Whistler 2015 - Part 1

4/2015

Well, we have finished our second day in lovely Whistler, BC. It's Xander, me, high school buddy T and his kids E and K.  We are all in the living room of our condo watching "Guardians of the Galaxy". The kids might make it to the end of the movie but I doubt we old dudes will.

The trip up to Canada-land was mostly uneventful. This was my first post-9.11 border crossing so I had my new enhanced driver's license all ready to go. That and Xander's birth certificate. And a back-up certificate. 

T's crew all had actual passports so they were good.

Since T managed about 4 hours sleep the night before, I was driving. But real cool-like as we approached the border.

I happily handed out over the driver's license, birth certificate, and passports. I happily told the border guard our story of going to Whistler for 4 days. He seemed to buy it and then...

Just doing his job, he asked to see the children sitting in the 2nd and 3rd row of T's minivan. And that's when it all went south. 

Because I couldn't. get. the. #%¥#!. door. open. 

Tim couldn't. 

K couldn't. 

So the nice border guard had to decide whether we were the world's lamest child-knappers OR just too incompetent to be let into the country in charge of a vehicle. 

In the end he just walked over to the other side of the car, opened the passenger-side door and asked Xander and Co. if the the obviously very dumb men were their dads and for the love of God, where were your mothers?

The answers of Silverdale and Seattle seemed to be good enough. We went on our way.

Soon, we found our way into the lovely metropolis of Vancouver, BC. I had sort of imagined big, huge signs saying "Whistler Highway This Way!" but we saw nothing of the sort. Just a whole lotta bridges.

So T decided to consult the internet; specifically Google Maps. Which led us over about 13 rivers and through a seemingly endless procession of side-streets. 

But the Google voice sounded very authoritative so we followed her advice through Vancouver.

That is, until T checked his phone's data usage in the 16 minutes since we crossed the border. He had spent almost $100. 

Off with both our phones asap!

We made without much more internet usage. 

And have vowed to investigate this thing called "a map". It's probably like off-line version of Google Maps. But without the Google part.

It's a nice resort here at Whistler Village. Two-room suite. Small pool and hot tub the kids have been enjoying greatly. (And wi-fi for us cheapskates.)  Doesn't seem to be any snow about but we did see a lot of folks sporting skiing clothes. That was a good sign, wasn't it? 

Today, was all about skiing. I purchased a half day of ski lessons for the boy and myself. The Ts have years on the slopes so they didn't need to hang around us newbs. 

 Our instructor Sunna (from Sweden) was delightful and by the end of the morning, Xander was having a blast. He could turn, stop, go backwards and even manage microscopic jumps. Granted, this was all still the lower half of the peanut hill but he had a great time. In theory, we were both getting lessons but my long-dormant mad skillz, came back to me pretty quickly and I just skied solo. Pretty sure Sunna was happy to have me and all my terrible habits get out of Xander's sight. 

I did end up going up to the way, way, way top of the (peanut) hill twice. Got on a chair lift and everything. 

My first trip up, I didn't really know the procedure so I looked to my lift-mate to see what to do. English dude. I asked him questions during the long (3 min.) trip up to the "Learning" Run. Also mentioned I was a bit nervous about how this run would go. He had some sage words of advice:

When I fall down on my bottom, I get back up. 

Note the only visible snow is on our skis. There are runs with snow but not many and they are all at the half-way up the mountain point or higher. When X and I took gondola to the tip-top of Whistler in the afternoon, it looked plenty wintery and even was snowing a bit. 

We briefly considered doing the Peak to Peak gondola ride but Xander was not really comfortable with with the trip up the mountain; kept commenting on how thin that cable looked. How terribly, terribly, thin... 

Peak to Peak would have scarred him for life. 

We quit by mid-afternoon. We had all day passes and equipment rentals so we really should have stayed on the mountain longer but my feet were killing me. So I took physical comfort over wringing every ounce (whoops! gram) of value for our outrageously expensive costs. 

(Less said on that, the better.) 

The only other item of note is the Xander and I had a light lunch up there and I had something called a "Beaver Tail". Had I known our northern neighbors had such delicious cuisine, I would not have waited 23 years to return to this country. 

It is now Tuesday morning and Xander is happily sleeping in; elbow firmly pressed into my back. We have snow mobiling late this afternoon but nothing set before that. Might maybe go ice skating. Or just explore this huge Whistler Village. (Though Xander will probably start his day complaining about his sore leg muscles.) Maybe there is a beaver-tail restaurant somewhere nearby. I will keep you posted. 

As we say in this country, das vedonya, da svidunya 

Ciao! 

Brian