August 25, 2021Chilling.
https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/fad5-5fe4c-4716/view
I did not sleep great last night. My bruised ribs have been hurting the last few days. Not a lot worse than they have been, but enough to bother me at night when I try to lay on my side. This is exactly how it felt the last time I hurt myself like this. Took months to completely go away.
I tried to get up early and get a bit of work done; I heard David call up to me to ask if I wanted any coffee, so I finished up my ride report and went downstairs.
We looked at maps for a bit, trying to figure out where I should go next. We checked weather, ferry schedules, and riding distances. I had been considering the Port Hardy ferry from Vancouver Island over to Prince Rupert, but the departure and arrival times are not great. The ferry leaves at 7:30am with boarding an hour before, and it arrives to its destination at 11:30pm. And it’s rather expensive.
David’s son John suggested that I should not miss the Island if possible, and we looked at several alternatives to the long ferry. We came up with a more reasonable plan, in my view. Stay tuned.
So today I planned to wander around the area, maybe check out the city of Vancouver and a bit of the surroundings.
I left their house and rode just a bit south to 0 Ave. The roads here are numbered based on the distance from the US border to the south, and (I think) distance from the west coast. Zero Avenue is literally the international boundary.
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The road is in Canada, the houses on the left are in the US. If you look closely you can see one of the stainless steel boundary monuments.
This is what the monuments look like.
While I rode I listened to travel writer Rick Steves' podcast about the US-Canadia border. https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1075258225&color=0095c8&auto_play=false&show_artwork=false#
I stayed on 0 Ave for quite a few miles until it reached the Peace Arch. Unfortunately the Canadian side of the park was closed, and the arch inaccessible, but I got a pic from far away.
The American side of the park is open, and it does appear that Canadians can enter the park. I didn’t stop, though. I didn’t want to step foot in the US and then be refused entry back into Canada.
I had been hoping to get some sort of iconic “Welcome to Canada” picture here. Denied, I did the next best thing.
Coffee and a cinnamon bun. Apparently I got the wrong thing and should have ordered a double-double, whatever that is.
I rode into Vancouver. I would later cross the far bridge on my way back.
My next stop in Vancouver, at a place I heard about online.
The story is that this place used to have some mundane name, after some old white guy probably. An abstract sculpture was placed in the park that some people said looked like a guy reclining. Then someone placed a renegade park sign with the new name, “Dude Chilling Park.” The city removed the sign, but soon after the local community started a petition, and eventually the name was officially changed.
The original sculpture, which was made from wood, has since been replaced.
I thought I’d probably stop by the park, take a couple of pictures, and then wander over to the ferry dock heading for the Island. But something drew me in, and I stayed at the park, on a bench, chilling. There were a lot of people coming and going, walking dogs, riding bicycles, laying in the grass. A couple guys played chess.
By the time I got back up and going, it was around 5pm, and now I wasn’t sure if I had enough time for the ferry.
This morning my host David had offered that I could stay another night. I had been wishy-washy. I hate doing that to my hosts, but I don’t always have a good idea of where I’m going. David had given me the code to his garage. So after stopping for dinner and contemplating finding a place to stealth camp or return unannounced to my hosts, I went back to David’s place and parked my bike in the garage.
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