More Vancouver birthday, Mis Trucos

As we pedaled around Stanley Park, just a few feet above the water, the tidal pools and rocks were revealed in the low tide. Along this stretch of beach, just before Third Beach, we came upon a short section of little cairns. Hundreds of them! Some simple, some complicated, some tall, some insignificant, some front-row. Wow! This photo doesn't do the scene justice, so I wish you could have seen them in person. I built a small one. Seemed like the right thing to do, to add to the 'conversation'.
 

After we returned out bikes to the rental agency, we walked up Denham street, and stopped for a gelato. I had two half-scoops: raspberry and marzipan. Stuart had passion fruit and coca-choco-nut. All four tastes were yummy! We continued our walk towards the hotel, off the business are and through a peaceful residential neighborhood. This happy pair of pyracantha children played year round outside...
 

Dinner tonight included one false start. We looked for a restaurant that LP reviewed, and sounded good. The street, however, looked anything but likely to be the address for a good restaurant, and we headed back to our reliable Davie Street. There is a restaurant every 10 steps, and every kind of food you can imagine from a hamburger joint to a fancy-pants french restaurant, with Greek/Japanese/Samoan/Indian and more. The first night, we had spied Mis Trucos, at the top of some plain stairs on the outside of a plain building. Spanish tapas, served on the patio. It did not look particularly inviting, but we all know about judging a book by it's cover....The wait was 30-45 minutes, and we ordered a pitcher of sangria and settled into the deep sofa to wait. The staff was perfoming a ballet, dodging tables and chairs, with trays of small plates balanced perfectly, all at high speed. And the smells, oh did we choose well! Pretty soon we were seated on the patio, a torch heater keeping the temperature comfortable. The menu proved to be as varied as the servers were graceful. We ordered an heirloom tomato salad, with fresh buffalo mozzerela and a white wine viniagrette; slivers of snapper carpaccio, with orange zest and orange juice and baby arugula (in the picture); a wild mushroom canneloni, cipolini, onion and candied garlic red wine sauce that was Stuart's favorite; and a shaved fennel salad, with orange, almonds and parmesan. The sauce on the canneloni was so good I licked the plate with my finger! And, I swiped the menu, for a souvenir. Guess I should have asked for it. It was a perfect dinner!
 

Tomorrow, we travel to Vancouver Island...