Stanley Park Day Tripping

Today I loaded the twins and my Sweetheart into the family sedan and headed out to Stanley Park. And it turned out to be a great day for touring the park!

However, before we got to Stanley Park we stopped into the Vancouver Community College culinary arts retail outlet and picked ourselves up a couple of lunches to take with us. My Sweetheart got us a trout dinner and a cod dinner. We both agreed that the trout dinner was the superior meal.

We shared this meal between myself, my Sweetheart and the twins. We are now at the point where instead of buying two meals, we need to buy three because the girls eat so much of our food. The times they are a changin’.

At any rate, before we ate our picnic lunch we toured around the Stanley Park Rose Garden. We had a chance to chat with the people who maintain the gardens. When I asked a gardener what the pattern in the way that the flowers and cacti are planted, he just shrugged and said that they actually did not have any plan, it just turned out that way.

Another interesting fact that we found out from the gardeners was that all the edging and trimming is done with hand tools. No noisy two-stroke engines wailing away. A bonus for those seeking a little peaceful respite from the noises of the city.

After our trout lunch we headed out for a walk around the park. As we walked by the concession I got a sudden hankering for an ice cream sandwich. My Sweetheart headed up to the concession and then promptly returned to tell me to get over my hankering. Why?

$3.85 for a Klondike Cone? No thanks, so the next best thing is the wild blackberries growing next to the concession stand.

We feast on berries before walking over to the Theatre Under the Stars at Malkin Bowl.

The current performance is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. There was a rehearsal going on while I was walking by so I asked the Director (forgot to get her name…DOH!) if I could snap a picture for my blog. She said, “This is an all kids performance so you can’t. You would have to get every parent to sign a release to let you take a picture. Times have changed.” So no picture of the rehearsal. (Ironically if you go to the Theatre Under the Stars website you can see a picture of all the kids on the stage) I did get a picture of the three adults who were on more than willing to pose on stage.

I will have to get back down to the Theatre Under the Stars to see how the performance works out. The funniest thing during this picture/no picture exchange was the guy who was hosing the crow shit off the chairs. He was taken by surprise by me walking into the open air theatre and he took his job of walking me back out very seriously.

A great day for visiting Stanley Park. One last thing though, as we were driving out of Stanley Park my eye caught sight of the building  on the corner of Georgia Street just after Lost Lagoon. On one of the upper levels of that building in one of the suites, through the floor to ceiling windows you can see what looks like a white grand piano.

I remember the old weathered grey wooden building that used to sit on that corner. It housed a bicycle rental shop last I remember. Now it houses a grand piano. Yes, the times certainly have changed.