Vancouver and North Cascades National Park (aka Camping in a Terrarium)

We spent a couple of days exploring Vancouver before we left Canada.  A beautiful city, we had lots to chose from.  First on the list was Stanley Park, an urban park voted "the World's Best Urban Park" in 2013.

First - rent bicycles and circumnavigate the park!

View the famous Scuba Girl sculpture

And watch a cruise ship, roughly 3 times the size of "ours" pass under the Lions Gate Bridge

The Vancouver Aquarium was closed for the afternoon, but they were giving free 10 minute mini-tours!  We saw barking sea lions

Acrobatic porpoises

And beautiful Beluga whales

So, we departed our convenient but not quite so enticing campground in Vancouver (did I mention the highway billboard, just a few campsites away from ours?)

Here in the beautiful, wild North Cascade Mountains, only 125 miles from Vancouver, we are camping in a green paradise.

Green and lush, I feel like we're camping in a personal sized terrarium, filled with moss and flowers.

Smokey loves it - she is making the most of her sunny spot in the "wild"

This is the land of cascading waterfalls.  This waterfall is so tall that I had to take 4 photos so Luke could "stitch" them together into a vertical panorama.

Beautiful Diablo Lake, her waters the wonderful turquoise blue from the glacial silt.

The waters from the lake are dammed to provide electricity for Seattle.

The park is filled with 3 primary types of trees - Western Red Cedar, Douglas Fir, and Western Hemlock.  The Douglas Fir is the second tallest conifer in the world (only the Redwoods are taller).  The firs reach 200-250 feet, with diameters of 5-6 feet.  The Western Red Cedar ranges from 200-250 feet also, with 10-15 feet in trunk diameter, thicker and nearly as tall as the Douglas Fir.  They are amazing to see!

Here is the view from the end of our campsite - check out the trees and the "large" RV at the bottom of the picture!

Tomorrow, another day of exploring the park.  There are a lot of easy trails here, some of which leave from the campground.  We will go adventuring!