Our final full day in the Seattle area began when my photographer’s alarm rang at 6:00am on Monday July 14, 2025. I was anxious because the three of us were scheduled to head to the “Great White North” for a visit to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This adventure would mark my fourth different Canadian province; or if Donald John Trump had his way, the 47th state on my impressive list of accomplishments.
When we left our VRBO rental in Bellevue, Washington at 7:40am, the temperature was in the low 60s and the sky was partly cloudy, which were two things we hadn’t experienced in a while. Traffic was fairly heavy on I-5 North until we were out of the Seattle metropolitan area, but it lightened and remained normal for the remainder of the 115-mile journey to the International Border. Throughout most of that morning’s trip to Canada, I watched out the passenger window for a glimpse of a Sasquatch. But once again, I didn’t see any signs of the elusive beast. As a matter of fact, the only wildlife I saw during that entire two-hour drive were a few fields full of dairy cattle, and that wasn’t overly exciting.
At precisely 9:18am, Vicki drove from the state of Washington and into the province of British Columbia; and she did it without any delay or much questioning from the Border Services Officer on duty. As a matter of fact, the chap was very friendly; and after he found out we had driven all the way from Michigan, the officer welcomed us with opened arms into his country. Our only hope was for the return trip back into the U.S. would be as quick, efficient, and welcoming as what we had experienced getting into Canada.
Although we had safely crossed into Canada without any issues, we still had an hour-long drive before we made it to our first destination of the day – Stanley Park in Vancouver. At first, I was surprised Siri had predicted it would take an hour for us to reach the park from the border. But, as soon as Vicki got tangled in the mid-morning traffic in the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, I realized the GPS was once again correct. I figured we were in for a long day if we wanted to visit all of sights Tom had listed on his agenda.
During the three hours it had taken us to travel from the Emerald City to Vancity, the morning temperature had risen from the low 60s to the mid-80s and the cloud cover had nearly vanished. And just when my companions thought the previous day’s traffic in Seattle was the worst we would encounter on the trip, the quagmire of vehicles in downtown Vancouver gave Vicki’s patience the ultimate stress-test.
At precisely 10:30am, we finally arrived at Stanley Park, which was located on the northern half of Vancouver’s downtown peninsula. We had just driven out of a concrete jungle and into a massive 1,000-acre jungle of roughly a half million trees. To put Stanley Park’s size in perspective, it’s one-fifth larger than the 840-acre Central Park in New York City. While I didn’t know for sure if a Sasquatch had ever been reported in the park, I kept my eyes peeled for one anyway. You never know when a Bigfoot might be on the prowl for a wayward pic-i-nic basket.
The primary reason for our visit to Stanley Park wasn’t because it’s one of the main tourist attractions in Vancouver or where one of our favorite movies was filmed. Oh, hell to the no. It was due to the fact a section of the park featured a very historical Presidential site.
During his scheduled two-month-long ‘Voyage of Understanding’ tour, President Warren G. Harding left Alaska after a three-week visit and stopped in Vancouver on July 26, 1923 on his way back South towards the lower 48 states. When Harding and his wife Florence walked off the U.S.S. Henderson, which had docked at the city’s Pier A, he became the first sitting U.S. President to step foot on Canadian soil. A band played the Star-Spangled Banner as Harding disembarked the ship at eleven o’clock in the morning, while thousands of visitors had gathered near the pier to witness the historic event. No one was aware that President Harding was ill; seriously ill. Although the initial diagnosis was food poisoning when his doctor believed Harding had eaten tainted crab meat in Alaska, something much more life-threatening was lurking. The President pushed on, however, and he refused to cancel his scheduled speech at Stanley Park.
After being escorted by motorcade through the streets of Vancouver, Harding arrived at the Stanley Park Pavilion where he was greeted by a thunderous ovation. An estimated crowd of over 40,000 people had gathered on the grounds near the pavilion to hear Harding speak through a specially designed amplifying system.
As he looked out at the large crowd from the stage, which had been erected for the occasion on a scenic grassy slope near the pavilion, Harding spoke from his heart to the citizens of Vancouver. “You are not only our neighbor, but a very good neighbor, and we rejoice in your advancement and admire your independence no less sincerely than we value your friendship.”
Harding also talked about the unwavering peace between the United States and Canada, a peace that was potentially threatened by President Donald Trump 102 years later when he wholeheartedly suggested Canada become the 51st state.
On that historic day in 1923, President Harding stated, “What an object lesson of peace is shown today by our two countries to all the world. No grim-faced fortifications mark our frontiers, no huge battleships patrol our dividing waters, no stealthy spies lurk in our tranquil border hamlets. Only a scrap of paper, recording hardly more than a simple understanding, safe-guarding lives and properties on the Great Lakes, and only humble mile posts mark the inviolable boundary line for thousands of miles through farm and forest.”
A few minutes after Vicki had parked our Jeep behind the Stanley Park Pavilion, the three of us headed out on foot towards the area where Harding had spoken from, which had been designated by a huge monument. As Tom carried me along the concrete pathway towards the President Harding Memorial, I couldn’t help but notice the granite and bronze monument was nearly hidden from view by a fence which surrounded the property of the Malkin Bowl – an outdoor concert venue. And when we reached the actual site, it seemed obvious to me the Canadians were no longer proud of the historic event that had unfolded there on July 26, 1923. There was no pathway leading to the memorial. Instead, my photographer and his wife were forced to hike on uneven ground and alongside a fence before the three of us had a good look at the spot where President Harding had delivered his historic speech.
The President Harding Memorial was dedicated on September 16, 1925, and it featured symbolic American and Canadian figures sandwiched between parts of Harding’s speech that were etched into the granite monument. It also looked as though there was once a small reflecting pool at the base of the figures, but on the day of our visit, that reservoir was dry. And that didn’t come as a surprise to me because it seemed as though the memorial had been neglected for some time – at least since 1996 when the memorial was transformed into a movie prop for the film Happy Gilmore.
After Vicki climbed into the empty reflecting pool and placed me onto the memorial, I envisioned President Harding as he gazed out at the 40,000 people who had made the pilgrimage to Stanley Park to hear him speak. But as hard as I tried to focus on the President, who in 1923 was growing increasingly closer to death with each breath he took, my attention suddenly turned to Happy Gilmore. That’s right – Gilmore, along with his girlfriend/tournament director Virginia Venit, arrived at the site just prior to the start of the Tour Championship where they paid tribute to the memory of Happy’s deceased mentor and professional golf legend Chubbs Peterson. It was also during that moment when Gilmore’s rival, Shooter McGavin, said to the pair, “I’m dedicating my performance at the Tour Championship to Chubbs’ memory.” A heated exchange between the two golfers followed, and it all happened directly in front of the President Harding Memorial.
For roughly twenty-five minutes, I stood at the site where our 29th President delivered his historic speech at Stanley Park. And during my time at the memorial, I also thought about Chubbs Peterson as well. I wish I could’ve shaken Chubbs’ wooden prosthetic hand or perhaps dedicated my visit to Chubbs’ memory.
But there was another Happy Gilmore film site at Stanley Park, and it was only an eight-iron shot from the memorial. The first tee of the movie’s Tour Championship tournament was filmed directly in front of the pavilion building and Tom wanted me to pose where Happy Gilmore carried out his patented hockey-style slapshot drive. While Adam Sandler’s character drove his first tee shot of the tournament onto the green of the 406-yard Par 4 hole, there in fact was no golf course there. The only golf course anywhere close to us was the Stanley Park Pitch and Putt, and that was on the opposite side of Lost Lagoon from the pavilion.
My photographer placed me down in front of the pavilion where I stood on a grassy area in the middle of the Stanley Park Rock Garden. The building behind me, which was constructed in 1911, looked like a Swiss chalet. It was hard to imagine Happy Gilmore standing in front of the same building as the “Golf Ball Whacker Guy” sent his tee shot towards the hole. That’s because there was no fairway or green in the distance. But it was very easy, however, for me to envision President Warren G. Harding as he arrived for his historic speech on July 26, 1923.
When the three of us returned to the Jeep at 11:20am, I thought our visit to Stanley Park was over and we’d be heading into downtown Vancouver to see some of the other sites. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, Tom axed his wife to drive the Jeep Eastward along Stanley Park Drive because he wanted to visit one of the most famous attractions in the park – the Stanley Park totem poles. From there, my photographer also wanted to get an unobstructed view of Vancouver Harbour, which is spelled Harbor in the Good Ol’ USA. It was from Vancouver Harbour where President Harding got his final glimpse of the Canadian city before he departed for Seattle, Washington aboard the U.S.S. Henderson at ten o’clock in the evening of July 26, 1923.
The journey along Stanley Park Drive was peaceful and tranquil, although Vicki was forced to keep an eye out for the numerous bicyclists riding on the paved roadway. For most of the five-mile drive to the totem poles, I kept my eyes fixated towards the dense woods on the North side of the road. I knew at any moment, a large Sasquatch would leap out from the trees and run across the road. Unfortunately, the only Squatch-like critter I saw was a large Canadian woman who shouldn’t have been wearing biking shorts or a tank top.
There was a large parking area near the section of the park where the totem poles were located. As it was with all of the parking areas in Stanley Park, there was a fee to leave our vehicle in the designated lot while we scoped-out the attraction.
Tom carried me along a path until some of the nine tall totem poles came into view. While I posed for a few photos near the ornately carved and painted poles, which were put in place to honor the area’s original inhabitants, I was less than awestruck. I listened as other tourists raved on about how interesting and amazing the face-painted “telephone poles” were. They were amazing, alright – but in my mind, only if one was carved to look like the band KISS.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always thought, and I imagine my photographer believes the same thing, we should honor and pay tribute to the indigenous people who once inhabited the area. After all, it’s likely those native people were ripped off by European settlers who invaded their land. But since the poles in front of me were replicas, and carved between the 1960s and 1990s, they seemed like hokey tourist attractions rather than historic artifacts. As a matter of fact, I was surprised there wasn’t a souvenir stand near the site which sold Chinese-made peace pipes and head dresses to the crowd of naive visitors.
When the three of us left the totem pole area, I shook my head in wonderment. During the ten minutes we were in the vicinity of the nine poles, dozens of visitors had come and gone – and it seemed that most of them thought they just saw one of the Seven Wonders of the World. In comparison, not one tourist came to the President Harding Memorial during the twenty-five minutes we were there, and that monument was located on a historically significant site.
Instead of immediately returning to the Jeep, my companions and I went across the street to admire Vancouver Harbour and the skyline of downtown Vancouver. The view was good, although the skyline was nothing spectacular. As a matter of fact, the only thing that kept it from being a lackluster experience was when Tom mentioned the U.S.S. Henderson, which transported President Harding to and from Vancouver, had traversed those same waters on July 26, 1923. That made me wonder how much the city had changed over the past 102 years.
Back on the road, Vicki navigated the Jeep along Stanley Park Drive where my companions kept looking for a breath-taking scenic spot – but that never happened. There seemed to be a lot of traffic on that road, both vehicular and bicycle. But as we circled the entire park, Tom and his wife knew the traffic paled in comparison to what the three of us were about to face.
In 1923, when President Warren G. Harding had finished his speech at Stanley Park, he was transported by motorcade into downtown Vancouver where he attended a luncheon at Hotel Vancouver. Cheering crowds had lined the street as the procession made its way slowly along West Georgia Street towards the large 15-story hotel. After the President’s vehicle stopped in front of Hotel Vancouver and Harding went into the lobby, hundreds of people crammed their way through the doors just to get a glimpse of the American President. Moments later, he disappeared into a large ballroom where a luncheon was being held in his honor.
Our journey along West Georgia Street was slow as well, but not because thousands of people had lined the street to see me – the most famous bobble head in the free world. It was because the noon-time traffic was horrible, and finding a parking spot near Hotel Vancouver would prove to be a challenge, especially with all of the one-way streets. After Vicki circled the hotel a couple of times like a buzzard in search of some fresh roadkill, she got lucky and found a spot along Hornby Street, which was less than a block from the historic Hotel Vancouver.
While Tom carried me along the sidewalk towards the hotel, I knew it was a struggle because the early afternoon temperature was already past 90 degrees. Even though we weren’t in San Francisco, I was worried my photographer would get inside the hotel where President Harding dined and keel over himself. After our 29th President had left Vancouver, he died one week later at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on August 2, 1923 at the age of 57. My chunky camera guy was knocking on the door of 69 years old, and he pops his regiment of blood pressure pills as though they were Tic Tacs.
I posed for a couple of photos near the exterior of what’s now the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver before the three of us went into the hotel’s lobby. There wasn’t a large crowd of people lining the sidewalk or cheering as I was carried through the front doors. And the lobby was void of enthusiastic Canadians as well – although I did notice a short guy named Marvin who stared at me as though I had just winked at his wife.
Perhaps the lack of enthusiasm in and around the building was due to the fact this Hotel Vancouver had opened its doors in 1939, which was sixteen years after President Harding had died. The historic hotel that played host to President Harding was originally constructed in 1916 on the same site but was demolished in 1939 to make room for a more modern and larger building, which became the tallest building in Vancouver. Even though Warren G. Harding never stepped foot in the same hotel, it was visited in the past by some famous people, including Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger, and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
It was easy for me to envision President Harding and his entourage as they walked through the lobby in 1923. In my mind’s eye, I looked at the President’s careworn face as he slowly made his way past me towards the ballroom. My resin heart ached in sadness because I knew Harding had only one week left to live, and yet he courageously pressed on so he wouldn’t disappoint anyone. Over 600 guests attended the luncheon held in the President’s honor, highlighted with a speech delivered by Canadian Prime Minister John Oliver. When the festivities in the hotel had concluded, Harding was whisked away to the Shaughnessy Heights Golf Club where he attempted to play a round of golf – a round that was cut short due to the President’s physical exhaustion.
When my photographer carried me through the hotel doors Harding had exited 102 years earlier, we weren’t headed for the golf course. Instead, my hungry friend was in search of lunch – and that search ended when the three of us walked a few hundred feet past the Jeep and into a place called Earl’s Test Kitchen. There were two reasons Tom had chosen that restaurant. First, it had the same name as his good friend, Earl McCartney, who was back in Michigan. And second, my exhausted photographer didn’t have to walk very far to get there. But as close as it was, Tom was concerned about the place being called a “Test Kitchen” and feared he might be treated like a fat Guinea pig.
It was about 2:40pm when lunch was finished and the three of us headed out into the heat and back down the street to the Jeep, which only had three minutes left on the parking meter. Although we had visited all of the Presidential sites on Tom’s agenda, I heard him say we still had a handful of Happy Gilmore film locations left to see in British Columbia. At the same time, my photographer was concerned because the three different golf courses used in the movie were a good distance from downtown Vancouver. It was getting late in the day, and we were three hours away from our place in Bellevue.
As my goofy camera guy punched-in the next coordinates into his Siri GPS device, I heard him recite a little ditty, and this one wasn’t about Jack and Diane – two American kids growin’ up in the heartland. Instead, this off-the-cuff and whimsical verse provided a clue as to our next destination, and I couldn’t wait to get there.
“Over the Creek and into the hood, to Grandma’s house we go. It was a twelve-minute drive to where the movie came alive, and where Happy drove a ball for some dough.”
Just after Vicki parked the Jeep along West 19th Avenue on the South side of Vancouver, the three-story Queen Anne-style house in front of me looked very familiar. Even though I didn’t see anyone driving a golf ball from the front yard, I knew I had seen that house before. Sure enough, that huge mansion, which was built in 1912, turned out to be Grandma’s House from the movie Happy Gilmore.
My photographer’s wife stayed in the vehicle while Tom carried me up onto the sidewalk in front of the famous home. Vicki was glued to her phone as her grandson’s baseball game was about to start on Game Changer. For once, Tom and I didn’t go any further than the public sidewalk because the home was a private residence and we never like to trespass – especially in a foreign country.
But as I stood on the sidewalk and posed with the house behind me, it was easy to envision Happy Gilmore as he took his first swing of a golf club to drive a ball over four hundred yards. Although the iconic home had been painted a different shade of gray since the 1996 movie was released, it was still the same place Happy’s grandfather had built with his own hands and Shooter McGavin had purchased at auction after Grandma didn’t pay her taxes. When Gilmore threatened McGavin in the front yard, the antagonist said, “You lay another finger on me, I burn the house down and piss on the ashes.”
Of all the places in and around Vancouver where the movie Happy Gilmore was filmed, there was no doubt in my mind that Grandma’s House was the crème de la crème. It was the site where hockey player Gilmore drove his first golf ball. The home was in foreclosure for back taxes and the reason Happy joined the Pro Tour. Grandma’s House was purchased at auction by Shooter McGavin, who threatened to burn it down unless Happy quit the tour. And it was the place Gilmore returned to with his grandmother immediately after he won the Club Championship. Other than a change to the exterior paint scheme, as well as the landscaping around the house, the Queen Anne-style home looked exactly as it did in the 1996 movie. And although the stylish home was built in 1912 along West 19th Avenue in Vancouver and not in Waterbury, Connecticut, it was likely not built by the hands of Happy Gilmore’s grandfather either.
Tom and I left Grandma’s House with a smile on our faces, and when we returned to the Jeep where Vicki was waiting for us, she had a smile on her face, too. That’s because my companions’ grandson, Bo Watson, was pitching in his first Little League All-Star Game back in Michigan. During our entire photoshoot, which lasted less than ten minutes, my photographer’s wife watched Bo as he toed the slab on Game Changer. And during our three-mile journey to the next site, Tom volunteered to be the play-by-play broadcaster to keep his wife from gazing at her phone instead of the road.
When we arrived in the Mt. Pleasant area of Vancouver at roughly 3:20pm, I heard my photographer tell his wife this would be the last site of the day before we headed back towards the Seattle area. I knew this movie location would pale in comparison to Grandma’s House, even though the large brick building down the street from where Vicki parked our Jeep did serve as Happy’s apartment in the movie. I couldn’t wait to put my ear up to the exterior intercom system near the front entrance and hear Happy Gilmore’s voice sing ‘Kiss You All Over’ while I thought about his girlfriend Terry.
But when Tom had me pose in front of the Quebec Manor complex, I was left underwhelmed and perplexed. Although the exterior of the large building looked exactly like it did in the movie, there was no intercom system near the front entrance. It was gone, just like Terry. There was no “smoochy-moochy, kissy wissy”; and we were definitely not going to wait “till the night closes in” before something happened.
Terry may have been accused by Gilmore of being a lousy kindergarten teacher because her student’s finger paintings “sucked”, but that didn’t mean our time visiting the handful of Happy Gilmore movie sites in Vancouver could be described the same way. Ah contraire, which is Canadian for oh contraire. And although there were a handful of Happy Gilmore movie locations left on Tom’s agenda, our stay in Vancouver was finished. We had a long drive ahead of us – longer than a Happy Gilmore 1-Wood drive off the tee.
Traffic was moderate under clear skies during our 31-mile drive South to the International Border. And since my elderly companions didn’t look like prototypical terrorists, I figured we would get through American Customs quickly and without any problems.
Then I saw it – I saw a lighted informational sign roughly ten miles from the border. I figured there must’ve been a mistake because I thought the sign stated there was about a one hour wait at the border to get into the United States. How could that be? Was there that many Canadians leaving while the gettin’ was good? Or was the delay because certain individuals entering the U.S. were being subjected to the “rubber-glove treatment”. If that was the case, my only hope was we’d have a small-fingered Customs and Border Protection officer when it was our turn to get into our own country.
A little over a half mile North of the U.S./Canada border, vehicles in both lanes of the Vancouver-Blaine Highway had come to a stand-still. The damned sign I saw ten miles earlier was right. The sad thing was, it was five o’clock in the afternoon and there wasn’t one thing any of us could do about it. Oh, my photographer tried; even though his verbal rants about Donald Trump’s border policies fell on deaf ears.
Thankfully, we had our Sirius XM radio, which helped pass the time and kept the three of us entertained with songs from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I wanted to hear ‘Dominique’, and I knew Tom did as well. But I knew if Vicki would’ve heard one note from the Singing Nun’s voice, she may have jumped out of the Jeep and ran for the border without us.
After what seemed to be an eternity, we crept past the Peace Arch Monument, which was dedicated in 1921 and marked the United States-Canada border. The 67-foot-tall monument looked impressive, and at one-mile-per-hour, we had a great view of the white arch for quite some time. And due to our excessive speed, I also caught a good glimpse at one of the original four-foot-tall granite obelisks that marked the International Border. We were back in the Good Ole U.S.A. – where kilometers turned into miles; where liters once again became gallons; where the red maple leaf was replaced with the stars and stripes; and back to the land where dead Presidents graced the currency instead of the Queen of England’s mug plastered all over the loonies, toonies, and paper Monopoly money.
Just as we were about five vehicles away from “rubber-glove time”, I saw what might have been holding up traffic at the U.S. Port of Entry. I noticed an undocumented migrant riding incognito on top of a Dodge Grand Caravan – and who knows how many others had tried to sneak into our country before that one.
Sixty-five minutes after we got in line, it was our turn to be interrogated by the CBP Officer – who ironically was wearing blue latex gloves. I didn’t know what was going through Tom and Vicki’s minds, but I know my resin butt hole was slammed shut and marked ‘Exit Only’. After the officer checked my companions’ identification, which was their enhanced drivers’ licenses, he asked three or four questions before he said with a smile, “Welcome Home”. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I didn’t hear the words, “Bend Over”. The entire ordeal lasted less than sixty seconds. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, and we were headed South along Interstate 5.
Two hours later, after an uneventful ride from the border to Bellevue, Washington, my photographer’s wife pulled into the driveway of our VRBO rental at 7:20pm. We had been gone for almost twelve hours, yet it didn’t seem as though we saw very many great sites. To me, the city of Vancouver was a bit underwhelming. I expected to see the Crown Jewel of Pacific Canada, but it turned out to be nothing special – just a lot of people, a lot of traffic, and some big buildings. I did, however, feel a lot safer and more comfortable walking around Vancouver, especially when compared with some of the West Coast cities in America such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Unfortunately, that’s the sad and dark reality of our crime-filled Left Coast.
Once inside, as I stood on the dining room table and watched my photographer gulp down some cantaloupe and watermelon he had purchased the previous day, I thought about how lucky we are as Americans to have such great neighbors like the Canadians. Not only do we share the world’s longest international land border with Canada, that border is also not militarily defended – and that’s rare during these turbulent times all around the globe.
At roughly nine o’clock, Tom crawled into the low-riding bed for the final night of our stay in Bellevue. I was once again left alone in the darkness with my thoughts, and it was hard not to think about different scenes from the movie Happy Gilmore. But then it got weird when I envisioned Happy singing, “I want to kiss you all over, and over again. I want to kiss you all over, till the night closes in.”
In the end, I guess that was better than hearing a happy Border Patrol Officer singing, “I want you to search you all over, and over again. Now I’ll bend you all over, till my finger closes in.”
With that, my mind went blank, and everything faded to black while the night closes in!
