Vancouver, BC

We're on a boot #canadian #Airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife

#airstreamintherearview as we unhitch and leave it in storage for a week with Ann's mom in a VRBO in Vancouver. Then Whistler and points north! If you're interested, we always have our proposed Alaska route and timeline in the middle right column on the blog. #Airstream #liveriveted

Great #InstaMeet with @desktoglory and @desktoglory_ash who made time to hang out despite leaving tomorrow morning to return to their truck in Costa Rica to continue south after a year of being home in Vancouver. Another set of Internet friends become real ones! #overland #panamericanhighway

60 day time lapse of project #somedayyouwillbeaman and starting to have thoughts of at least a trim/shaping. Talk me in/out of it. Also, please identify your gender with your comment. 😉

Silos at the cement plant right next to the Granville Island Public Market have been brilliantly transformed into quirky giants by Brazilian twin brother graffiti artists, Osgemeos. The market was a fun maze of food and craft stalls, the rest of the island filled with artist workshops and performing arts centers. #Vancouver #granvilleisland

Day trip to the Vancouver Aquarium today. Wynne's kinda obsessed with orcas, so Ann's taken to asking her if she wants "orca ears" as a ploy so she'll let her put her hair up. On the way there, Wynne asked "Are the orcas gonna laugh when they see I have orca ears?" In fact, there are no orcas at the aquarium, but she loved the dolphins, sea otters and beluga whales and agreed with the rest of us that jellyfish are weird. #Vancouver #aquarium

With Grammie in town, @advodna_ann and I got a real date night a couple days ago, but tonight it was a mommy-daughter date for Ann and her mom. As soon as they left, I realized I needed some company as well but couldn't leave the house with sleeping kids. That's when I remembered the free delivery sign on the liquor store up the block (kudos, Canada!). Unfortunately, I didn't remember that the Stanley Park Brewery beers are not only not brewed in Stanley Park but not even in Vancouver and, according to one particularly snarky online reviewer, on some island a little to close to the sewage treatment plant. Eh, I've spent the night with worse. #beertravel #lovetheoneyourewith #stanleyparkbrewery

Our VRBO in Kitsilano has been an awesome place to base ourselves out of while exploring Vancouver. Everything seems to be within 10-15 minutes and there's plenty of cool shops and restaurants just blocks away on West Broadway. Of course, with a trampoline in the backyard, who needs to leave the house? #Vancouver #kitsilano

Kitsilano Beach with the huge oceanfront swimming pool in the foreground and city skyline in the back. From the beach, the view is out over sailboats, kite and windsurfers, huge colorful freighters waiting to be loaded or unloaded and snow capped mountains in the distance. 70 degrees out today. #Vancouver #kitsilano #kitsilanobeach

We had a full halt to all trampoline activity this morning due to an unplanned meetup with some mobile home brethren. #snail #childhoodunslugged #tinyhouses #slowtravel

Stupid CraigsList. 1960-something Kay flattop acoustic. Daddy's got a new campfire guitar. #recluttering #disairganization #vintageguitar #kay

Happy Mothers Day to someone who was just bitten by a 10 month old and then had to say the words, "I know you want to look at yourself in the mirror, but we're gonna have to take the Elsa dress off if it's distracting you from eating." @advodna_ann #mothersday

@birchandpineairstream recently brought up the question of tools for the road which sounded like a perfect excuse to inventory my stuff before Alaska. I bet I carry a lot less than many but haven't run into an issue I couldn't handle yet! I carry this kit in a canvas tool bag (upper left) plus a small 12V DeWalt cordless drill (w/ two batteries and a socket for the level jacks), a Dremel with heavy duty cut off wheels and various cutting/grinding bits, a small hacksaw, a rivet tool, a copper pipe flaring tool, a multimeter, a hand jig saw and a rough cut hand saw. Oh, and JBWeld. Lots and lots of JBWeld. #rvlife #fulltimefamilies #Airstream

We packed up our VRBO yesterday and drove to the RV park on the north side of town where we'd stored the trailer for the week. In fact, we'd paid $25 a night to park it in a spot just outside the gate, an arrangement we hadn't really had time to improve on the day we'd arrived on the ferry. In any case, while Ann played with the kids on the playground, I went to the office to get our site number for a night inside the campground we'd reserved for getting resettled. At the desk, I asked the woman if she'd gotten my email asking about being assigned a site near #47. I explained that some friends had sent us a message suggesting we ask for #46 or #48. "What's their last name?" "Well, I don't actually know it, but I think they're in #47." "You don't know your friend's name." "Well, no. We know them through the Internet, Instagram, and only know their screen name." "They're your friends, but you don't know their name. [insert smug smirk here]. "[Me, getting a little peeved] Uh no, but we communicate regularly and know just about everything going on in each other's lives and they told us what site they were in." "Well, they're *not* in #47." "Huh, okay, I may be remembering wrong. Do you have anything available in the 40's?" "[Grunt. Sigh] You're lucky we're not full." [Me, keeping it together but barely] Well, we have a reserved site, #24, and we might not ask if you were full, but since you're not, do you have anything in the 40's?" "So you don't know what site they're in?" At this point, there's a long, tense interaction in which I ask her to give me the wifi code that she's about to give me with my park map anyway, so I can get my phone online and look at the message sent by my "friend." She's not having it. I make a comment to the effect that many younger Rvers are connecting this way and it might do her good as a park manager to be aware of that. Okay, and I might have added a little part about many folks relying on park reviews and me hoping we could work this out so she could count on a positive one from me. But I follow up with a calm "Did we somehow get off on the wrong foot here?" [Continued in comments]

Seeeeeeeee???!! We're *really* friends!! #InstaMeet #littlecampgroundfriends #stilldontknowtheirlastname @mywifesadventure

The Queen Elsa photobomb is pretty great but so has our time been as neighbors to @mywifesadventure. Great family on a great adventure. #InstaMeet #fulltimefamilies #mobilevillage

@mywifesadventure's 180 lb third child, Sid. #dogsofinstagram #travelingdogsofinstagram #ithinkweregonnaneedabiggerRV

Yeah, you've got a lot in common with a gypsy. #notsotinyhome #prevost