The next morning, Sunday the 26th, we packed up in the rain. Everything got wet, including stuff that had something managed to stay merely damp after two days of rain. Ironically, campfires were still banned. I expect they’re waiting until the fire pits are literally puddles and we have to burn our logs down to the water line and no further.

We drove into town, from clouds and rain into sunshine and heat. We decided to check out the Telus World of Science. It was free, after all, with our Ontario Science Centre membership. The crowded parking lot was a frank impossibility with the trailer. There were Smart cars cruising the lanes jonesing for a few square metres of empty space. Instead, we parked a few blocks away on a side street. That was not advised, as we were to discover.

The World of Science on a weekend was Madness. Utter Chaos. Every horizontal surface was smeared with a thick layer of children. I have to confess that I don’t really like children, besides my own, all that much. Even they get on my nerves a lot of the time. I think I expect children to just be scaled down adults. Kid logic confuses me and the lack of social niceties in them drives me insane. I cannot explain why I thought it was a good idea to go to a science centre on a weekend.

Still, the World of Science had lots of good hands-on stuff for the kids. I spent a good 20 minutes talking shop with the gardener out in the demonstration garden, for example, and picked up some good ideas. We did pay a bit extra to see the IMAX dinosaur film. It turned out to be a badly-animated dinosaur movie narrated by Michael Douglas, of all people. I hearkened back to whatshisname, Harry Potter’s sidekick, narrating the astronomy flick at Science North in Sudbury. What’s with all the once-A-listers narrating science centre films? Is it the minimum wage equivalent for famous actors? Those Johnston Kids seemed engaged, but I fell asleep and woke with a start from a dream. I had imagined that I was driving and a large flesh-eating theropod had lumbered into the road. I had jerked the wheel to avoid it and woken myself up. I compared notes with Alison after the show to see what I had missed, but she had fallen asleep too. We stayed until all of our feet were numb and it was well past are planned departure time. That was okay though, because I don’t like to interrupt a good time, in much the same way that I don’t like to wake people that are sleeping.

Did I mention that entrance to the World of Science is free with your Ontario Science Centre Membership? You’re a member by now, aren’t you?

We shuffled back to the car. From a block away I could see that something was wrong. The hazard lights on the car were flashing, in the way they will when someone tries to open the doors when the alarm has been engaged. We rushed up with some trepidation, dreading finding a pool of glass beneath a broken window, our valuables stolen. Luckily, the car was intact and nothing appeared to be missing. Or so we thought. After carefully checking the inside of the car and finding everything undisturbed, I realized that our bikes were missing from the rear rack. Some reprobate had stolen Baby Girl’s and my bikes. Short Pants’ bike was still safe in the trailer. In our hurry to get to the World of Science, I had neglected to put a cable lock on the bikes, not that I think it would have made much difference.

It was annoying to have our bikes stolen, but not overmuch. They were just things, after all. I guess whoever took them needed them, or cash, more than we did. I don’t expect they’ll get much for my beat up mountain bike without a seat, or Baby Girl’s kid-size mountain bike from Canadian Tire. Stupid poor people. Always wanting to eat and stuff.

We got on the road, a bit lighter and wiser from our visit to Vancouver. It was way too late already and we wanted to stay in Lilloet that night.

Dinner was flaccid fish and chips from some roadside fish house with a rude counter person and a greatly overrated reputation for fish and chips. Big Daddy’s in Tofino was way better.

We did make Lilloet after dark (sigh) and crawled around town looking for a place to stay. We finally found a motel with RV parking up on the side of a hill overlooking town. It was probably a great view in daylight, but we just wanted some sleep.