Go West Young Man: Fraser River Valley

In the summer of 2010 I headed into the Fraser River Valley for the first time since I was a kid.  Rihanna was playing on Beat 94.5 Vancouver.  The first thing I noticed was how green everything was.  The sides of mountains were covered with ferns & plants of all types.  Water seemed to flow everywhere and the sky was heavily overcast.  To the right of me there was a very large river (Fraser River). 

It was at that very moment I knew THIS was home.  This was where I was supposed to live & this would be where I WOULD live. 

You enter the Lower Mainland just as you pass Hope, BC.  The road levels out & while you're still surrounded by mountains, the Trans Canada is quite flat.  You officially leave the mountains when you enter Chilliwack, a BC city of about 100,000 people.  While I love nature & I love the mountains, there was always a feeling of relief coming into Chilliwack.  It seemed to mark the end of a long journey & the rebirth of civilization.  No more was CBC Radio the only choice on your car radio (not that CBC is bad, I happen to like some of it). 

The Lower Mainland is endless miles of farms growing all types of produce.  It's also a pretty rainy area too.  Personally I found it refreshing after several years of bone dry Alberta summers & brown grass & gardens.  The Lower Mainland just feels alive.   You pass Abbotsford, Langley & in some cases you are only a few kilometers to the US border.  This my friends is "weed country" lol. 

Once you reach Surrey, BC, that's when Metro Vancouver really begins.  The traffic gets very heavy and seemed to be perpetually congested at the Port Mann Bridge.  Once over the Port Mann Bridge, you need to learn to drive like you're from Vancouver

What's that like?  Well for starters, folks in BC are environmentally friendly types & as such they have a permanent HOV lane.  Don't drive in this lane unless you have a full car or you're operating a city bus.  The city surrounds you, and if this is your first trip, you need to pay close attention to what you're doing.  The road changes quickly.  The Government of BC also takes a dim view of anyone using a cell phone while driving. 

When you reach East Hastings you exit the highway and head into downtown.  I'll go more into details about East Hastings & the neighborhoods of Vancouver as time passes. This blog is about Calgary and ostensibly the focus should be on life in Calgary, not Vancouver.