Pink rhododendron
We took the bus to UBC after lunch today. There is a bus stop not far away for here and a bus waiting at it, but not the bus we thought we should take. However the driver asked where we were going and said that he would transfer us to a stop where we could get the bus we wanted. We got on, and there weren’t a lot of others on the bus. We started talking to people, and the bus driver.
“I’ll tell you where to get off,” he said.
“Fine,” I said, “as long as you speak English.”
The man next to me asked if I was from England. “No,” I replied, “but the last city bus we were on was in Argentina, and we don’t speak much Spanish.”
We then had an interesting conversation with the passengers near us, and the bus driver, about chickens and goats on the South American buses (which of course there weren’t in Argentina.) The bus driver said that the trolley buses from Vancouver were sold to Buenos Aires.
We transferred to another bus which took us more quickly to the University. We then walked across campus about 1.5 km to the botanic gardens. I was surprised that there was an entry fee ($7 for seniors) because I’d looked on-line and could find nothing. It wasn’t unusual to pay a fee, but it was unexpected.
Skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanus)
The gardens are nice, and quite large. They are much less developed than the Van Dusen gardens, but there are large numbers of rhododendrons growing under the tall old cedar and Douglas Fir trees. We crossed under the road to a much more open part of the garden where they had many, many alpine flowers in rock gardens, as well as a section of native plants, an herb garden and a vegetable garden.
We missed the return express bus back by just a minute or so. We asked the driver of another bus that was waiting, and he said he went fairly close to Granville Island. He was very friendly towards us, telling us exactly where we should get off the bus, but he drove like a maniac, yelling at the other drivers, including the other bus drivers, and honking his horn when people didn’t make left turns into traffic fast enough!
After supper (which Geoffrey and Gerhard cooked for us tonight) we went to downtown Vancouver to the waterfront and to “Fly Over Canada” which is a movie where you sit in seats suspended out over the screen. It is fun as the seats tilt and turn giving you the impression of really flying over the scenery below you. We all enjoyed it, but thought it was much too short. After that we went to a restaurant, and all had decadent desserts — except for Enid who had a much healthier cup of tea.
I’ve also updated my entire picture collection, so you can see the latest ones from our trip here to Vancouver by going to http://ddice.dyndns.org/photos/collections01.php and looking for the 2014 pictures of Vancouver.