We came to a slow start in our comfortable hotel room. Our early day on the 21st turned into a 10 AM emergence into the Whistler Village. We strolled through the Village, by daylight this time, looking for anything interesting. The ‘town’ looks like a quaint alpine village but is really a high-end open air mall. Those Johnston Kids and I immediately gravitated to a rock and gem store, where we found inexpensive pieces that were treasures to us. We are not mall people.

We thought that since we were in Whistler we ought to partake of some of the adventure activities that the town is famous for. We considered mountain biking, zip-lining, white water rafting, horseback riding, ATV riding, the mountaintop cable care, and hiking through the treetops. The cheapest option was the hiking, which would have cost the 4 of us about $130 for 2 hours. The next cheapest activity was about $260, and everything went up from there. After a long period of vacillation, we realized that we weren’t really prepared to get soaked in Whistler and left. Those Johnston Kids were disappointed, but they haven’t yet developed a cost-value organ.

We made hearty promises of further adventures to come, but they remained despondent until we reached Squamish and passed the Sea to Sky Gondola. A quick search online revealed that it was only $95 for a family pass. I u-turned as soon as it was marginally safe and zoomed back down the highway to the attraction. After buying tickets, Those Johnston Kids discovered a nifty playground at the bottom of the gondola. The two bridged structures were built around entire, hollowed out tree trunks with little hobbit doors built into them.  Adults need not apply. I felt like a giant.

We can whole-heartedly recommend the Gondola in Squamish. The ride up, or down, takes about 10 minutes, and the views are spectacular. At the top is a gift shop and a cafe, with a great open air patio overlooking the valley. Get seats near the railing if you can. The mountaintop has a number of easy trails leading to great lookouts. Along the way, interpretive stations tell you about the Indigenous Squamish people, their lifestyle, customs, and the significance of the mountains to them.

When we’ve visited historical sites, most of them have given the history of the place in colonial terms, starting the history with the arrival of Europeans, as if the place had been empty prior to being filled up with white people. I was very impressed that all the information along the trails was all from an Indigenous perspective and not yet another blinkered colonial history.

We hiked the easy trails, but I wanted to try something more challenging as well. I coaxed Those Johnston Kids into trying out the start of a back country trail that went along a ridge and further up the mountain. It was bribery, actually, as I promised them a cinnamon bun from the cafe when we came back down. Mama needed no coaxing, so we climbed up to 1006 metres, then came back down. I find that the kids always complain and need a bit of a nudge to try something more difficult, but are proud of what they achieve in the end.

I tried mightily, but I could not nudge them into skipping the gondola ride back down and hiking the descent instead. Mama and considered sending them down on the gondola on their own, with a note pinned to their jackets, but our better judgement prevailed. We rode the gondola down too. Sigh.

Vancouver is a great town to visit if you’re not driving. In a vehicle, however, the thing I find most striking about it’s traffic system is the really hellacious merges. They merge lanes like they’re trying to stab one road into another. Merges are also short, fast and brutal. Oftentimes, it’s multiple lane merges, where 3 lanes become 1, and other such nonsense. I hate driving in Vancouver. The only saving grace is that the traffic is so bad, that you can’t ever build up enough speed to get into a bad accident. We passed through as quickly as we could on our way to the ferry terminal.

I think ferries are cool, and Those Johnston Kids really seem to like the idea of a ferry, but once aboard the giant Tsawassen ferry, the amazing watercraft and the Pacific ocean were quickly trumped by a games room stocked with blurry, lo-rez games from the 90’s. When we vetoed that expenditure of their souvenir money, they resorted to watching a movie on Mama’s tablet. The ferry should put in a active playground, outside on the upper deck where the smokers huddle, and hang the smokers from a painter’s scaffold off the back of the ship.

It was dark by the time we found a campsite in Goldstream Provincial Park. I always feel stressed when we arrive somewhere late. It makes me feel like I’m a bad parent for not having food and shelter ready before sunset. It must be some sort of atavistic instinct. Those Johnston Kids remind me frequently that there is no bedtime on vacation. That policy has been less vigourously defended since Mama joined our expedition. She looks forward to bedtime and expects the rest of us to do the same.