Stanley Park in Vancouver

Our first morning of vacation we decided to go to Stanley Park in Vancouver to walk around some and explore.  It is a beautiful park that is huge and hard to navigate at times, if you don't know where you are going.  We started at the end of the park close to Lions Gate Bridge and walked around there to get to the seawall.  We then walked along the seawall for a little while before heading back to our car and driving to the other side of the park.  On the other side of the park we did a walk around Lost Lagoon lake and saw a bunch of wildlife.  We saw a "herd of geese" (the way my dad describes them and you can look at the pictures to see why), a raccoon, a blue heron, a swan, lots of bumblebees and other birds.  Alden thought it was neat that he got to see all those animals!

At the end we decided to let Alden go run around and play on the playground before we went to go find lunch.  Alden was really glad he got some park time and then we were all ready for lunch by the time we left the park.  We had a great time exploring Stanley Park and I still don't feel like I even saw a quarter of what is there.  It is definitely a park I wouldn't mind exploring more.

 

Looking back at North Vancouver where our hotel was located.

Alden got to climb lots of stairs here at the beginning and he thought that was pretty cool.

Grandma and Alden standing in the tree together and then looking at the underside of Lions Gate Bridge.  These pictures were taken on our "walk" to find to the seawall.  We didn't really know where we were going and ended up taking some pretty steep switch backs to get down to the seawall.

We finally made it to the seawall.

This trail is 9km long and goes around the entire park.  We only did a very short portion of the trail.

Alden was very happy to be near the water, and even more happy when people handed him rocks to throw in.

Alden loved finding big leaves or trees that he could hide inside.

This was our walk on the other side of the park near Lost Lagoon Lake.

It was a very pretty walk that I appreciated being stroller friendly.

This is the "herd of geese" as my Dad describes them.  They just sit on and next to the trail and slowly walk out of your way when you come through.  They don't really fly anywhere it seems.

This picture was not zoomed in.  These geese really did not care that we were walking right next to them.

Alden thought that it was cool that he got to see so many geese up close.

There were some very pretty and interesting plants along our walk.

This was the raccoon that we saw.  We made sure to keep plenty of distance between us and him.

I am pretty sure this is a Blue Heron but if I am wrong someone is welcome to correct me.  It was a neat bird to get to see close up.

There were also a few swans swimming around in the lake.

These were taken as we were walking through the rose and flower garden.

This is the picture that shows how many bumblebees I found in the garden.

Alden had so much fun running around and playing here.

 

He tried to figure out the digger toy again.  He still has not mastered it.

This was where we had lunch.  It was a little sandwich shop that was very good but I also loved the fact that they had cartoons on that entertained Alden the whole time! It was nice to have a yummy lunch break before we were on to our next stop.