#17-Whistler

The road to Whistler is another beautiful trip! The Canadians put a great highway in from Vancouver to Whistler to make traveling to the Olympics safer and easier...and they did a great job! This park is one of the many stops on the way...

Provincial Park is a campground, too. Very pretty-and VERY busy in the summer, especially the weekends..

The road to Whistler just whets your appetite for what's coming up...

Yep, this is the Gondola ride..the first portion is about 25 minutes of breathtaking beauty.

But this portion is Awesome! Peak 2 Peak is the longest independent span in the world....

Again, too much to see!

Here's what a gondola looks like...during peak season they put 10 people in one gondola comfortably. The grey ones have a glass bottom! Of course, we rode both.

It looks like somebody drew these ribbons of white through the mountains...

But there's a dam right in the middle-it powers all the gondola and other lift operations!

Truly 360 degree scenics....

This is a shot of the river through the glass bottom gondola

As we leave one station...

And right on the peak of Blackcomb-Whistler himself!

I don't know if it's the snow or the red shirt, but people were coming up to Jack shouting Santa! He was very gracious and even gave some of the girls his business card....But then they told us a storm was coming and we had to be evacuated-now!

Our now traditional "coming"

And "going" shot

I bet it was wonderful during the Olympics!

Stanley Park

Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia reminds me a little of Golden Gate park in San Francisco with an added element of a beautiful Aquarium within. We took a day trip with our friends Scott and Debby-a long day and worth every minute!

It's still a little early for many of the flowers to bloom but the roses were spectactular!

The fushias were very petty, too.

And, in the center of the Park there's an aquarium...Well laid out with many indoor and outdoor exhibits...

The Beluga whales were such fun to watch! There's two moms and two pups. It's the first time the aquarium housed two babies at a time...And where's dad? He's confined to another holding pool so the moms can form a strong bond with their pups...

She's a natural actress....

And here's Sam the sea otter-Sam the Ham! He looks right at you and poses.....

These are moon jellies and if you all didn't know before-Next to sea horses, jellies are my favorite species in an aquarium..

Scott and Debby are taking in the rain forest..can you see the blue parrots holding feet?

This is a show not to be missed!!! I can't tell you details but this show is worth he price of admission alone!!!!

And then it was time to come home-Isn't this a nice welcome sign?

#15-The drive on Highway 20.....

The Grand Coulee Dam gave us an appreciation and taste for Dams...This is Chief Joseph Dam-the little square to the left is the flag painted on the dam.

It's spilling over similar to the Coulee because of the storms north...

Now we're on the highway west-going to visit the Johnsons and the Slocums!!!

But first, a favorite activity....We stopped at Lone Fir Nat'l campground-known for bears but we're too early in the season so we just cozied up in front of this perfect campfire...

There are too many waterfalls to mention...perfect timing to see the runoff from the snow- packed mountains.. I won't even try to comment on most of these pictures-there are so many and rarely did they have a name for them....

The elevation can be daunting-so is the view!

This is one of many switchbacks-it's good to have your vehicles in good condition!

We actually had 102 pictures of this road trip...It was very hard to pin it down to a decent number for this blog...

#14 The Grand Coulee Dam

The Grand Coulee Dam-a marvel of ingenuity and engineering! Good ol' Teddy pushed this project through and it has made a huge difference in the production of electricity in the west....

This is a rare occurance...usually, the dam is dry and the water spill only happens in preparation for the laser show. But today, the water spill happened because the lake was too high and and it had rained north of here. Every body was talking about it...this only happens once a year at best...we pick the right time to be here!

There's a lookout-we watched the laser show from here...

This is part of the tour-very interesting and informative...

This is what it looks like from the top...

Because we had special security they were allowing us to drive over the dam!

Too bad I didn't know my camera better-the laser show is unbelievable!!!!

#13 Dry Falls

This will be a quickie 'cause the story is self explanatory-BUT, if you are in the Eastern part of WA you MUST drive this corridor...it will lead you to the Grand Coulee Dam (travelogue #14