Things Happen In Stanley Park

I spent four or five hours walking around Stanley Park on Tuesday, great place. Photos here.

This place has an unnaturally high population of animals - all of which are very accustomed to humans, and being fed by humans. I'm sure it's these supplements to their diet allowing so many animals to survive there. Everywhere you looked there would be animals asking for handouts. I could not resist the cuteness of these guys though, and so here's a video of me feeding a raccoon (pardon my inane commentary).

I was walking along one of their trails, and I saw a woman in her 70s or 80s digging around in some bushes, and as I'm headed in that direction, she falls over into them. It was an odd sight, she fell like a tree which had just been cut down - slowly, entirely in one direction, and without any motion or attempt to catch herself. I checked on her to see if she was ok or needed help, and she responded by showing me a styrofoam cup full of salmonberries, which miraculously hadn't spilled. She then resumed picking berries from her newly discovered prone position.

Later that day I went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, which is neat, but pricey - $32 or so for an adult ticket and parking. It's cool to walk around on their bridge which is suspended over a river, but it requires walking around the entire population of British Columbia since they're all on that bridge as well. I took a video of the bridge right before closing, when it was less crowded. The camera I was using has image stabilization so, the wobbliness of the bridge might not come across so well.

The Sea to Sky Highway is getting the holy crap torn out of it, I imagine in preparation for the Olympics. This results in sections where the entire highway is one lane - they have stop/slow people guiding lines of 30 or 40 cars through these sections, meaning I was stopped for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. I did get some neat pictures from out my car window while stopped, though.

Today I stopped by Nairn Falls. While it was some cool nature and an impressive waterfall, they fenced off all the "unsafe" parts, which of course are far more interesting. This didn't stop me from finding a way around this fence and scrambling around the forbidden, but awesome, rocky territory.