Cousins' Reunion '08 - Day 2

It's time for more pictures of our Seattle trip. Day 2 of the Cousins' Reunion we made our way across the border to Vancouver. For what else, but Dim Sum!!! They say that outside of Asia the best Chinese food can be found in Vancouver. And I'd have to agree that the food was pretty good. It's hard to compare Dim Sum, but the food was huge, lots of shrimp/prawn , and quite tasty. The cousins ordered 3 of almost everything, so needless to say we ate a lot.



Afterwards we went walking by the water.

Then we made our way to a place called Grouse Mountain (aka Grouse Grind) to do some "hiking". Now some of you who are more outdoors type people would probably have been more prepared than we were if you were told you were going hiking. But us being city folk were definitely not prepared for what was in store. To give you an idea this is the mountain we set out to hike. There was a gondola that could take you up and down the mountain for almost $40, but we decided to embrace the experience and go on foot.

And just in case you were having any doubts they made sure to put a nice big warning at the foot of the hiking trail to ward off the faint of heart. But being an adventurous group, and maybe a bit optimistic about the trail, we decided to forge ahead.
We hardly made it 5 minutes into the trail and we ran into a wolf! Well, actually a dog pretending to be a wolf...let's just say the owner was not amused. I guess he didn't appreciate that city folk are not used to nature. =)
But despite our initial scare we continued up the mountain.
There were several points along the way that we doubted if we could make it to the top, and wondered how we would make it back down, but once we hit the 1/2 way mark we decided there was no turning back. There were parts of the hike that were extremely steep...not quite the dirt path hiking trail that we were expecting.
But exactly 2 hours later we finally made it to the top!! Not much of a view with all the fog, but still satisfying to make it all the way to the end. Although someone mentioned later that we didn't actually make it all the way to the top. We only made it to the first checkpoint...Oh well, still a small victory for us.
And what a victory celebration we had at the top...
Then we took a happy gondola ride back down the mountain.
Here's the view on the way down. It was a bit like a slow moving roller coaster ride.

Despite the sweat and tears on the way up everyone had a good time, and of course we all swore that we would never go hiking again =)

On the way back from Grouse Mountain we stopped by a suspension bridge nearby. Some of us still a little tired from the hike.

There was a whole forest area filled with tiny suspension bridges among the treetops. The largest one was the first one we went across. It was very bouncy, which can be a little disconcerting at that height. But the view from the bridge was very nice. After Day 2 we drove back to Seattle to rest up for Day 3 - white water rafting!! Unfortunately, all of our white water rafting pictures were taken with a disposable camera which hasn't been developed yet. But there are some pictures of 4th of July fireworks, so check back again soon!