Our last night before returning to Vancouver...
Today, our friend Joe is going to be climbing rocks in Penticton with a new friend, and we're getting together for drinks at our hotel, the Rochester. Suzanne is from Australia, traveling for 4 months around the world. What an adventure! She and Joe met at the hostel in Squamish, where she arrived the night after we left. She left Australia, spent 2 weeks in Japan, then traveled to England to visit friends, then to BC. She said the BEST part of the trip was a once-in-a-lifetime 6 day kayak trip along the south coast of BC. Blew the budget, but it was well worth it! From here, she'll visit previously unknown relatives in Edmonton, then to Halifax, NY, Buenos Aries where she'll connect with a friend to travel in BA and Peru. Can you imagine?!?! I verry jealous! We had a lovely evening, and threw together a dinner with the leftover roasted veggies from my lunch, the last of the veggies in the fridge, some veggies and bread from Joe's pack. I cooked some rice, and we poured some wine and it was a 'loaves and fishes' meal.
The last road day. We travelled the most amazing mountian road (well, since the Sea to Sky Highway) through some provincial parks and cattle ranches, seeing almost no other traffic.We saw many signs warning us of mountain sheep, cattle and rocks on the road. In the valley, we found ourselves in truck farming country...apples and veggies of all kinds. The turbin pumpkin mountains were at all the produce stands in one tiny little village. Who buys this produce? We've seen almost no other people!
In the fog, we can only see two of the Three Brothers Mountains. What a trip!
We stopped in Hope for lunch. From Vancuver, beyond Hope, there is not much sign of human life, really the outback territory. (There is a joke about 'being beyond Hope'...) The road from Hope to Penticton was opened in 1949, with much celebration. In 1969 a HUGE rock slide killed four people and closed the road. After the slide, the road was SIXTEEN STORIES higher than the original! Hard to imagine, but the scar on the face of the mountain that fell to the ground is proof.
The traffic change from Hope on to Vancouver was as dramatic as the mountains we had just driven through! Six lanes, totally clogged with vehicles. We arrive in Richmond, and check into our hotel. Thank goodness for Loretta, our GPS. We tried to take a walk, to shake the shakes from inertia, but discovered that this newer suburb of Vancouver was built like every sprawling city: no sidewalks, busy streets and shopping centers everywhere. There might be a sidewalk for a short way, then it just disappears under a building of some kind. Repack, and prep for one last day of fun.
We had dinner at Sushi House, not far from the hotel. Richmond is like being in China, only you're in Canada. Almost ALL the businesses here target the Asian population. There are dozens of sushi restaurants, all within a fish toss from each other. I had a sushi sampler: Kappa rol, tekka roll, masago, tamago, hokki, ebi, ika. Translation: cucmber roll, tuna roll, smelt roe, sweet egg cake, squid, octopus, surf clam, cooked shrimp. It was delicious, I liked the hokki and salmon best. Stuart had a don, a sort of stew. It was called Nabeyaki Udon. Locally made noodles, tempura prawn, chicken, a raw egg (cooked in the broth in just a minute or two). The broth was verry good! We laughed at each other, trying to eat those slippery noodles with our chopsticks.
The adventure is almost over...
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