Thursday, February 12 to Sunday, February 15
The surprise Christmas/birthday/Valentines/anniversary trip that Riley planned has finally came around! After a month of guessing the surprise (correctly I might add), and two months of excited waiting since the big reveal on Christmas, Riley and I can finally say that we’ve left the country together!
We flew out of the Monterey regional airport for the first time on Thursday evening after work. Typically, we fly from San Jose, but props to Riley for planning it this way! An easy 10 minute Uber to a sleepy airport with a two minute wait for TSA is certainly easier than driving up through Santa Cruz and San Jose and paying for parking. After landing in Seattle and a night in a bit of a rough airport motel, we left early to catch public transit up to the Seattle Amtrak station.
Crossing the Canadian border was a lovely experience on the Amtrak! Not only did we get to cruise the border of Puget Sound all the way North from Seattle, but we did it in luxury. While it did add a bit of travel time, it was all part of the adventure! We “de-trained” and made it through customs easily, finding the French-Canadian accent of our border agent to be much more pleasant than their American counterparts.
We stopped for a well deserved break after our early morning for some incredible New York style pizza in China Town as we made our way walking to the SeaBus. The part of Vancouver that we walked through felt very “San Franciscan”, and besides the Canadian flags, I could’ve been convinced that we hadn’t yet left California. Once we hit the water and saw the huge port and industry, the vibe definitely shifted to Pacific Northwest however. The color contrast from the massive orange cranes made everything pop, and it was so fun to meander our way North on foot soaking everything in.
After taking the SeaBus (a ferry with a bus-style terminal and doors) across the harbor to North Vancouver, we killed some time walking around the old shipyard before checking into our nice hotel. We made a point to read all of the informational signs, and learned a lot about the area’s history building and refitting ships. We even saw what looked to be a cruise ship refit in progress in the dry-dock. Luckily, just as it started sprinkling enough to contemplate throwing on a rain jacket, we decided to turn back and check into our hotel.
In the most Canadian fashion, our hotel not only had a view across the water to downtown Vancouver, but also of the municipal ice rink (Zamboni for scale) directly under our window! We headed out for dinner to the food hall and settled on some spicy chicken for dinner and sweet pies and frozen yogurt for dessert.
We started off Saturday morning with a nice relaxing late start, and with an ambitious plan; to walk 11 miles around the perimeter of Vancouver and Stanley Park. Knowing that this was a surefire way to get me excited about a trip, Riley was as excited as I was to do the loop and see the city! We stopped for breakfast at a cafe downtown after taking the SeaBus over, and perused a shop for the specialty batteries needed for Riley’s camera. Apparently, Canadians have quadruple A batteries?
We easily cruised through the 11 miles, stopping a couple times for espresso and snacks. Once we left the downtown area, the waterfront was so beautiful and busy! We enjoyed the views of Puget Sound and the surrounding mountains, and were happy that we chose this plan over snowshoeing, as the cloud base was low enough over the mountains that we wouldn’t have had much of a view if any. Walking back around to the SeaBus terminal, the tourist crowd started picking back up, and we were left trying to dodge around large groups without getting splattered by an e-bike.
We made it back to our hotel with plenty of time to spare before our Valentine’s day dinner reservations downtown. After some much needed time off our feet, we dressed up all fancy and headed back into the city via the SeaBus once again.
Riley’s Fish & Steak was incredible! And the bill hurt a little bit less when we remembered the prices were all in Canadian Dollars! After some delightful oysters, break, steak, and salmon to celebrate our six-year anniversary, we headed back to the hotel for our last night up North.
An early wake up and Uber to the train station was offset by our $30 Amtrak upgrade to business class! Much more comfortable, and we got a table and seats facing each other, along with either more or less legroom consequently, depending on who you ask. The ride back to Seattle was also a pleasure, and we both manged to get quite a bit of reading done despite the views!
After a quick visit to Pike Place Market to cap off the already perfect trip with some more oysters and walking, we took transit back to the airport and ripped back on down to Monterey. Despite never touching my rain jacket in Seattle or Vancouver, the second we de-planed, I found myself needing to pull it on. Classic Monterey.
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