Travels to Canada: Return to Whistler

What was my idea, you ask?

You must not have been reading all that closely!

Matt and I had originally planned to spend our Labor Day weekend in Leavenworth, a little Bavarian town about two hours away.

Why not, I thought, cancel our reservations there and come back to Whistler to bask in its beauty even longer?!

I called Matt and he was in...and that's how we found ourselves in Whistler one week later!

Charissa and my adventure came to a close as we found ourselves stuck in Vancouver traffic as she tried to get me to the train station on time for the last trip of the day back to Seattle.

Not only were we in traffic, but we got ourselves a bit lost...which when you have no GPS or map to figure things out turns out to be quite a challenge! Thankfully a nice gentleman helped point us in the right direction and I leaped out of the car, grabbing my bag without even giving Charissa a hug!

I sprinted to the counter where they printed out my ticket, then was told I had to fill out my declarations card before I could board. The lady who was the gatekeeper reluctantly let me in and acted like I had been late just to tick her off (we actually left early, thank goodness!).

I breezed through security and jumped on the train just a minute before we pulled out of the station...PHEW!!!

Then I had the misfortune of not only not getting a window seat, but sitting by an entire group of young men just back from a bachelor party....and all they wanted to do was rehash the whole trip.

Yuck.

Thank the Good Lord for headphones.

So the train ride wasn't quite as relaxing as I had hoped, but I did get one pretty picture from the dining car where I ate my microwaved mac 'n' cheese as slowly as possible to stay and enjoy the view.

Fast forward to last Friday and Matt and I were in the car for a late night drive to Canada.

The next morning Charissa decided to spend the day hiking around with Roxi while Matt and I did the one thing I had wanted to do...go to the top of the mountain.

If we had turned around and headed back to Seattle that very night it would have been worth that experience! Here's a few pics for y'all.

We took the glass bottom gondola from Blackcomb to Whistler...and I don't have a problem with heights but even my pals were a bit sweaty as we crossed the 1,427 feet above the valley between the mountains and went the 1.88 mile span of unsupported gondola travel (a world record!) YIKES!

We even saw two bears from up there, but I wasn't one to jostle to one side of the gondola for a picture like everyone else. I've seen enough bears.

This is looking back at Blackcomb

Once on Whistler we went inside the lodge and ate our lunch, then jumped on the lift to the very peak. I can't believe that parts of this are still ski runs! Looks more like suicide runs to me!

Looking to the west we noticed a nice dark storm moving in...hmmm...we might not want to take too long at the top!

We got to the top and WOW. I thought the views from Blackcomb were awesome but these were just awe-inspiring! It was super bright at first which made it hard to take decent pics, but here are my best tries...

that's Matt with his arms spread out...

It was a bit chilly at the top.  With the wind chill I'm guessing it was close to freezing.

We hustled off the peak before that storm could hit (I did not want to be in a chair lift with all that wind PLUS rain!). 

O Canada.

'Twas a bit windy.

We headed down the Whistler village gondola with a very talkative elderly Korean man who was born in Ontario but now lived in Las Vegas where the wind always blows. Oh yeah, we got the whole scoop.

Back in the Village I was famished from all the hiking (okay, walking...maybe it was the altitude?) but we were way too under dressed for our planned fancy pants dinner. We settled for a brew house (aptly named "Brewhouse") and ate beer wings, pizza and...of course...beer.  Not a five star experience but something about pizza after a day on the mountain hits the spot!

The next day we were all pretty sleepy so we decided to take it easy and just stroll around town. We waited way too long for a Splitz burger that didn't agree with neither Charissa nor Matt.  Then we just strolled around the village for a bit...

I think that hat's a bit small for you Matt

We all waddled back up the hill to the Upper Village to grab some veggies for our stay-at-home-dinner (HOW can you think about DINNER? Charissa asked), Charissa was offered a job working at a farm down the road by a man with abnormally long toenails, and then we headed back to our room where we lay in various states of repose for the next hour.

After a soak in the hot tub, Charissa and I decided to give ourselves facials.

She's going to kill me for this, but we had far too much fun with our peel-away masks and pore cleansing strips not to share our joy.

Or our silliness.

Charissa's peel off mask looked like Munch's painting The Scream

And trying not to smile wearing those pore strips proved impossible.

We eventually got ourselves together and Matt went down to grill up our steaks while I roasted some potatoes and steamed some broccoli.  We settled down with our dinners to watch Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

All I can say was that having a couple of beers helped the movie a bit...because other than that it just wasn't that good.  The White Queen irritated the heck out of me with the way she held her hands the whole time...I mean...was that Anne Hathaway's idea or was she directed that way? And I don't think Alice is supposed to be a 19 year old girl who keeps having to find a different wardrobe because she outgrows her clothes. I never thought I'd find the day when a Disney movie was truer to the book than other versions...

Enough ramblings for today.  Happy Rosh Hashanah!