Day 9
The final day (sorta).
Our goal today was do some final things, cross back into the US and just get to the car rental place at 10 p.m. to be plenty early for our 12:40 a.m. flight (a red-eye back home).
We started the day driving into Stanley Park which was beautiful despite it STILL raining from the day before .. 24 hours of non-stop rain. Insane. We wind our way through the park and get to the Vancouver Aquarium. Our main stop for the day.
By the time we get the morning coffee and drive there we get there about 11:00 a.m. A small aquarium compared to the monsters we've been to (Atlanta, Baltimore, Sea World), but some nice exhibits. A big section on British Columbian coastal fish (you'd be surprised how many there are) and section all about frogs.
The big attraction is their outdoor (with underwater viewing) tanks. They have a family of Beluga Whales (smaller white whales) with a newborn. We caught a zookeeper giving a talk on the birth and the family. Grandma, Mom and baby were in one tank. Dad and another female in another.
2 1/2 hours late we decide to head out and get back to the U.S. We would have stuck around more, but wanted to try and make it to a winery in northern Seattle by 4:30. We though leaving around 2ish we'd have plenty of time. We were wrong.
It took almost an hour to get through Vancouver. Downtown Vancouver doesn't have a highway running through or near it. so they only way through the city is THROUGH the city. Which means traffic and tons of stop lights. Eventually you break though on the south side and hit a freeway you take to the border. The only other option was Highway 1 which was on the north side of Vancouver proper, but it doesn't directly connect with Highway 99 (which takes you to the border).
Fine .. a little slower than expected. Then we hit the US border. Figuring it was the middle of the afternoon and we had nothing to declare, we'd be able to zip right through like we did coming into Canada. Nope. The signs warned 50 minutes to get through. And it was wrong .. took more like an hour. And we weren't sure why .. there was 4 lanes, really not many cars, and it took forever. It seemed our lane would move every 10 minutes. What was even more frustrating is when we got to the border agent, he asked us three questions and sent us through .. in under a minute!
So that put us behind, it was now after 4:00 p.m., we weren't going to make that winery. We also had planned to go to Microsoft Visitor Center (which was open until 7).
We finally make it to Redmond (where Microsoft is based) and get to the Visitor Center.
It was closed until November 2nd since it is moving to a new location. Nowhere on the official website (where we looked the night before) did it say this! Ugh.
Fine. We go to an Irish/Cajun restaurant (weird combo) and have some food. It was okay, my Jambalaya was way too spicy for my taste and even then nothing special.
After that we head to Bellevue to go to the Mall their to kill time. What a nice mall, had everything. We spent some time at the Container Store and then to Cheesecake Factory for some Pumpkin/Pecan cheesecake.
We head back to the car rental place, get a shuttle to the airport, wait for our flight and try and get as much sleep as possible on the 2 1/2 hour flight to Minneapolis. Jen (the navigator AND travel agent) smartly put us each in a window seat. Much easier to sleep with your head against the window. The rough part of the morning was the transfer at Minneapolis at (now 6-7 a.m.). Ugh.
We were pretty quiet after that.
Ed picked us up . .Jenny drove home .. and i was kidnapped to go paintballing with the guys. A long long day!