Seattle

That's the Peace Arch at the Canada/US border. Check out that traffic! We were in line for an hour to cross the border.

And there you have it; entrance to 'the land of the free'... or so they say.

Mount Baker, shot from the grounds of the music festival we went to. You can see this US mountain from most places in Vancouver too. Looks pretty cool I think.

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers were kind of a let-down sadly. Plus I was starving coz I couldn't stomach the disgusting festival food. I threw out an $US 8 chicken noodle dish after 1 bite.

Plus we had pretty poor lawn tickets so we spent our time in the beer garden. We missed seeing Wolfmother so we drank the night away. Or at least I would have if the $US 7 beers were any good. Not the best festival I've been to.

Ahh, Seattle. Home of Frasier (YAY!) and Starbucks (BOO!). It's a cool city and reminds me a lot of Melbourne actually. I've added it to the list of US cities to live in should the need arise.

The Seattle Space Needle. Remember it from the Frasier titles? Looks cool but just kinda sticks up out of nothing on the edge of the city.

The best bus poster I've ever seen!!! A picture of a cute little girl eating a RAT and the caption next to it said; "Kissing a smoker can be just as bad" AWESOME!!!!!

The famous Seattle fish markets. The guys here throw the fish to each other across the room and to the customers. Pretty cool show. People come to watch it even if they're not buying fish.

A cool little alley-way just like in Melbourne. Not sure what that woman sitting in the background is doing though :)

I found buildings similar to ones back home. This looks like the Masonic Centre building in Sydney (note the tapered base)

Federation Square anyone? I wonder who copied who?

Lots of American cars have 'ribbon' stickers on the back. A closer inspection reveals that many of them are about national pride or support for the troops or some other freaky, naive or war-related idea. Disturbing.

Left to right: 'Navy', 'Proud American', 'Land of the free because of the brave'. There is a strong anti-America culture in Canada and I must say I'm sitting firmly on that band-wagon myself. I love the people (generally) but what a messed up nation it is!

Galiano Island

That's Nicole's parent's trailer. Small but such a gorgeous location!

There's a great pebble beach 10 seconds from the trailer. Complete isolation.

What a great, relaxing view. The water was pretty cold though. This is Canada after all :)

That's a Turkey Vulture I stumbled across. This bird was about 4 feet tall!!! I thought it was a seal when I first saw it. Freaked me out.

It's the biggest bird I've ever seen. This was taken at full zoom with my camera. I was about 30 metres from it. There were bald eagles and hawks everywhere too.

We were treated to a gorgeous sunset over the water with the mountains in the background. The colours were spectacular.

That's Nicole standing on the beach just down from the trailer if you're wondering.

Breakfast the next morning. This was a seriously relaxing weekend :)

Grouse Grind

All smiles at the bottom and ready for the hike up the mountain. Little did we know... (that's Nicole's neighbour Megan on the right)

Apparently this is a killer climb!

Feeling fine so far... 2 minutes in.

Only 1/4 the way!!! That was a sad moment...

...because we were wrecked already. Ugh!!

1/2 way. Holy S@#$!!!!

Isaiah looked as wasted as I felt.

Just look at that damn hill!!! Thank god for the steps... sort of.

It just kept getting steeper too.

There were nice views on the way up though (when we found a break in the trees that is)

Isaiah and I climbed together. Nicole and Chad were ahead of us and Megan was WAY behind :)

Finally at the top an hour and 20 mins later!! Who's F!@#$%G idea was this hell-climb?

A sentiment shared by all I assure you! But very satisfying.

Great views of Vancouver. (The city is to the left out of shot)

There were sculptures littered all over the top.

A deer walked out right in front of us. Some stupid girl tried to walk up to touch it until we stopped her. It would have kicked her head clean off. Her mother just let her go for it too. Could have been worth it for the life lesson I guess :)

A view of the city as we came back down on the gondola. Van's a prety big city. About the size of Sydney with the population of Brisbane. Plenty of breathing space thank god.

It was a damn steep mountain to climb. Glad we took the gondola back down :)