We started Friday off with another trip to the Granville Street Subway, and then down to the seabus again. Once across the bay, I thought we could catch a bus to Horseshoe Bay again, but it turned out that I was wrong. There was a bus that left from downtown Vancouver, and I had known that, but I had assumed that a major bus station in North Vancouver would go there as well. I had not wanted to retrace my steps from the Subway (the Subway was two blocks north of Georgia Street where the buses ran), and I liked the seabus, so we had come this way. I quickly looked on my maps and guessed at a bus going in the right direction, and then asked the driver what stop to get off at. Happily, she told me that I could get to Horseshoe Bay, and I just had to transfer at the end of the line of the bus that I was on. We did that, and caught a bus to Horseshoe Bay, but not an express bus (there is that option). The local bus was very scenic, and we got to see breathtaking views and some pretty amazing seaside houses, but the entire hotel-to-bay trip took something on the order of ninety minutes. For contrast, the express we caught later that afternoon coming back took about thirty to forty-five minutes.
We did arrive in good time to catch the next ferry out to Bowen Island, a small island that is only a twenty minute ferry ride out into the bay. I had wanted to get to an island, and I had wanted to get out on the ocean, so this seemed like a good way of doing both in a trip that could be done in a half day or so. We got on the 11:00 ferry, and we stayed up on the top deck to enjoy the views. Once we crested the inner harbor, the wind whipped up pretty hard, but the day was warm, so we were okay once we put on our jackets that we had in the backpack. Overall, the trip was uneventful, but I was happy to have made a ferry trip.
We disembarked, and headed a short distance up the road to a small information center. I picked up a hiking map there, and looked it over. There were two hikes that appealed to me – one around a lake and one to a lookout on a point over the ocean. The guidebook had mentioned the lake walk, so I thought we would start with that and do the ocean walk if we had time.
So, we walked along a path near the bay that also fronted a small lagoon. This led to a small paved road that we walked along for a short while before picking up the forest trail that led to Killarney Lake. The walk through the woods to the lake was pretty in a new way – there were thick ferns growing as undergrowth to the huge tress everywhere. Mer had made the comment that Vancouver forests had a “forest primeval” feel to them, and this one really did feel like something out of a movie.
We had the trail largely to ourselves, but met a local at a trail intersection. He recommended the lake trail we were headed to, but also mentioned we should take the trail he had just walked once we came back that way. I noted it on our trail map and we continued on our way. We started to overtake a couple that had been ahead of us, but they took a trail that went down to the lake, so I took a trail that climbed slightly up to the lake trail. I was enjoying the forest with Mer’s company, and wanted us to be by ourselves if possible.
We reached the lake trail and started heading clockwise around the lake. The trail took me a bit by surprise. The trail went up and down hills, some of which were fairly steep. The trail was rough in places, and turned out to be shared by mountain bikers (although we only saw two, I still thought they were nuts for riding on a steep, twisting trail populated by hikers). Also, the tree coverage was so thick we could not see the lake. It was largely a walk though the woods, although we finally did come to a lookout with a bench after about 15 or 20 minutes of walking.We used it as a good place to rest and actually look at the lake we had come to see.
After a bit we continued on, and the trail went back to the rolling, no-lake-views trail it had been. However, it soon became a boardwalk and went out into one end of the lake that was swampy. It was full of stark tree trunks and lush smaller plants, and it was beautiful in its own way. There was another bench and lookout at the far end of the boardwalk, so we sat there for awhile and looked back out over the length of the lake.
The walk back along the far side of the lake was much the same – occasional glimpses of the lake, but the trail rolled up and down less. At the top of one small rise I did come across a snake and froze. Mer was behind me and once the snake was gone, she laughed and said she had recognized the sudden halt as an “I have seen a snake” moment.
Most of the way around the lake we came across a small beach where a couple of families (one English and one Japanese) were swimming and relaxing. The beach was really small and the swimming area well-defined by surrounding water lilies. It was a pretty spot.
Our last sit-and-look spot was next to a small dam on the far shorter part of the lake. There was bench here, and sloped rock ran down into the lake. We sat and contemplated, and then returned along the path toward the harbor.
Once we got back to the fork in the trail, we came across a huge group of children and counselors – some kind of camp outing. We hurried along the new trail, as the children were loud and seemed out of place in such a calm area. We did stop close to the group to admire another swampy area full of tree trunks, 
but then moved on. The noise and bustle of the the group quickly faded. The trail led us into a meadow that included a horse-riding ring. For whatever reason, the trees around the meadow stopped being the fir trees that we had seen all over Vancouver, and instead became deciduous trees. The leafy tress stayed all around the trails in the meadow area, but quickly went back to fir trees as we climbed out of the small depression around the meadow. It was strange.
The camp group followed us along the trail, and we tried to stay out of earshot of them so we could enjoy the peace and quiet of the surroundings. I wanted to take a short detour to see a small falls and a fish ladder. Mer thought I was pulling her leg about the fish ladder, and I was confused. It turns out she had never heard of a fish ladder; they are stepped pools of water to help Pacific salmon jump up over falls to get back to breeding grounds. Mer was delighted once she figured out I was not kidding. So, we headed over to the falls, which turned out to be very small, with little water pouring over them (it had not rained in the area in weeks). However, we did get a good look at the fish ladder, and Mer kept repeating the phrase as we wandered around. The side trip did allow the campers to pass us, so we ended up following them for the rest of the short trail back toward the harbor.
We did decide to check out the memorial garden off to one side of the trail that overlooked the lagoon. The entrance to the garden was an arch with plaques on it that had the names and birth and death dates of the former 
inhabitants of the island. Island life seems to agree with people – most of the people had lived into their 70s and 80s and some even into their late 90s. The garden was not a garden as such – no flowers or pruned shrubs. It was a series of small, informal paths around trees. We walked along the trail, and then climbed up a huge rock that had a view of a bay and the mountains of the mainland. It was a georgeous site, with sailboats and nice waterside homes and the sun off the water. We stayed for some time, sitting on the rock, and enjoying the solitude.
After the gardens, I looked at the map and then my watch, and made the sad decision that we did not have time for the walk out to Dorman Point. Moreover, after we stopped in at the visitor center to pick up a bottle of water and another brochure that had the ferry schedule in it, I discovered that the town that was a five-minute walk away was supposed to be cute and full of small shops, including a chocolate store. We really needed to catch the 3:00 ferry if we were going to have time to eat once back in Vancouver, and it turned out to be the right decision, but I was sad that we did not have more time on the island.
The ferry trip back was pretty again, and we caught an express bus back to Vancouver. Once in Vancouver, we walked to an upscale Italian restaurant that seemed as if it would be a good treat after the day of hiking, especially where I had forgotten my crackers this day, so I was hungry. We were seated and given menus, and to my astonishment, the food was so upscale that it was all cream sauces and other foods that my body does not handle well. For the first time I can ever remember, I had to get up and leave an Italian restaurant. I felt bad for the waiter, but I also did not want to pay $25 for a meal I would not like.
We wandered off and came across Robson Street (our hotel street) and I realized we were near the Rocky Mountain Chocolate store that I had seen several times, but that had always been closed. They specialized in fancy covered apples, but I was interested in their decorated cookies that looked great. I told Mer I wanted to find a restaurant nearby so we could get some cookies. We found one, and it is kind of sad that it is a chain we can get to here in Ohio, but we ate on the rooftop patio of a Red Robin burger place. Mer and I did both get chicken wraps in a slight nod to healthy eating, but I did feel a little silly eating in a chain. At least the food was much more to my taste.
After supper, we swung by the chocolate store and I bought three cookies – an M&M-covered cookie and two chocolate-chip-covered cookies – and some chocolate fudge. We took them back to the hotel, where we saw a huge bus parked next to the hotel. From some girls in fan shirts we had seen and from things Mer heard in the lobby and elevator, it appears that the Backstreet Boys were staying at our hotel. Another brush with celebrities in Vancouver. Anyway, we went up to our room and washed up a bit, and then headed back over to the Bard on the Beach festival via the Granville Island bus. Since the bus let us off about a mile from the festival, we got to walk along more of the seawall, which was scenic with views of the downtown across the bay.
Since the festival had done such a tremendous job with Antony and Cleopatra, I had decided to come back to catch Henry V in the smaller theater/tent. I had never seen Henry V live before (just the movie version), and I do not think that Mer had seen it live before either. There was a much bigger line to get in this time (I suppose that comes with a Friday evening showing), but since we were going to the smaller theater, we still managed to get front row seats, although they were again stage left.
On the way into the theater, I had see a picture of the actor playing Henry V, and he looked familiar, but I could not place why. Once in the theater, Mer looked in the program and asked me if I knew who Henry was. I said no, and she pointed to his bio in the program. It was Alessandro Juliani, who had played Lt. Gaeta on the show Battlestar Galactica. It turns out he has been acting with the Shakespeare festival on and off for ten years, and is very talented. That was a fun and unexpected bonus to the evening.
The set was very basic – a bare stage onto which a few props were brought occasionally. A center section rose up out of the floor to become a table when needed, and the top could be removed for access to water when a stream was needed. The back of the stage was starkly set in dark metal, with a small balcony that was used as a city wall as needed.
The play went off well. It was acted very well on the whole, and it was entertaining and gripping much of the time. Mer and I put our heads together to try to figure out a couple of minor things that were wrong and why. Mer identified the first one – there was a stunningly regal woman who acted as the the chorus (the narrator). She was poised, articulate, and a huge stage presence. She doubled as the innkeeper early in the play, and she delivered the news about the popular fat knight Falstaff dying. It is a comic speech, full of errors that an uneducated but well-meaning woman would make, but the actress delivered the speech in much the same somber and regal way that she had as the chorus. It just did not work; instead of being poignantly funny, it came across as a state funeral address.
The other thing the play did that was off was the battle scenes, and I identified what was wrong with it. Many of the minor characters doubled or even tripled up roles, playing both English and French characters (the English and French were fighting in this play). The battles were highly stylized, as they had been in Antony and Cleopatra, but in that play, the characters always were Romans or Egyptians, and if you were confused, they carried banners to identify themselves in the stylized battles, and it worked really well. In Henry V, it was not always clear who was French and who was English, and many of the battles seemed more like somber dances. At one point a bunch of men came in carrying longbows, which were an English weapon, so I knew they were English. But then, Henry himself came onstage and started fighting those men. It does not sound like a big deal, but it was confusing, at least for me and Meredith. It did not mar the play much because there was no dialogue in the battles and they were not critical for the play, but it was a choice for the director to have made.
Still, the play was excellent, and some of the actors were amazing, including a boy who did a great job as a boy in the play who served some of the less reputable English knights. Actors in the play often had to deliver Shakespearean English followed by sections of French, which must be tricky in a country like Canada that officially speaks both. If you are wrong in either language, someone in the audience is going to know it. Mer and I were both very happy to have seen the play.
After the play, we walked across the bridge to our hotel again, about a 30-minute walk. We got out our cookies and had dessert. They turned out to be merely okay. I had not known that the toppings to the cookies were held on by caramel, and so the cookies were very very chewy, and while I do not dislike standard caramel, it is not a favorite of mine either. I guess you cannot judge a book by its cover, or a cookie by its toppings.
Sunday (the 5th) was a fairly mellow day. We went to church, and on the way home I decided we should check out the Goodyear Metro Park near Akron. We had seen the sign for the park for nine years, but had never been. It was a pretty day for a walk, so off we went.
Last Monday was Labor Day, and after doing house chore sorts of things, we headed down to North Canton to have supper with Aunt Mary. It was nothing too exciting – we got subs from Subway and ate them on the deck – but it was still a very pleasant way to spend the evening. We then went inside and played a Go-Fish sort of game where you had to gather four major cities or sights from a country. It was called Happy Families for some reason (it may have been a weird translation from the German company that made the game). The game had the population of the United States as 176 million people, so it has been around for awhile. The game did not require much in the way of skill or strategy, but it was a fun way to chat and look at the spiffy places on the cards. I think we ended up with a three-way tie of three countries each. I guess we really were just a happy family!
