Greetings from the Fairmont Vancouver Downtown (helloooo, Robson street!) where I have discovered the following in the last 18 hours or so:
- Even mild food poisoning sucks. Not sure how I got it, but I spent a large amount of last night in the beautifully appointed (if not small) WC in my hotel room.
- My ride packet wasn’t mailed to the friend-of-friend’s house here, which means my butt has to check in (in a line) at 5:30am (even though I did everything they told me to to get the packet early!)
- Everything I found on Robson street that I liked was either way too pricey or not my size. Except one thing, and I bought that. Yes, it’s black.
- No matter how well you list things out to pack, you will always forget something. This trip, it’s hair product…
- The multiple-Starbucks-on-a-corner phenomena does in fact extend to Vancouver
- The Hotel Fairmont is the bomb! 4 star hotel, 5-star bathroom products. Yes, it matters
- I get pissy even when I’m not the one driving in Vancouver traffic
- Jeff is a very, very patient person (he was the one driving)
- The route down is mostly flat except for a spectacularly hilly exchange shortly after Bellingham
- Up until yesterday, the weather predicted for the ride was sunny and 68 degrees. Now it’s rainy and 65, so I went and bought rain gear.
- Rain gear is not cheap
- They require you to have a bike bell even if you never, ever use it. I now own a bike bell.
- Rodgers cell service Canada politely informed me they will be charging me $15/mb while I’m up here, so… yeah no pictures or tweets from yours truly until I get back to the states.
Bobbie Conti 