The 206, Vancouver and the Wedding

Hey-o!  Long post ahead.  You're been warned.

After resting for the night in Missoula, MT, we drove along the I-90 until we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Viking Drive Inn.  What looked like a shack in the middle of nowhere turned out to be a decent burger joint.  If you're searching for a restaurant with friendly staff, plates of tender burgers and crispy fries, and joke books equipped at each table, look no further than this place.

Tasty Viking Burger here

Back on the road again, the first part of the journey across Washington state was drier than expected.  The common color in the scenery was brown: brown mountains like huge chunks of chocolate; brown fields and brown hills as if its residents sprinkled the terrain with powdery Ovaltine.  Eventually trees started to sprout and gather beside the highway once more, with their leafy branches looming over the road to create a scenic path to the next city.

Dusty hills in Washington state 

We arrived in Seattle in the afternoon and unloaded our luggage at a Super 8 near the airport.  Fatigue settled in after a long day's drive.  We desired to get to bed as soon as possible, so we were less picky with our choice of dining and walked to Dave's Diner which was close by.  The 50's decor and license plates lined along the walls were the best parts of the restaurant.  The service left a lot to be desired; the food was quite pricey for the quality we were used to.  To illustrate my point, I ordered a plate of ol' fashioned pot roast with vegetables and the highlight of the dish were the vegetables.  We should have saved a couple of dollars and head to the Jack-In-The-Box next to it instead.

On to the positives of Seattle!  If a comparison were to be made, Seattle is not unlike Vancouver.  It's a nice, modern city matching its courteous citizens in every way.  The streets are clean, rude drivers are hard pressed to find, and the monorail flies above spreading its message of environmental awareness everywhere.  Chris stated that it was a great place to find a good job (Seattle is home to Microsoft, Amazon.com and Boeing) and for young families to start.

Clean streets in Seattle

Boeing's Museum of Flight is located next to the Boeing Field-King County International Airport.  Even though I studied aviation in high school, it still amazes me how a large plane like the 757 can manage to lift off the ground and soar through the air at, what seems to be, the very last second on the runway.  What is more amazing is the collection of aircraft preserved at the museum.  Proudly displayed inside and outside the building are planes ranging from hand gliders to foreign WWII fighter jets to modern spy drones to space shuttles.  The tours were entertaining and educational as they brought us through the era of gliders to the Wright brothers' first attempts at flight to the first commercial air services (as a side note, did you know there are aviation high schools? That's so cool!).  The Airpark allowed us to see the interior of famous planes such as President Eisenhower's retired Air Force One (the Stars Wars theme and other space-themed music playing out of the speakers as we walked across Space Bridge to Airpark was the icing on the cake).

Soon afterwards, we encountered our first hitch in our trip.  The turning signals in our car refused to light up.  Luckily Chris and I remembered our turning hand signals and stuck our arms out of the window to lead us to the city center safely.  While we considered the possibility of driving straight to Vancouver to get the car checked out, we came to the conclusion that safety was our top priority and decided to pull over.

(Here's a funny tidbit: When I was away as Chris and Alexei were fixing the car, two scouts approached them and asked if they wanted to be models.  It would involve dying their hair with  multicoloured streaks. Bearing in mind they would be at a wedding the following day, they politely declined.)

Thanks to the Internet, we were able to diagnose the problem to a shorted fuse and search for instructions to fix it.  Chris got creative in the fuse box and replaced it with the fuse from the CD player.  In the end, we found a Radio Shack with Alexei's GPS and bought a few more fuses.  I retracted my previous resolution to use less technology on the trip.  If it weren't for the web, our car would be in a garage right now.  All hail technology!

We crossed the border without any problems and arrived in Langley, BC, in a hour.  Here, our timelines split.  I caught up with my friends, Annie, Carlton, and Jenn, in Vancouver for supper; meanwhile, Chris and Alexei relaxed in the hot tub and took turns using the two-story water slide built into the motel.

My Vancouver friends and I got together at a Taiwanese restaurant called The One (a confusing name for those asking for directions to the place).  Asian cuisine in this city is always a treat.  You'll have trouble finding better Asian dishes anywhere else in Canada.  The food tastes better, is well made and, most importantly, is more authentic than the North Americanized dishes we're used to back in Montreal.  You'll have to try it to believe the hype.

Soooo gooood! 

Huge bowl of shaved ice with red bean paste, strawberries, taro & grass jelly

The next day I met with Jenn and Annie at the University of British Columbia for lunch.  Jenn showed me around afterwards and, let me tell you, the campus is BEAUTIFUL and HUGE.  I have never seen a campus so advanced, so well designed and so environmentally conscious as this one.  Compared to the ones at McGill, Concordia, Université de Montréal, Université de Québec à Montréal, and University of Toronto, UBC's is on another level.  I'm even more surprised at how well the buildings are maintained and the fact that ongoing construction of new ones is still prevalent.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we missed Melody and Nathan's wedding ceremony, however we were able to make it to their reception.  The couple looked really good together and the speeches were funny.  There was a photo booth with costumes inside and dance floor which we took full advantage of.  We danced to the Twist, Michael Jackson, disco with the bride and groom, reminding me of our days together in CEGEP in Montreal.  It was the most fun any one of us has ever had at a wedding.

In the same night, we received news of a surprise waiting for us in LA!  Stay tuned for more updates ;)