nose up in the air and a lot of the streets were beginning to close down for the festivities.

We didn't get out of the room in time to make the first bus, so we walked around the corner to this amazing Crepe place.

I'm kind of in love with crepes. I'd been eyeballing it since the moment we got into town. I ordered the Nutella and Banana crepes. They were not cheap on the Nutella either, I almost had to take some of it off!

We took our best guess at the first bus to get on and headed out to the mountain. We walked over to the bus stop we needed but it was closed thanks to "let's smoke weed" day. It was very windy and cold. We waited around at the closest stop and tried to figure out where to go. A very nice gentlemen could tell we were clueless and stopped to help us out. We made it on the bus and got off at the appropriate stop. We had been wondering what time the next bus would arrive when we took note of this right in front of our faces. A bus schedule. Well, that's helpful.

Here's the part I wasn't expecting. I thought we were going to take a bus all the way to the top of Grouse Mountain and find a little shopping, eat lunch and have a nice view. Well, that's more of a Whistler type thing. Apparently, to get to the top of Grouse you get to ride on this (which isn't particularly cheap). I'm not sure I would have gone if I'd realized it would be $40 a head just to get to the top, but we'd come this far. I'm glad we went!

If you know me at all, you know that a few years ago my fear would have kept me completely off of this thing. I'm not going to say I loved it, but the views were nice on the way down. Remember how I told you we could see the mountain through the clouds? Key word being "through." From the top you could not see the city through the clouds! We rode up to the top, through the clouds. I stood next to the nicest man and his daughter. We talked all about Vancouver and Texas, the weather and where to eat. I'm telling you, the people were great!

When we got to the top I was pretty disappointed. See all the white stuff behind me? That ain't snow. Pure fog right there. You should be able to see a beautiful view of the city and the water behind me.

To be honest, there isn't much at all to do at the top of Grouse unless you're going up for snow sports. They do have a free sleigh ride which we did. It was neat, but alone it definitely wasn't worth the trip up the mountain. I also wore tennis shoes so I wasn't prepared for traipsing through the snow. They do have a small habitat of bears that had just come out for the season. We wanted to walk over, but like I said I wasn't in the right shoes for a ten minute walk in the snow.

The Officer on the sleigh ride. He looks so good in show. I swear I look completely awkward in all of our pictures and he's perfectly in his element! That pretty much reflects how we each feel about the cold.

There were several carvings along the sleigh ride.

We killed some time after the sleigh ride in the gift shop. Here's the anchor for the tram we rode up on! I'm glad it's solid!

We had drinks and nachos at the top. The good thing about clouds in the mountains is that they pass fast. At this point I was still pretty disappointed with Grouse for our purposes. The Officer was perfectly happy in this snowy environment.

However, I will say it was nice and relaxing up at the top. We sat in the restaurant by the fire and jumped up like tourists with our cameras every time a cloud passed by.

Slowly, but surely, the clouds began to fade and we could catch a glimpse of the view below.

We would get a few minutes like this and then the clouds would come right back.

I did get manage to get this awesome picture of my husband.

And another nice gentlemen snapped a shot of us.

We took a few more pictures and headed back down the mountain.

The view going down was much more interesting than on the way up.

Looking over the river was beautiful.

There's my Eagle Scout doing some outdoorsy.

I tried to get him to put his nose up in the air and howl like the wolf. He would have no part in it. Come on dude, I picked a nose for you on Day 1. They also had a habitat that contained two wolves. We could see the white one sunbathing.

See what I mean? Awkward!

We decided to take the water bus back to the city. It was a neat experience and offered some different scenery from the bus trip we took up there (which was well worth the ride alone).

We meandered around the city a little while trying to decide what to do next. The Officer stopped for a JAPADOG. These stands were everywhere. I was not that brave.

This was about half of our day on Day 2! Read about the rest of our day here,
we went tandem biking in the beautiful Stanley Park.