Vancouver Olympic Trip (day 1-2)

14-Sept-2026

We took a trip in August. Stacey's family rented a cabin on the Olympic peninsula, and we decided to extend the trip by staying with friends in Vancouver BC, then a day in Victoria, before heading to the cabin.

Day 1 (necessary but annoying travel)

Text thread while driving up:

friend: have such a great time in the big van!

stacey: Thank you!!! I'm so excited

me: I'm not, I don't like the traveling part of travel

Drove all day from Beaverton OR to Vancouver BC. I would rate driving long distances as C-tier. Started in high spirits, laughing and chatting, ended stuck in traffic, grumpy and annoyed at each other. Vancouver is a lovely city, but traffic really sucks. I'm sure this won't come up again...

We did get another stamp on our McMenamins passports, so that's something. It was a strip-mall McMenamins, so happy to never go there again, but the food was good.

In Vancouver, we stayed with friends in their spare room - they were lovely and cooked dinner for us. We need ot more friends in cool places...

Day 2

We drove to a neighborhood cafe! Every neighborhood should have places like this.

The Mighty Oak cafe where we got breakfast. We even got a table!

Stacey eats a pastry, while Josh makes selfie-face

Mandatory selfie time (we still had lots of energy at this point in the trip)

Of course I had to do an eating-action-shot too

Traveling

Next we drove to a parking garage

Intersection with a nice view of the water and people walking and bustling around

Intersection with a cool view

From here we parked the car and started walking. First time walking through a new city is always great. A-tier, maybe even S-tier travel. Vancouver isn't new-new for me (been there twice), but still lots to explore.

Excellent statue with some accurate anatomy

Buildings!

I was feeling rather giddy at this point, taking pictures while walking, and then jogging along to catch up to Stacey.

Great pedestrian-only street, but still enough space for delivery trucks to get to places along it

Art museum

The Vancouver Art Gallery had an exibit of Emily Carr's work, one of Stacey's favorite artists, so of course we had to go

We only had 1 ½ hours before meeting our friend for lunch, so we were on a time-limit. I think this is about the perfect amount of time for appreciating art though, so it worked out.

T.V. Trap, 1973, by Evelyn Roth

Blue hair armor girl wall covering art/photo

Blue hair armor girl, by someone

I really had to pee, so I was running around looking for a bathroom, and saw this thing. It was more impactful in-person because it covered a whole wall. Didn't have time to read about it because of my bathroom search. Or should I be saying "washroom"? I think that's what they call it in Canada.

A proper button

Eventually found the washroom. On the way out I noticed this excellent button - very satifying pushing experience.

art sculpture thing with curvy shapes made out of wires

Made of wires!

Another detail of wire-art

stairs and floor covered in bright colorful stripes, looking down from upper floor over the railing

The central stairwell was really trippy

whale skeleton made of plastic lawn chairs with Stacey looking up at it

Made with lawn chairs! With Stacey for scale :)

Oil Fields #18, Belridge, California, USA, 2003, by Edward Burtynsky

Is this real? Very dystopian sy-fi feel. Looked it up and yes, it's a real place, I had no idea there were such big oil fields in the US

(detail) Eco Grief Deforestation Series (Old Growth Stump 2), 2024, by Andrea Bowers

Very cool texture (acrylic on cardboard)

detail of a foot, with oil paint dripping down in front of mountains over water

(detail) Unbound (one way ashore, a thousand channels), 2024, by Firelei Báez

Another great textural piece (oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas)

Stacey appreciating Emily Carr (part 1), 2026, by Josh

At this point my feet and ankle hurt, so I sat down on a bench. To pass the time, I took pictures of Stacey appreciating Emily Carr paintings

Stacey appreciating Emily Carr (part 2), 2026, by Josh

Mount Thule, Bylot Island, 1930, by Lawren Harris

There was a non-Emily-Carr piece just hanging out in the same room, very confusing. Also very cool looking. Sorry Stacey, but I might like Lawren better than Emily *gasp*

Stacey appreciating Emily Carr (part 3), 2026, by Josh

A drawing of a tree in purple, red, and yellow next to colored pencils on a table

Autumn Tree (colored pencil), 2026, by Josh

There was an area to make your own tree art. The kids were using all the green pencils, so I had to get a little experiemental with my colors.

Rows of small drawings of trees clipped on horizontal strings

My masterpiece on display

Looking through an opening with art on each side is an area with lots of kids at tables for drawing

Area for drawing trees

Lunch

A sidewalk with a curved covering leading into the lower story of a building

Cool arch thingy on our walk to lunch

A circular building looking a bit like a colosseum

Library building looks like a colosseum

A building with cube-like protrusions offset at angles

Another cool building, although the Deloitte letters looks a little silly to me

Selfie of three people with a nice city-scape in the background

After-lunch selfie from on top of the library building

Got these trangular rice sandwiches that were hard to unwrap, but quite delicious. Fun time hanging out and a great view too!

A tall building with a row of trees growing out of the top

This building has trees

Criss-crossed overhead lines at intersection

These overhead lines are getting a little crazy - I think these are for buses?

Biking around Stanley park

We rented bikes and rode them around Stanley park. Very fun.

Stacey enjoying the view

a painted piece of carved wood juts out over a view of the harbor

Figurehead thing

Stopped to look at this figurehead thing. I'm assuming this was on the prow of a ship at some point...

Stacey looks out over a mostly dried-out pond covered in reeds and lilypads

We locked up the bikes and went on a short walk to this pond

bikers sit on a wall and enjoy a view of the bridge

People hanging out under the bridge

It was very crowded, I think there were a lot of cruise-ship-people, which was annoying. Kept getting passed on the bike path and it made it more stressful than it should've been. Still a great experience though!