Got wood?

Day 8. Got wood? Today’s adventure was brought to us by BC’s forests and elevations. First, it was another awesome drive with more spectacular views from Kelowna to Vancouver through more mountains covered in evergreens. The landscape was interesting to see - we saw some logging areas being clear cut, some looked like a sea of abandoned fallen trees, some burned out by fires, and lots of logging trucks hauling loads up and down steep mountain roads. I thought it was neat to see a lumber yard with sprinklers on top of their wood piles, watering the wood to keep it wet and prevent fire I guess. The smell of trees, ranchland and pretty streams winding along the road makes for such a pretty and peaceful drive. Life, is good.

The climb through the mountains was very cool - we were so high up we were in the clouds, one summit was 4081 feet— we could see snow on mountain peaks right beside us from the car and the temperature dropped to 5 degrees at one point.

Then, we went to the Capilano suspension bridge and tree top walk. It was amazing! We walked across the bridge (obviously) which is strong enough to hold 96 elephants, is the length of 2 747s wing tip to wing tip and is the height of the Statue of Liberty’s shoulders. We saw some of the biggest, tallest and oldest trees in Canada – Douglas Fir, Red Cedars and Hemlocks. I couldn’t help it, I just had to hug a tree.

Today’s big thing is ‘Grandma Capilano’ the tallest tree there at 200 ft and it’s more than 1300 years old. Whoa.

The drive in and out of Vancouver SUCKED. Traffic was brutal – four lanes of traffic into one? Really!? Leaving Vancouver the GPS took us through Gastown. Ever been to Gastown? I wouldn’t recommend it. Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to stop for gas -
or anything else … or even just stop in gastown.

Neither of us were really dig’n Vancouver, so we hightailed back through the mountains to Kamloops – the tournament capital, hmph, who knew? We sure didn’t, and we also didn’t know there was a huge baseball tournament there this weekend. Hotels room options were slim, but we found one.

We (and I mean Dave) have driven 5176 kms so far. Whoa. we've been far and we've still got a week to go.