Assorted Medically Needed Road Trips!

I am sure to make other trips elsewhere just for the hell of it. Why? WHY NOT! Check back from time to time to see where I waste all my gas money.

You can also check out my Victoria B.C. Vacation, or my first trip to Mt. Rainier, and my second trip to Mt. Rainier! And if you like volcanoes, check out my Mt. Baker visit or my Mt. St. Helens visit! Yay exploding mountains!

8/15/99 Canadian Road Trip Number One! (A.K.A Donut Run!)

Paul, the Heroic World Traveler, returns from his adventures in the Wilds of Canada, with nary a scratch..... Oh, sorry. Yes, Road Trip Numero three is complete. Vancouver. Nice city. Very cool architecture, lots of glass buildings. Jen, my favorite road trip victim -er, companion, and I headed out about 5am. Weather sucked, but oh well. We got to the border in Blaine about 7am. The Canajin at the booth asked what the purpose of our visit was. I said, "Tourism and donuts!" He sneered at us! Bastard. :) Anyway, we continued on and we were in Vancouver in 20 minutes or so. We drove around forever, looking at all the buildings and parks and houses, and OH MY GOD LOOK AT THOSE MANSIONS!!!! Huge! Everything is landscaped! Everything. I think the McDonalds were landscaped! Is landscaping Vancouver's main trade? Lots of Pool halls, too. Anyway, we were driving around, and somehow managed to lose Vancouver and end up in Burnaby or something. Going in circles! Our driver had no clue where he was going! What a goober. Wait a sec, I was driving. Right. Anyway, we finally found a donut shop. Nuffy's Donuts. Fully licensed. Nuffy's Donuts: Donuts, Coffee, Beer, Fried Chicken and Burgers. Oh my god. I could die there, and probably would. I think they should change the name to Homer's. Not until after we bought a dozen donuts from there did we find a Tim Horton's. Oh well. Got a reason to go back! :)

After we snarfed some donuts, we managed to find our way back to Vancouver, thanks to Jen's navigational skills. (map) Parked and went to the mall. No shopping, just wandering. We tried to find an Aboriginal Art museum that was listed on the city map on the street, but I think the crafty Canadians lied to us. We never found it. We did get to walk down a very interesting street though, Granville. Lots of CD shops, porno stores, gay porno stores, animal clinics, gay animal porno clinics, you know. Very interesting. Canadian homeless people too! We avoided the Eddie Bauer at the mall, and went to Stanley Park. Very nice place, but very busy. Went to the cafeteria for food. NO FRENCH FRIES??? ACK!!! They were out of french fries!!! Potato famine my ass! They were hoarding them from the tourists, I think. We got to see some beluga whales, so that was kewl. Then, we left.

I needed to do 4 things in Canada. Eat Donuts, buy a CD, make fun of Canadians, and drink beer. Donuts and poking fun at helpless Canadians, done. I still needed a CD, but was not a big deal. Definately had to score some beer. My one complaint about Canada? Not enough damn pubs, taverns, breweries, or bars! What the hell! We wandered around a part of town forever looking for a place to get a beer, but no pubs! We did however, find Restoration Hardware. That is where I discovered that I medically needed a stainless steel penquin martini shaker. and olive picks. I never realized how empty my life was before now. See, that's what Jen is for. She helps me figure these medical needs out. :) On the way out of town, Jen spotted a huge red PUB sign, and we manically went about finding the pub. Score. Good beer! Nice place!

We decided that since I had this sweet penguin martini shaker, then we needed to put it to use. Pool, martinis, and donuts. Score. We finally found a liquor store in Bellingham, picked up the medicinal liquids. A stop at Fred Meyer for glasses and olives. They turned out ok for my first ones.

The trip was a blast. Yay Road trips!

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9/8/99 Canadian Road Trip Number Two (A.K.A Beer run!)

How now, brown cow. Moooooo! So, I went on another road trip Sunday. It was determined that Canadian beer was medically needed, so we went back to Vancouver. The weather sucked ass, but could have been worse. We wondered around Granville Island for awhile and looked all the stores full of kitchen stuff and trinkets and jade bears and indian art and all sorts of other things that we needed, but dinna buy. (Although I did score a ceramic penguin!) Had lunch at The Keg and left. After some directionless driving around, we went over the Lions Gate bridge. It is a big bridge with stone lions at the south end of it. Nice, but I seriously hope that the reason there was parking lot style traffic the last time we were in Vancouver was NOT because of the lions. That would just be sad.

Anyway after that, we went to Grousse Mountain, which is this small mountain that peaks at about 3800 feet right in Vancouver. Smaller than Mt. Si, but the grade looks like a calf ripper. There is a lift that you can take to the top to get a view of the city. That is, if the peak is not drenched in fog. Still, I like fog and it was cool. The cafe was closed because some gits were getting married, though. We got the joy of riding both up and down with a group of sprogs that would not shut up, and were trying to use Jen and I as a jungle gym to look out the window on the return trip when we were sitting down. Needless to say, we stood up. Then they shrieked. Again. Again. Again. I did not have imagery of them shrieking as they somehow got thrown out of the window. That would be bad.

We still needed beer, though. You would think it would be relatively easy to find beer. I should have known better. The last time there we had a hell of a time just finding a pub for ONE beer. Stupid Canadians. Here's why: You can buy Codeine at Safeway, but not beer. You cannot buy beer at a gas station. YET, you can go to a hash cafe and smoke weed. You can go to the 'Medicinal Mushroom' and eat some magic fungus. BUT NO BEER! WTF??? You have to get it at a brewery or at the liquor store. Only. Canada is screwed up. I hate Canada. There is something seriously wrong with a country that makes it so damn difficult to get a simple beer. I can deal with the hash bars. It's not a bad idea if it is done right. But come on. It's just BEEEEEER! Stupid Canadians. Next time I need to drive hundreds of miles to get beer, dammit, I'll go to Oregon!

And the good thing about going to Oregon is that you don't have to wait 2 damn hours at the stupid border. Unreal! It took us just as long to get through the border as it takes to get to Vancouver from Seattle! Sick! We were gonna do the right thing and tell em about the, uh.... um..... So, how about those Seahawks! <Snort!>

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8/12/2000 Canadian Road Trip Number Three (A.K.A Fish & Chips run!)

Sunny and I drove up to Mt. Baker to do the Goat Mountain hike, plus a couple other ones right at Baker the next day. So, I tried to make hotel reservations in Bellingham, that way we could save on gas & mileage & time. However, some stupid cyclists stole all the hotel rooms, and the closest one I could find was in Mt. Vernon, about 30 miles back towards Seattle. Oh well.

In the middle of the hike, Sunny mentioned that her friend at a vendor knew of 'the best place in Canada' to get Fish & Chips. She also mentioned that maybe we should just stay up there instead. Hmmm..... fish & chips? CANADIAN Fish & Chips??? I'm there. So, I cancelled the reservation, and we drove in the Wilds of Canada to a little town on the river called Steveston. Sunny had directions to this place, which were basically 'Take the Steveston exit, go over the freeway, and follow it until it ends." Which we did. No fish & Chips there. So, we turned around & took a right turn, followed the street a bit, and viola! there it was. Dave's Fish & Chips. (Of course, it never dawned on someone to ask the guy the name of the place, so we assumed this was it.) We also found a hotel & liquor store nearby, so we were set.

Except we had to wait thirty minutes to get into this little place. So, we sat on the bench outside and watched the Canadians. Once we finally got in, the place emptied out while we ate. :) How were the fish & chips? Good, but nothing special. Kinda greasy, but the halibut ones were pretty darn good. Good beer too.

Afterwards, we wandered down to a Canajin gift shop, and spent some money on trinkets. I scored a neato penguin gift from Sunny, I got another shot glass, and I bought Sheila 4 spiffy magnets, complete with a Royal Canajin Kilted Yaksman! And a Bear! Woo hoo!

And of course, I scored more beer. It was easy to find this time, since it was a Saturday, and the liquor stores were open.

Oh yeah, and thanks to the nice Canadian lady selling berries. She schooled us on what gooseberries are, even losing the sale in the process.

Sadly, because of my latest hip/knee problem, we were unable to do the hikes planned for Sunday. So, instead we looked at Mt. Baker! Check out the page!

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That's all for now, folks. For now, Either go home, check out other road trips (Oregon, Washington), or my hiking pages, or, the grand-daddy of all trips, my 1999 Costa Rica Vacation!

I last rambled on about road trips on: April 17, 2006 12:40:31 PM.