With the sun setting on Jean’s tourism passport (it expires April 30), we decided that it was high time to utilize every possible opportunity to visit the never-though-of sites for tourists around Vancouver. With me behind the wheel, we took a Saturday and stormed in for an early morning session at Maplewood Farm, the farm-esque petting land for yuppies and their obnoxious children.
I have such an affinity for pigs. Especially cute little softies like this one!
Jean splurged on a bag of feed for our new farm friends and got really friendly with some chickens. The chickens were selfish though – they don’t want anything to do with you unless you are willing to give them food to stuff in their faces. But frankly, chickens are gross and really, who wants to be friends with chickens? I only like them when they are cooked and on my plate.
By far, the grossest-looking creature on the farm was the turkey. He should kind of die. I mean, really, their purpose in life isn’t to be easy on the eyes – it’s to make a nice meal at Thanksgiving.
There was a little gated community that housed a bunch of screaming billy goats. Have you ever heard a goat scream? It’s the most creepy-ass sound you’ll ever hear. Just ask the people who videoed this.
I believe this is what shag carpeting is made from.
And…I have some sad news for planet earth – the antichrist has been born and he’s closer than we feared. The good news is he has been incarnated as a lowly donkey-type creature, and he seems to be confined to this little fenced area at Maplewood Farms.
It just gives you chills, doesn’t it?
After stomping around amongst the animals and the other animals (yuppies with their Lululemon-clad childrens), we headed up…wayy up to Britannia Beach, located on the picturesque Sea-to-Sky highway. What, pray-tell, brings us up to this little nook of nowhere? The BC Museum of Mining. Doesn’t sound exciting, but when you consider that you actually get to ride a trolley into the mine and hear the creepy (well, I thought they were creepy anyway) stories of another age, it becomes downright compelling. But before all that, we partook in a picnic at the local “park” (really a grassy patch with a picnic table.)
We got some sweet hard hats to wear and prepared ourselves for labouring in the dark pit.
Oh so chic.
Once our train conductor/driver came by, we make our way into the mine shaft. (Unfortunately all I had was my iPhone that day, so the pictures suck the big one.)
SO COOL! It was all cool and damp and drippy in there. There were weird ore juices running all over the place. We were shown how all the different drilling machines worked (along with some noisy demonstrations), how they used the toilet, how the place was illuminated. Ugh. So cool.
This was the processing facilities. Now they sometimes hold concerts here. I hope that they aren’t of the Nickelback variety. Ew.
Britannia Beach’s charms weren’t limited to the museum – no, they were dripping from each souvenir post across the street. What a charming little peculiar place.
I bought several of these Tshirts for my family for Christmas. Shhh, don’t tell. I’m so thoughtful.
We ended our day back in North Van at a restaurant called “Gambrinus”. Yeah, what? The only thing memorable was the name.
I’m going to miss these free adventures with Jean. We are already bracing ourselves for actually paying for things. Wtf, I know.
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