Saturday, August 8th

Saturday was out last day in Vancouver, and it was the only day it rained. We woke up to rain, and it rained steadily all day. It was hard to complain after six beautiful days, especially where much of British Columbia was on fire with wildfires. The area really needed rain, and this was a good steady rain to help the firefighters. It was all good – I just switched over to the inside option of going to Science World, Vancouver’s small but fun science museum.

We did have to check out of the hotel, since checkout was at 12:00 and we would not be back by then. It had been a good stay, and a good location. Then the hotel really shone in my eyes by agreeing to store our luggage for the day until we came back for it. That was very kind of them, and freed us up for more sightseeing.

First, of course, we got breakfast at Subway, where I was relieved that a new worker was behind the counter so I would not be embarrassed at getting breakfast there four straight days. Then, of course, we walked down to Waterfront Station, and caught our one and only ride on the Sky Train. Vancouver has three elevated train lines for mass transit, all under the name of Sky Train. Two of the Sky Train lines ran together for much of their lengths, and they had a stop right outside Science World. On a sunny day, it would not have been a bad walk from our hotel to Science World, but with the rain, we took advantage of the train. The train was clean and efficient, and even on Saturday was running about every five minutes. We rode the three or four stops to the Science World stop, and headed through the light rain to the museum.

There was a line, but it was not too bad. I decided to take advantage of the museum having an IMAX theater, and so we bought a ticket for admission plus a show, which turned out to be on gold and the history and science of gold. We got to the museum about noon, and the show was at 1:00, so we poked around the main area of the museum.

As I mentioned, the museum is small. Excluding the IMAX theater, the museum is two floors around a central stage area where demonstrations are put on. In addition, there are some special exhibit wings on the second floor. I am told the exhibits rotate out every few months so that people can keep coming back.

The museum was a little crowded, with kids everywhere. I like that kids are into museums, but it can be annoying when you wait in a small line to try an interactive exhibit and a group of little kids rushes ahead of you and just randomly pushes buttons. Several of the exhibits we tried were partly broken (one part or another did not work), and I began to see why with the wear-and-tear they were under from heavy use.

The central stage area was put to good use – during our three-hour stay at the museum, they had four shows, of which we caught three (the science of overtone singing, which I wanted to see, conflicted with our IMAX film). We saw good presentations on electricity and air pressure and another show that I cannot remember). The shows were aimed at kids, but they were still good demonstrations of the basics of the science, and I enjoyed them (and enjoyed being obnoxious by whispering in Mer’s ear everything that was about to happen and why).

The IMAX film was entertaining. It had been over a decade since I had last seen an IMAX film, and they are still impressive. We got in to the theater right at 1:00, so we did not sit up so high as I normally would like to (Imax is better the higher you get up in the theater). It was a good history of gold, and mostly followed a modern prospector who does find his mine at the end (they said $100 million worth of gold had been taken out of the mine since it opened). There were the obligatory fly-overs of mountains and canyons, including my favorite moment. The film mentioned that gold is used in critical electronic systems, like those in airplanes. So, of course, this was a perfect excuse to show IMAX footage of a jet fighter, complete with barrel rolls. Flimsy excuse, but fun film effects. The film was about 50 minutes long, and I am glad we got a chance to see it.

Back in the museum, we wandered over to the special exhibit on hidden and sunken treasure. It was interesting to read about how people look for and find treasure, including some finds that have been in as little as three feet of ocean water. The exhibit included the history of security as well, going into locks and motion detectors. Mer and I were quite happy to discover that the museum even had a treasure hunt going on; you had to find five exhibits based on clues and circle the treasure symbol on a piece of paper. If you finished, you could put your paper in a drawing for a giant chocolate gold coin. A contest, a puzzle, a museum, AND chocolate? It’s as if it was made for us. We had a very good time walking around the museum for about 45 minutes filling out the card.

One exhibit that was also a clue was a one-on-one game where you had to move a ball using your mind. Electrodes in a headband detected brainwaves, and if you could relax more than your opponent, the ball would move away from you and toward your opponent. Since it involved relaxing (read: blank mind), I beat Meredith pretty quickly. We did manage to fill out the whole card, and put it in the drawing, and then we had to go since we wanted to meet Beata and Ionut and Andrei for supper before we had to go to the airport.

We took the Sky Train back to Granville Street and then went back to the hotel to get our luggage. We then had to schlep our luggage back to the Granville Street Station, about four blocks or so. Then, we took the Sky Train the rest of the way down to Waterfront Station, an easy walk when not pulling luggage along behind. We proceeded to our last seabus trip, which made six straight days of being on the seabus, and we also caught a bus on the far side of the bay so we did not have to carry our luggage up a steep hill. It is not much fun traveling with suitcases – they seem to be in the way no matter where they are. Still, it was not a bad trip to the apartment; it just made me glad that we did not have to carry luggage with us all the time.

Beata and Ionut and Andrei were all home, and we pretty efficiently headed out to the car to go to a restaurant. Ionut suggested White Spot, a Canadian chain restaurant with an eclectic but “normal” menu. We had a very good visit, and Andrei showed me many things about his toy car – he is a cute and good little boy. He knows many terms about his car in three languages. I was a little sad at supper in that I was starting to not feel good. At Science World, I had run on an old-fashioned barrel-style treadmill, and I had forgotten to take off my backpack. I have back and neck issues, and the backpack aggravated my neck. It was getting hard to turn my head without pain, and it felt as if I’d pulled a pectoral muscle. I’m afraid I was a bit subdued for supper.

After supper, Ionut insisted on driving us to the airport – his (and Beata’s) hospitality really was quite remarkable. There was not much traffic, so we made good time, and got to cross over the other major bridge over the bay (the Iron Workers’ Memorial Bridge). We got to see eastern Vancouver, which felt more like a big town or a small city. We said goodbye to Ionut and Beata and to the sleeping Andrei, and went into the airport. We had made such good time that we had about three hours before our flight took off. My neck was really beginning to stiffen up, and I was having a hard time raising my head. I comforted myself with spending $10 of my last $20 Canadian on some cookies and brownies at the airport.

So, that was Vancouver. We had a really great vacation, and I hope to go back again someday in the next few years. Our flights back to Ohio were uneventful, and we got home just fine.