After just being at Bridal Falls for one week it was time to move again. Wait, did that just happen. One week and on the road again, it almost feels normal! We only moved one hour west but it was time to go “home” for a few weeks. Our home address is on 14B Avenue in Surrey. This is in a small community called Ocean Park nestled up against White Rock, BC. We are now stationed at Peace Arch RV Resort in Site E5 for the next 3 weeks.

It also felt a little normal because with all of our “adults” in our family bubble vaccinated with their first dose we could do some more socializing. This meant some backyard get-togethers at Bryan and Alexis’s place. We were joined there by Wayne and Grace as well (Alexis’s parents). We also got back into the habit of going for a nice bicycle ride, usually between 25 and 35 km amongst the rolling hills and then a nice outdoor work out.

An excursion with the Zehr family to Fort Langley turned into a nice 4 km walk along the Fraser River each way from the old fort to the location of the original fort. It was an old trading post of the Hudson Bay Company in the early 1800s. After the 8 km walk we went back to their place for some hamburgers on the barbeque.

Another getaway was a morning spent in Vancouver at Granville Island. Granville Island is a peninsula and shopping district in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located across False Creek from Downtown Vancouver under the south end of the Granville Street Bridge. The peninsula was once an industrial manufacturing area, but today it is a hotspot for Vancouver tourism and entertainment. It had been years since we have been there and it was fun just walking around the market, checking out some of the shops and just sitting and enjoying a coffee on the pier.

We entertained Danielle and Connor for an evening at our place. Some good conversation and food the evening went by too quickly.

With some scheduled maintenance to be done on our home and our motorcycles it was also good to be close to family. The motorcycles maintenance went seamless but the motorhome took a little longer then expected and we had to stay in “our bedroom” at 14B Ave for 2 nights. We had 4 new tires put on the back axle and a yearly oil and lube as well. What caused the problem was caused on the brakes and some parts that were ordered and shipped wrong. They did get fixed and we are now good to go again.

This time to the Vancouver area we final got to do the Grouse Grind. It is a hiking trail that goes up the side of Grouse Mountain. Some trail facts are that it is a one-way trail that is 2.9 km long, goes up 2,830 man made rustic steps and covers an elevation gain of 853 meters. It has been on our bucket list ever since we started coming West but for some reason we never had done it before. What an amazing feeling. What an amazing hike.

THEN, at the top is a grizzly bear habitat. They arrived as 8-month-old cubs in 2001, each under different circumstances. A truck on a highway near Bella Coola tragically hit Coola’s mum. A healthy female bear in her prime, she had come out of her den that year with three newborn cubs. Coola was the only one conservation officers were able to rescue. What happened to Grinder’s mum, nobody is quite sure. Grinder was found as a five-month old cub, wandering a logging road near Invermere. He was stumbling along, underweight, dehydrated and weak, when forestry workers spotted him. After ensuring that the mother wasn’t anywhere nearby, they took him straight to a nearby veterinary office and he was immediately put on an IV drip.
With no rehabilitation plan in place for grizzly bears at that time, most orphaned and found grizzly cubs would have been destroyed. This pair escaped that fate. Coola and Grinder will never be able to be released back into the wild, but observing them has brought a great insight into grizzly bear behavior and what could be done for future orphaned cubs. The 5.5 acre habitat provides the bears with space to roam, ponds to swim in and trees to sleep amongst. Although it contains plentiful berry bushes and other food sources, it doesn’t quite fulfill the needs of two fully grown grizzly bears. The wildlife rangers supplement their diet with apples, carrots, and the occasional salmon. Now, 20 years later they are thriving on their own mountain top.