Thursday, June 22, 2023. Despite attempting to sleep in a little bit, I was still up at 6. The train was due into Vancouver by 9. So, instead of doing a full scheduled sit-down breakfast, they offered the option of a basic continental breakfast in the Skyline car with croissants, muffins, fruit, juice, and coffee or a sit-down breakfast with a smaller menu that typical and would be first come first served with a waitlist if all tables were full. These breakfasts would be served starting at 6:30. 

We let the girls sleep a little longer and headed down for breakfast around 7. When we got there, the dining car was full so we added our names to the list and went to the Skyline car to wait. 

While waiting, we pulled into the station ahead of schedule. And because we were early, the station wasn’t staffed to let the passengers off, so we would need to wait until 9 to start disembarking. That was fine, we still needed to eat!

After 30+ minutes of waiting, the dining car finally radioed the Skyline car that they had room for 18 more diners; that was the rest of everyone waiting. Come to find out, several people removed their names from the list when we pulled into the station, so there were 12 of us left to eat.  We went down and ordered. While we waited for our food, the doors opened and we were being let free 🙂 Despite the more limited menu, breakfast was just as good as the other meals had been. We finished up, went back to our berth to get our bags, and stepped off the train for the last time. 

From here, we went inside, waited longer than reasonable for our larger stowed bags to make their way onto the carrousel. With all of our bags in hand, we took two SkyTrains (Pro Tip: the SkyTrain is partially a subway) and hiked through the airport to pick up our rental car. Now, the ultimate question: where to? 

Now that we finally have nice, warm, dry day, we decided to head over to Stanley Park. We found a parking spot behind the aquarium and started our journey to find a playground. And of course, on the way over we found a couple more caches. As we got closer to our destination, Carson went left for a couple more caches and I took the girls right to find this elusive playground. 

Mission accomplished; we found the playground. So, the girls played for a bit until Carson found us. At this point, we headed over to the concession stand behind the pool for lunch (burgers, chicken tenders, Korean corn dog, and fries…lots of fries.) After lunch, we all got salted caramel gelato cones and headed down to the beach for the girls to dip their toes in the water. Then, we started walking back towards the aquarium.

We made it to the aquarium at 3:30 and it closed at 5:00. So, just enough time to speed through it! This was a fairly small aquarium compared to what we are used to seeing, but it was pretty nice. The most exciting exhibits were outside; urchin and starfish petting, harbor seals, otters, and sea lions.

Before we left the park, there were still two things that we needed to do. First, we ventured over to explore the long retired polar bear and grizzly bear enclosures…and find the cache. The last thing we did as we left the park was to drive the outer loop of the park to complete a five stage Adventure Lab that toured the park and provided the location for a bonus geocache final. Given the size of this park we had no desire today to walk this entire route. So instead, I drove while Carson hopped out to complete each stage. 

After wrapping up our time at Stanley Park, we made our way towards our condo. On the way, we stopped at a very authentic Chinese restaurant. This was a small place with eight tables and a menu with mostly unfamiliar options. Carson ordered a sweet chili chicken, I had sweet spare ribs, and the girls had shrimp fried rice. We weren’t very adventurous, but it was really good.

FINALLY! We made our way to our condo. We had strategically picked dinner because it was just a few blocks away; I think it took longer to find the address than to actually get to it. 🙂

For this part of the trip, we stayed in the basement of a private home with private access, with two bedrooms, one full bathroom, kitchen, and living room. The girls were back to sharing a bed, but this time their bed was European with two twin-ish sized mattresses with two sets of sheets and blankets. So, I tucked their top sheets into the crack between the mattresses in an attempt to contain Ellie while she slept. Then, Carson and I took the king sized bed and both slept blissfully unaware that there was even another person in the bed.