vancouver, british columbia

every year my department plans an incentive trip for the top retailers from across the country who sell DISH Network. this year the trip was an alaskan cruise and i was lucky enough to go...not as a winner, but to "work" (although i was excited to discover that the work is much less demanding than our other events). the cruise left out of vancouver, british columbia and my 3 co-workers and i arrived a few days before the cruise left to make sure everything was organized and ready. we took advantage of our extra time and saw some of the tourist attractions in vancouver. i fell in love with the city. i loved being by the water, everything was so green, people were active and downtown was really cool. i think i could live there, but i don't know how dave would feel about it :)

i don't know if the following two pictures qualify as tourist attractions, but we thought they were interesting and a little crazy.

i think this is a baby wrapped in the embilical cord in front of the vancouver art museum. pretty creepy, but worth a picture.

we got to vancouver right when the olympics were starting. this guy was part of a huge protest happening on the main road into downtown. he obviously felt strongly about it...look at how high up he climbed. the police officers were just chillin' watching him.

we visited the capilano suspension bridge, vancouver's #1 tourist attraction. the bridge is 230 feet above the capilano river and as you walk across it it bounces and sways (especially when you have tons of people walking across at the same time). it was cool and i had to resist the urge to run across so it would bounce and sway more.



once you cross the bridge you enter a treetops adventure area. it has a series of smaller suspension bridges taking you from tree to tree, giving you a "squirrel's eye view" of the forest. everthing was so green and beautiful.

me, kim, lynne and erin
how could we resist a picture with the big bear dressed as a ranger?!



we left capilano and took the tram up to grouse mountain. at the top is a huge forest that leads to more mountains. we saw tons of runners on the trails and i was jealous.



this eagle was carved into the tree. pretty cool

there was a refuge for some bears on the top of the mountains. not quite seeing bears in the wild, but still pretty cool



vancouver had totem poles all over the place. they are very proud of their native heritage. here are a few we saw.

although eastern and western canada are very different (like the coasts of the US), i loved being back in canada. and of course i couldn't go without getting some timbits. just typing this i am totally craving them. of course i stocked up on candy too...i had to take advantage of the good chocolate i was missing.

after a couple of days of playing it was time to get down to business. pictures of alaska to follow...hopefully sooner rather than later!