Vancouver Trip - Day 11

TIMELINE

• 9:00 a.m. Awake
• 9:45 a.m. Skwachays Healing Lodge - Breakfast
• 11:45 a.m. Bloedel Floral Conservatory
• 12:50 p.m. Began walk to VanDusen
• 1:30 p.m. Arrive VanDusen Botanical Garden
• 1:40 p.m. Truffles Fine Foods Cafe - Lunch
• 1:55 p.m. Enter VanDusen Botanical Garden
• 4:00 p.m. Leave VanDusen Botanical Garden
• 5:05 p.m. Capilano Suspension Bridge Park
• 6:55 p.m. Lonsdale Quay - boarded SeaBus
• 7:15 p.m. Elephant & Castle Pub and Restaurant - Dinner
• 8:45 p.m. Hotel

NOTES

• Skwachay's Healing Lodge
• Staff was very friendly, assisting us in getting to our first destination by public transit
• Gallery had original and certified Canadian artists, but we did not find anything in our price range
• Overall a very positive experience here, but it does exist in an area transitioning to a better place (we hope)
• For example, as we browsed, we overheard an artist describe an assault as she made her way to the hotel (apparently someone awoke on the sidewalk and swung at her and missed)
• Bloedel Floral Conservatory
• Overlook of Vancouver--can see many landmark buildings and Grouse Mountain
• Warm and humid
• Koi pond--learned some live to 200 years old
• Posed with many macaws
• During feeding time, many birds landed right in front of us, and some walked along path beside us
• VanDusen Botanical Garden
• 55 acres
• We wandered through the hedge maze for about five minutes--very nice
• Dawn found a Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides)! It was their tree of the month in July 2016
• Passed fountains, ducks, a sunning turtle, bridges, a Korean pavilion, a medicine wheel stone circle, totem poles, sculpture, and a lot of plants--they need 1,200 volunteers and six full-time gardeners plus interns to maintain it
• We really enjoyed the entire place--hastened to leave to overcome one final destination...
• Really cute kid in a stroller responded to smiley faces I made at him from across the bus; Dawn and I both enjoyed it
• Capilano Suspension Bridge
• Hustled to get there from VanDusen--Vancouver public transit just great
• Dawn successfully navigated the suspension bridge, the treetop adventure, and the cliff walk--even the scariest parts of the glass floor and open grating overhangs
• Rained on the reverse crossing of the suspension bridge and got pics of a rainbow
• Pumpkins out in celebration of fall
• SeaBus - Sunset crossing
• Food
• Skwachays breakfast: mini-quiche, muffins, coffee, maple syrup, sweet breads
• Truffles Fine Foods Cafe: 
• Classic roast turkey & brie with green apples, watercress, and mayo, on cranberry sourdough bread
• Dessert in Jar: Chocolate Mousse
• Pumpkin spice latte
• Really nice place, great food
• Elephant & Castle Pub and Restaurant - 
• Herbal tea, shepherd's pie: seasoned ground beef, lamb & vegetables, topped w/ garlic mashed potatoes, crisp onions & rich beef gravy. served w/ a mixed green salad
• Watched American football, no British flag in sight--food good though