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!

Travels to Canada: Too Much To Do!

I'm sitting here back in Whistler writing this second part of our Whistler adventure last weekend.  It seems kinda like a deja vu...but with Matt here.

Let me pick up where we left off...in Vancouver with a pair of dirty boxers hanging on the back of the bathroom door.

We were tired enough to fall asleep without too much thinking of what else may have been left unclean in the room.  Not that I haven't slept where its dirty before...camping...in third world countries...on the floor in the corner of an airport....but when you're paying for a clean room its sort of a different expectation.

Oh well.

The next morning the fought the crowds for a breakfast of rubber hard boiled eggs, some sort of meat sausage and a safety net of a fresh waffle.  We packed up, filled the tank with gas and grabbed some coffee before heading north to Whistler.

Once out of the city our conversation was something like this for the next hour and a half.

WOW!

Oh my gosh!

Look at that aqua water!

That mountain is gorgeous!

And so on and so on...

Here's a bit of what we saw:

We stopped at a little roadside town to explore cause it was just too darn cute to pass up the roadside wood carver, the mining museum and the "general store."

Back on the road we were getting close to Whistler...

We finally pulled into Whistler!

We found our hotel and promptly did what any mature adult women do when presented with a nice made bed.

Jump on it.

We got directions to the village ( just follow the chairlift down!) and headed into the Village.

Once in town we hit a jackpot. Amazing hats...granted they were kids' size but they were AWESOME!!!

After an out-of-this world dinner where I had the best gnocchi I've EVER tasted and had my first bite of veal (I've always had issues with the raising/slaughtering of them but this restaurant was an organic/free range/humane kill kind of one), we grabbed some snacks and sat in the village square to just people watch.

I love Charissa's expression here...and below...

We ended the evening as the sun set...kinda overwhelmed by how beautiful the place was and how much there was to do! How were we going to fit it in two half days?

Then I had an idea...

Travels to Canada: Bridges and Boxers

Last Friday night my best friend Charissa and her wonder-dog Roxi picked me up and we headed north.

To Canada.

Its what we do, we two.

We get in a car and drive. Usually no printed out directions, no GPS...we just figure it out!  We had originally planned to stay in Vancouver but 3 seconds after I saw a picture of Whistler I made the decision that was a much better place to spend the weekend.

We headed down the road toward the freeway, Roxi excitedly prancing around my lap as we headed off on our adventure.

On the way there I called 1-800-Whistler to book our reservation at a lodge in (duh) Whistler. I talked to the travel agent who had originally helped us, and to give them quick props they were awesome! The rate they got Charissa was $30 less per night than if I booked online! While I was in the midst of giving her Charissa's info, Roxi's name, yada yada, Roxi let out a silent-yet-deadly fart.

I tried to continue to read the credit card numbers, but had to pause to whisper what happened to Charissa. As she plugged her nose and her face turned red trying to hold in laughter, I continued to try to talk to the agent in a totally normal voice.

Which was totally impossible.

Do I sound like a valley girl? Like, totally.

After far too many pauses where I attempted to suppress my giggles I finally blurted out (rather uncouthly):

I'M SORRY BUT THE DOG JUST FARTED ON ME!!! BAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

And we were gone.  Ironically I had just bragged to the agent what a great dog Roxi was, so thankfully she joined in our laughter which was good because it took a minute to compose myself enough to finish reading off the credit card.

It was a good start to the trip.

As we pulled up to the border agent at around 10:00 that night she made no attempt to hide a massive yawn.  Taking our passports she glanced at them and asked the obligatory questions, completely and utterly annoyed with us for some reason. And the worst part was they don't stamp your passport anymore!
Boo!

Leaving Sour Sally behind we headed towards Vancouver.

Charissa had assumed her iPhone's GPS would work in Canada...but when we pulled it out to plug in our hotel address we got nothin'.  Hmmm...well I had looked (glanced) at a map before we left and knew if we stayed on the 99 it would go right by our hotel, so we'd call when we got close (we were staying in Vancouver that first night since 1) it was late and 2) the drive to Whistler was supposed to be pretty).

As we drove around we both got a kick out of not knowing entirely where we were going or how we were going to get there, but we were just enjoying the scenery. Cute little homes, bikers, late night walkers...we were taking Canada all in while making stupid jokes like, "Oh, I didn't know they had stoplights in Canadia, eh?" and "Oooh let's put some maple syrup on that now, eh?"

You know, mature stuff like that.

Fast forward 30 minutes and we were driving circles in the dark at some University campus. We had thought we followed signs for the 99 but all of the sudden our street dead ended so we took the northernly route (good guess, right?).

Hmmm...devoid of anyone to ask directions from, maps or GPS, or even the sun to get our general bearings we found an information center on the side of the road and were able to deduce the way out of that scholarly-like maze and get back to the main part of Vancouver.

Which we discovered is a big town.

Lights.  That's how we found downtown.  We followed the big buildings and the lights! And you know what? It WORKED! We found the 99 and too the route that said "99N to Whistler: Lion's Gate Bridge."

It being dark and all we thought we had crossed the bridge and pulled over in a park to call the hotel.  A very jolly Indian man answered the phone and Charissa asked for directions from the 99. I whispered "mention the Lion's Gate Bridge" to her and she did.

"OOOOOHHH!!!" he exclaimed, "the BREEDGE the BREEDGE !!! You are ON the BREEDGE ?"

"Uh," Charissa said trying not to laugh, "Yes."

"Are you in the MIDDLE of the BREEDGE ?"

"Did you go OVER the BREEDGE ?"

"Have you CROSSED the BREEDGE ?"

The man was entirely too enthusiastic about this bridge, yelling so loudly Charissa didn't need a speaker phone, and she managed something the affirmative while I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle giggles.

"O-KAY. You are on the BREEDGE ! YES? O-KAY. You go OVER the BREEDGE , yes? O-KAY.  You stay on the right inside, then the left inside at the end of the BREEDGE . O-KAY. Then AFTER the BREEDGE you get to CAPILANO and stay right. And a LEFT at CAPILANO. This is AFTER the BREEDGE ? O-KAY?"

This made no sense but we both could see that was the best we were going to get so we thanked him and told him we'd see him soon.

Hanging up we began to chuckle as we related how many times the man had said THE BRIDGE!!! What bridge? We wondered! Did we go over it? There was a section where we could kinda see water on both sides but it was nothin' to write home about! Heaven's sake!

We were still wondering why the man had been so excited about that particular landmark???

Then we rounded a corner.

OOOOOHHH we said in Unison.

THIS Bridge!

Photo by Clarke Photo...couldn't find any copyright so hope its okay!

This bridge was HUGE! I mean Golden-Gate proportions! No WONDER he was so excited about the dang blasted bridge! We somehow managed to figure out his directions and find ourselves at the North Vancouver Hotel.

By now it was getting closer to midnight and we were ready to crash. We met our jovial friend who was glad we had made it OVER the BRRRIDGE, Charissa paid an extra $25 for having Roxi with us and we walked into our room.

Which smelled like motel.  And not in a freshly-cleaned-good sort of way.  Oh well, we thought as we tossed our stuff on the beds, its only one night.

I headed to the bathroom and had just noticed the toilet was a bit rusty and dirty when I closed the door and saw...a pair of boxers hanging on the back of the door.

Uhhhh...Charissa? Are these your boxers?

I picked them up using as minimal finger area as possible and brought them out.

They weren't hers. They were the previous' travelers.

Ew.

After all that a drink sounded so good, so Charissa brought up some Coronas she had in our trunk. When we realized we didn't have a bottle opener.

Hmmm. I whipped out my trusty Buck knife and started prying away while Charissa...to the everlasting horror of all mothers....went to town with her teeth.

Maybe I'm a more difficult travel mate than I thought if she needed it that much...

Juuust kidding.  We eventually got our beers open, broke open some tortilla chips and settled in for the night, snuggling Roxi and all that good stuff.

Next up: Whistler!

I heart Canada

Pics soon to come, but just had to get it out there how gorgeous our trip to Whistler was! Holy moley no wonder they wanted to host the Olympics!

It was SO gorgeous and in our day and a half (not even that) there Charissa and i didn't even scratch the surface of all there was to do there! I actually convinced Matt to cancel our reservations in Leavenworth the following weekend because we're GOING BACK! And this time Matt gets to see it!

So far on our list is the Monkido ropes course, the Peak 2 Peak ride with hiking around both mountain tops, and eating lots and lots of really good food.

Cause the day I get back I'm going on a detox...oy.  But more on that later. For now I'll revel in the pictures and memories and get excited for this weekend!

Oh, and funny stories coming later, too...stay tuned.

Aprons from the Giggling Gourmet

*UPDATE: After realizing I wanted a shop name that would reflect a variety of craft items, and after a lot of help during the naming contest I'm now The Ruffled Owl. You can check out my Etsy store here and the blog here*

If you haven't headed over to The Giggling Gourmet The Ruffled Owl yet take a look! I think I may try to start selling a few of my aprons, and last night I posted pics of my lovely models Carol and Eleni on the Aprons For Sale page you can find just below the header.

hee hee hee I love this pic!

I don't have prices yet cause I'm still working out how much it actually costs me and how much time I spend on it (in between working full time, walking the dog, making dinner, doing laundry, cleaning up, trying to spend quality time with my hubby...yada yada yada).  Anyways, I really enjoy making these so why not do its some more!

Oh, and there's a few new posts on Thursday Farms about Contentment and Telling Your Money Where to Go and how we FINALLY paid off our credit card debt! Hallelujah!

So head on over and check it out!

Compelled

Yesterday evening we headed to church at the Mars Hill Bellevue campus. This is the Mars Hill pastored by Mark Driscoll (and not in any affiliation with Rob Bell), and though we've only managed to go sporadically due to Matt's work schedule, we really like it.  Pastor Mark doesn't really hold anything back, but speaks truth in love.

This was last nights' sermon and for some reason I just felt compelled to share it with you.  It is a full sermon so grab a cup of coffee and a Bible if you want and settle in.

I have to say I've never really paused on this portion of the scripture. After having gone through private Christian education from Kindergarten through graduating college, I feel like I've got a pretty thorough grasp on things. I'll never understand everything fully, but most sermons sound vaguely familiar and it irritates the heck out of me when its so elementary I feel I could have written that sermon in junior high. I'm done with baby bottles, where's the meat???

Well I got some meat last night. And thought I'd give you a taste.

Okay the embedded one isn't working, so here's the link:

http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/luke/jesus-before-all

You can watch it there or even download it to your ipod (or ipad or droid or whatever you have)