28 August 2026 – As in, by bus to Stanley Park and then the Lost Lagoon trail out to English Bay.

My bus is remarkably empty for the first couple of stops, and then whammo! it’s pulsing with the excitement of small children, shepherded aboard by their day-camp staff.

Off to Stanley Park!

Too many kiddies for complete back-of-bus seating, so the adults settle some up front. I watch, impressed and amused, as the they count and recount the children, remembering the YMCA day-camp assistant who once told me, “The idea is to bring back as many children as you take out. Preferably the same children.”

The arrangement works just fine until a couple of seniors and a mum with stroller come onboard. The front-section kiddies are told to move to the back. One little boy asks, “Why do we have to move?” Not angry, just puzzled. He is told, “We’ll talk about it when we get off. But, for now? Scoot.” He scoots.

This is what they’ll discuss.

I tap the young staffer close to me, tell her I’m impressed with their care for the children and also this impromptu lesson in good civic behaviour. Her face lights up: “They’re such a pleasure, these kids!” Lucky kids, I think, to have bright, conscientious and affectionate adults like this trio, to guide their outing.

I bail before they do, at the last pre-park stop, and then walk my walk into Stanley Park and onto the Lost Lagoon Trail. My first long view of the lagoon tells me that, despite this still being T-shirt weather, it is also the beginning of fall.

Green trees are turning lemony-green, as their chlorophyll begins to slide away.

Almost-fall images, everywhere I look.

Red among the sumach leaves…

bullrushes tall in the boggy foreshore…

and, at a trail head into the forest opposite…

a reminder of its vulnerability.

People are enjoying themselves: sitting, or wayfinding…

running hard, or slowly pushing a zimmer-frame, or power-walking.

Meanwhile, out in the water, a trio of ducks goes bottoms-ups.

They must have read their Ogden Nash.

Once past the far end of the lagoon, I look for the very rustic, very charming little footbridge that, in spring, is completely inaccessible. Marooned by seasonal high water, you’d need hip-waders to reach it.

Now? It’s just another footpath.

Moments later, I am exactly where the red dot tells me I am:

in the midst of the Second Beach offerings — playground, food stalls, bike racks, the heated outdoor swimming pool and, beyond that, the beach itself and English Bay.

I remember the kiddies on my bus, headed (so the staffer told me) for Second Beach, and then — having watched a young staffer adjudicate a small tiff among children under that tree — I do a double-take.

I recognize the logo on his STAFF shirt. These are indeed “my” kiddies.

It adds to my amusement, as I admire first the fresh-water heated pool…

and then the salt-water Real Thing just beyond.

I join the English Bay Seawall, and turn my feet toward English Bay Beach.

Marine life en route:

freighters mid-stream, Great Blue heron up close.

I expect freighters and a GBH or two, I do not expect a labyrinth.

But here it is. A pop-up installation, due surely to be washed away or kicked away or otherwise altered, and that’s fine too. Something else will emerge.

I emerge at English Bay Beach, where I walk up to Beach Avenue and look for the hot-dog vendor whose pitch this is. He’s here. Same Alberta beef but a new sign, one that makes a point of welcoming Euros.

I’m not sure how much to read into this, and decide… not to read anything into it.

A nod to the vendor, a nod to all that laughter in Morton Park, and I walk on down Denman, to find my bus for the ride back home.