16th, 15th and 14th May

Saturday 16th May - our last day in Vancouver. We both agree that we will be sorry to leave this lovely city - it is such a vibrant place and has lots of atmosphere.
During the morning we were once again ‘culture vultures’ as we visited the Vancouver Art Gallery to see an exhibition of ‘Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’ highlighting the extraordinary works of art made by Dutch masters of the 17th century. This is a one-off exhibition for this summer only and we both enjoyed it.
During the afternoon we paid a second visit to Vancouver’s Pacific Central train station both to pick up our tickets for our first Amtrak journey next Sunday, and also to suss out the departure routine especially as we will be crossing the border into the USA. It all seems very straightforward. Let’s hope it turns out that way…

Friday 15h May was a quiet day catching up with washing and mooching around Vancouver. After lunch we took the bus to the Waterfront area and went in to Key West Tour Operators to say ‘Hi’ to Winnie - the lady there who I was in touch with when making all the Vancouver bookings from home.
From there we took a ride on the Sky Train to find the Pacific Central train station from where we are booked on the Amtrak for Seattle the day we arrive back from the cruise. The Sky Train is a bit like the DLR in London - no driver or human operator - all computer controlled and it whizzed along both over and under ground. This rail system is being extended out to the airport in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
We needed that easy day today after the long and tiring journey the day before.

Thursday 14th May we had the long journey back to Vancouver from Lake Louise. We left the hotel at 0800 and shortly afterwards had to turn our watches back one hour to Pacific Time which meant we left at 0700!
The journey began well - we again watched the stunning scenery pass by and we had a couple of ‘comfort/coffee stops’ and a stop for lunch. Then around 2.15pm the driver suddenly pulled into a lay-by alongside a lake and went to the back of the coach to have a look at the engine. He was gone for some time without telling us what was going on - then we saw him take a large plastic container down to the lake to get water. He did this 5 times, then we set off. Apparently one of the hoses in the cooling system had split and we were ‘losing water like a faucet’.
The lake water took us to a ‘gas station’ at the next town where we pulled in and the driver phoned for assistance. The mechanic was about 2 hours coming, and after the split hose was successfully replaced we were on our way again at 6pm - three and a half hours later. It made a long day seem much longer and instead of getting back to the HoJo at around 8pm we didn’t arrive until 11pm. 16 hours on the road! Everyone on the tour (there was 17 of us) remained in good spirits as there was, after all, nothing we could have done about the situation. Luckily we had stopped in civilisation (and not at the top of a remote mountain pass) near to a pub, coffee shop, loo and other amenities (several of the party boosted the pub landlord’s profit for that day!)
Terry and I had a walk by the lake and marina and, on a rock offshore we thought we saw a couple of large-ish turtles sunning themselves. We were not sure, but on our way back to the coach we saw a ‘Turtle Bay’ notice, so we were right, what we saw must have been turtles.