New Travel Experiences

Scott & I have been traveling quite a bit lately. Our latest trip was to go see my Mom get married up in Vancouver, BC. Jon, her new husband, (I guess technically he is my Step-Dad now) and her decided to get married on a Cruise Ship. Apparently they picked one that made it very difficult for people to go on them with. They wanted to go on a 2 week Alaskan Cruise. Since they pretty much knew that most normal people couldn't just pack up for 2 weeks and go on a cruise, they decided that they would get married in Vancouver, BC so that everyone could fly up for the wedding on the Cruise Ship and then fly right back.

Scott and I decided to have some fun with the wedding and try something different. We booked our flights into Seattle, WA. There are wonderful perks about being a Medallion Member with Delta and one of them was being upgraded to First Class. It didn't matter too much, we didn't get a meal. Pretty much the only thing we got was larger seats, which is always a plus.

Once we got into Seattle, we took the bus (Public Transportation), which I have to say was pretty cool. We got off near Pikes Place and found a cute little place to eat Lunch and then walked in the rain to the Ferry Station where we took a Ferry from Seattle to Victoria, BC. We then sat through 3 hours of a 6 year old totally playing mind games on her parents and winning. Oh ... she was good at it. She has her parents totally wrapped around her finger.

After that we hopped into a Taxi who drove us to another Pier where we missed the 7:00pm ferry from Victoria to Vancouver by about 10 minutes so we had to wait for the 9:00pm ferry. We ended up getting some fairly cold pizza and watching the Olympics on TV for a while.

We got on the Ferry after I ewwwed and awwwed at how BIG this ferry was. It was 4 levels, the first level you could fit Semi Trucks on it, like multiple trucks deep and wide. The 2nd level is where all the cars and trucks went, and the last 2 levels is where the people hung out. We found a somewhat quiet place to sit. The room was a little cold and the boat looked like it had been used quite a bit. We started talking to a very nice gentleman who informed us of the public transportation that we "could" take to get to our hotel. This is the point that we had our first and only tift of the whole trip. I admit, I was by then very tired. We had had a horribly long day of traveling. I was cold and I just wanted to get into the bed at the Hyatt where we were staying. And I was totally PMSing at that moment.

After I "let go" of my argument, we arrived in Vancouver, then took the public transportation into town and encountered many strange people. There was one guy who was on the ferry with us that decided his music was too goo to just keep to himself and he kindly shared it with everyone else. It was like 1980's modernized. He was carrying around a boom box but it was one that you could stick your iPod in it. And at least he was playing fairly good music. He then got off at one of the first stops. We then were fortunate enough to encounter a group of girls who could have been a woman's sports team (I think) that was out for the night and totally drinking. They were all having a good time.

We arrive at the hotel about 12:30am and I am so happy to be in our hotel and on a nice soft bed for the night.

The next morning is when the wedding took place. I'll talk more about the wedding in another post. All I have to say is Thank God that both Scott & my brother Pete, were in good moods. It made the day go by so much more smoothly.

After the wedding, we took Vancouver's "Sky Train" to the Amtrak Station. We hung out for a brief moment and then boarded the train. We took the train from Vancouver back down to Seattle.That was actually our best part of the trip. Amtrak was a perfect way to travel. We had these great reclining seats, going through Customs was a breeze, and there was food we could buy. (TIP: If you are wanting to buy food on board buy it early. Do NOT wait.) We also got to see the most amazing sunset.

When we got off the train, we took the public transportation back to the airport and then called the hotel's free shuttle bus to come pick us up. We stayed in a really cheap hotel for the night that was somewhat creepy but, you get what you pay for right? It was only for a few hours, then we hopped on an early morning flight back to Salt Lake.

This trip was definitely strange. I didn't grow up riding on buses or public transportation. I was fortunate enough to live close to all my schools and only rarely took the school bus home with friends. And we never took the public transportation. That was always something people did that didn't have money. (This was part of the tift that we had on the ferry.) The trip had me break though a lot of things. I got through it. And even though I had horrible pictures of people jumping up with gun in their hands saying to me, "Hand Me Over All Your Money, NOW!!!" that didn't happen. Most everyone on the buses were mostly quiet and kept to themselves. It was pretty cool.