Thursday, September 24th, 2026

Rise and shine at 3:00 AM for a 4:00 AM pick up to head to the airport. Eighteen out of twenty passengers flew out of Columbus. We met our last two passengers in Vancouver!

We left Columbus for Chicago and had a quick turn around for our flight to Vancouver. Our flights weren’t delayed and we arrived in Canada late morning. The Vancouver airport was beautiful.

After collecting our luggage we waited for our bus for the drive to our hotel. We were fortunate because our rooms were ready. We dropped our luggage and went to the Italian restaurant attached to our hotel for a delicious lunch/dinner! No meals were served on our four and a half hour flight from Chicago so we were very hungry and with the time change it was close to our dinner time.

Our hotel was located across the street from the BC Place. It was a multi-purpose stadium. It was the current home to the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League, Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer, Canada Sevens, part of the World Rugby Sevens Series and the BC Sports Hall of Fame.

We purchased Hop On Hop Off Tickets and walked to the closest stop to tour the city. It was a rainy afternoon and the bus was covered! It was a great way to see the city.

Located in the historic Gastown neighborhood was the Gastown Steam clock. It was built in 1977 by horologist Raymond Saunders. There were underneath steam pipes connected to a generating plant. This system provided heat to most of the downtown core and provided the steam for the whistles of the Gastown Steam Clock.

Once we finished the loop we had a good idea of how to spend our free day tomorrow!

We were exhausted from a long day of travel and sightseeing so we headed to our room to relax and then to sleep!