Britannia, The Chief & Shannon Falls

For the last weekend in May, the weather was looking good, so we decided to head up the Sea to Sky highway and see some of the sites with the kids.  First up was the Britannia Mine tour.  The site has recently gone through a rehabilitation, and everything is clean and organized.  The history of the mine is captivating...  so many stories of a community knit together through  success and tragedy.  It was also very isolated up until the 1950's, when rail and roads were constructed from North Vancouver.  Prior to this, the only way in was by boat.  You can read more at http://www.bcmm.ca/

This truck was donated by a mine up in Kamloops, BC and is on display at the museum.  These trucks are typically used in open pit mines.  Britannia had some small pit mines, but the tunnels and terrain were too small/extreme for trucks, so they had to be creative in their use of rail cars and aerial trams to move materials.

While we see it every day, it still doesn't get old.  The landscape scenes are really beautiful.

Here's Molly and I getting ready for the underground mine tour.  Owen heard from some people coming out of the tour that they were going to turn out the lights to show how dark it was in the mine and he suddenly got very nervous about it.  It was kindof funny though because he was walking up to everyone that was joining us in line and saying "Excuse me.... have you been on this tour and do you know when they will turn out the lights?"

Sporting our hardhats!

In the mine, they demonstrated several methods of drilling holes in the walls to place the explosive charges. All the tools were run off compressed air and the earliest hammer drills were SO loud.  It wasn't uncommon for the mine workers to sustain high levels of hearing loss. The newer versions were quieter and easier to manage, but still deafening. 

The gravity fed ore processing structure is simply massive.  Currently you can only view from the ground level, but they are raising funds for a project to expand visitor access to the upper levels.

Owen & Molly checking out one of the train cars used to move men and materials in and out of the mine.

After leaving the museum, we drove further up the highway into Squamish.  Just before the town, there is a massive granite dome called "The Chief".   It rises 2300ft above sea level and is a very popular destination for rock climbers.  To bring this into scale, I highlighted a red box, which is what is captured in the next picture.

And here I highlighted two climbers moving along the rock face.

After watching the climbers for some time, we headed back down the highway to visit Shannon Falls park.  This is the third highest falls in the province reaching up just under 1100ft. The park grounds are beautiful and we had fun exploring around the trails.  The trees are just massive in this region.  Here's Owen on the stump of old growth that has a "new" tree growing out of it.

And the falls....

Owen, Molly and I at the base view area.

We hiked up to the higher outlook and here's Allison & Owen at the viewpoint.

Heading back down the stairs...

Me and my little monkey.  Molly kept tickling the back of my neck and laughing hysterically while we were here.  Unfortunately she also managed to lose her sunglasses on these trails somewhere.

There's so many big rocks and objects to climb on... it's a little boys dreamland... and Mommy enjoyed it too.

There's another huge tree in the picnic area at the base of the park.  Owen & Molly had to climb in of course.

A sweet moment with the kids.

Seriously...I'm in trouble in about 14 years. 

This is the panorama looking over the bay going into Squamish.

Busy Day in May!

On Friday night Allison proclaimed "We need to get out of the house!!", so we planned a pretty full day on May 14th.  It started with a return trip to the Vancouver Aquarium.  Part of the perk of being a member is that they have early admission on weekends, and access to a hand-on science room for the kids.  Here's Owen getting close up to a very hairy looking hermit crab...  They also had sea anemone's that you could touch.  They would latch onto your finger and try to poison you, but they aren't able to break through your skin, so they let go after a few seconds.

Molly had loads of fun watching the big starfish move around.  This is in a section where they have small aquariums and terrariums low to the ground for the little ones.

Owen and Molly both love watching the fish.

They have a special theme right now call Birds Up Close.   Owen and I met Mr. Peregrine here and learned about the fastest bird on the planet....  He has cataracts in his eyes, which is why he lives at the zoo now.

One of my favorite exhibits is the little sand eels.  They look like a bunch of plants growing out of the sand, but as you look closer, they are alive... and slowly moving in and out of their holes.

The aquarium is in Stanley park, which is just outside the city center.  They have a lot of great green space, trails, playgrounds, and gardens.  After leaving the aquarium, we walked around the park for a while.  Allison likes the "twisty tree".

The flowers were blooming in the garden and I captured a few nice pictures

The First Nation Natives have a large display in the park, which includes a train ride. This of course became Owen's thing that he wanted to do for his whole life... so we went on a ride so he could cross it off his bucket list. :)  Seems that Molly is a big train fan now too.  You can just see the excitement in her face.

When we got of the train, it had started to rain, so we ran back to the car, only to find we had over-stayed our 3 hour parking pass by 15 minutes and had received a ticket...  We still had our Pennsylvania plates on the car, so Allison aka "the persuader", called the parking authority and complained about how it was pretty un-welcoming to out of town tourists to have a parking ticket after only 15 minutes, and they waived the fee!

After the park, we decided to take the gondola ride up to the top of on of our local ski hills, Grouse mountain. A co-worker had given me a free pass that he wasn't able to use, and this was the last day of the season that we could use it.  Keep in mind this is the middle of May...  and on top of the mountain, they still had +250cm of snow base!  It was pretty wet, but they still had one trail open.  They have two grizzly bears that live at the Ski-Resort and they had come out of hibernation earlier in the week.  I didn't get pictures :( , but they were impressive creatures.  Funny too.... rolling around in the snow and wrestling with each other.

Here's Molly and Owen along one of the paths they had cleared down to the pavement.  As we were walking along, Molly was copying everything that Owen was doing. 

And our little fashion queen...

After walking around some and catching the spectacular views of the mountains and city, it was dinner time, and we were fortunate to get a fantastic corner seat in the restaurant at the ski lodge.  Here's Owen taking it all in.   In the picture, you can see the container ships waiting in the bay, and the city center in the upper left.  The land mass in the middle of the water is Stanley park... and you can see Lion's Gate bridge right in the middle of the picture, connecting the city with North Vancouver.

Here is a gondola heading down the mountain.

At the bottom of the Gondola, they have a habitat with timber wolves...  we walked up the trail and were able to see the white one catching a nap in the sun.

Molly and I were howling at the wolves... much to Allison's amusement.

Random Stuff

Here's a collection of some random events and pictures....

Owen really wanted to build up a big geotrax circuit... The family room has quite a bit of space in it, so we set out and made a new masterpiece!  Molly loves to play with it too and she now has her own little pink car to chase down owen's trains.  :)

Early in May, we made our inaugural trip to Bellingham, Washington.  We timed the border crossing at a bad time mid-day on Saturday and we waited over an hour to get through, but we've since found better times and alternate crossings to minimize the wait.  Our interest was primarily to see how long the trip would take, as we believe we will make it a fairly regular trip to do some shopping.  Goods are roughly 20-25% more expensive in BC, and then we must pay a 12% sales tax.  The trip takes just under an hour, and they have a Target!  This border market is at the Peace Arch crossing.

Molly dressed herself in this little ensemble... jammies, fluffy dress shoes, train engineer hat and fairy wings.  Not sure what she was telling Owen, but he thought it was funny.  The kids are so great together these days.

We enrolled Owen in a swimming class 2 nights/week at a local community pool.  They had great instructors and Owen really loved it.  While he's in class, the rest of us can enjoy a swim in their wave pool.  Here's Molly in her pink crocks, suit and coverup, looking very grown up and ready to go swimming!

Owen's school held their annual carnival days and we spent the evening in the bounce houses and doing activities.  Molly waited so patiently and then sat quietly while she was transformed into "MollyKitty".

Now picture Molly smiling and saying "meeeeoooww".

She loves her little stroller that her cousin Madison gave to her and pushes her dolly around the house like a little mommy.

And I have to share a story that made me so proud of Owen.  The fence in front of the house was starting to turn green with all the rain... and not so much sun.  Oh, did I mention it rains a lot here?  :)   Anyhow, it wasn't raining for an afternoon, so I asked Owen if he could help me scrub up the fence to make it white again.  He happily agreed and was excited to fill the bucket with soap/water and get out the brush and start working.  I went on to mow the lawn, checking back on him periodically.  He worked so hard and carefully and did a wonderful job.  He got all but one section done when he walked over to me and said "Dad, I tried really hard to finish, but my hands are really cold and they feel funny, so can I stop?"  Then I realize he was dipping his arm into the bucket of cold water every time to rinse the brush.... and he worked at it until his arm was getting numb from the cold.  Now this is some serious work ethic from the 6 year old!

 

Here's the fence all done and sparkling