OK…I finally got seriously hurt playing softball.
And by “seriously” I mean I had to be helped from the field and couldn’t play (well) any longer. Apparently, I tore my hamstring on my left leg and walking became a challenge. I decided not to take pictures of the nasty bruising…I would just want to post it here anyway. Consider yourselves lucky.
I’m on the mend, but no softball until fall…which is a bummer for me. I’m in the midst of physical therapy and get beat up a bit every Tuesday and Thursday, but it’s helping.
On Saturday we planned to make the short trek up to Whistler and take in some mountain ranges and glorious views. When we set out in the morning, Kayla and I both thought this would be a short trip. We’d run up to the village, eat some lunch and go to the peak. I figured we’d be back in the early afternoon. It almost worked out like that.
The Whistler area will be one of the main venues for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics. From what I read on the web, it’s a beautiful, tree covered mountain that is charming in every way. I would say it lives up to that too. The only thing that we found when we were driving up is the road construction was crazy (and this is a Central Texas resident 
talking/typing). Because of the aforementioned Olympic event, the roads had to be expanded. This made the (approximately) 120 KM trip take nearly 2 hours. We stopped in Squamish for a coffee on the way. For the last half hour, we were stuck behind a long line of cars being held up by 2 motorcycle riders. We couldn’t pass as construction limited the lanes available.
When we arrived, we found that the only way to get to Whistler Peak was to take the gondola ride. However, you couldn’t purchase just the gondola ride to Whistler Peak without getting the Peak 2 Peak ride as well (the second “peak” being Blackcomb) . All told, that would be $42 CDN a person. My inner bargain hunter winced, but I thought it would be a shame not to go (and we had driven all that way).
We had a light lunch at Earl’s Restaurant and moved the car to longer term parking so we could go buy our tickets.
As we approached the ticket counter, we were approached by a man in shorts and a t-shirt that offered us his tickets at a discounted rate. My inner bargain hunter fought with my cynical side and the bargain hunter won. He waited in line with us so we would be assured the tickets were legit. After about 10 minutes , we were headed up to the peak.
We took a ton of pictures, but suffice it to say that it was an awesome site. The weather was clear and the temperatures were in the lower 60s. Perfect for walking around on a mountain. When we finished looking around on Whistler, we decided to board the Peak 2 Peak gondola to Blackcomb Peak.
Now, I’m not especially afraid of heights, but I have to admit this ride was a
little uncomfortable. The design of the cable system is scientifically sound, I’m sure. It just looked like a tragedy waiting to happen. Maybe I tried something similar and on a smaller scale in my childhood that resulted in painful head trauma…I don’t know.
At any rate, the ride turned out fine. Blackcomb was also beautiful. Kayla played in the snow and we soon decided to start the ride back to Vancouver.
After all the walking and driving, we decided to be bums on Saturday night. We walked over to Safeway and got Chinese food from their buffet ($1.29 CDN per 100g) and a container of chocolate chip cookies. We suffered through some crappy Canadian basic cable and called it a night.
Today is our last full day here. We’re going to try to eat at “The Keg” and make it to Stanley Park before the day is done. We’ll also have to clean up the condo and pack.
The long painful adjustment to Central Daylight Time starts tomorrow.
The lesson for yesterday is to do extensive research when planning a day trip in a foreign country (albeit Canada). I thought that I had, but apparently not deep enough.
So Kayla and I decided we’d go to Victoria (the British Columbia Capital). It seemed fairly straight forward enough. There was a ferry that left Vancouver that took you to Victoria for a reasonable price. We would walk around Victoria, take some pictures, get some food and come back in the evening.
The first thing learned was that maps that have insets can warp your sense of scale. When we woke up on Friday, we figured it would take something like 15 minutes to get from our condo to the ferry. The Thrifty Car Rental map has a decent map of Vancouver with an inset of downtown (where we’re staying). The 15 minute estimate turned into about 45 minutes. Oh well…we caught the next scheduled ferry.
A word about the BC Ferries…nice. The boats we took were very comfortable with a lot of amenities. We took the Coastal Celebration to Victoria and the Spirit of British Columbia on the way back (we had to run up the ramp to catch this one). The ride takes about 95 minutes each way, and you hardly notice it takes that long. On the way to Victoria we ate breakfast at the cafeteria near the back of the boat. Not a sandwich or a granola bar either…eggs and bacon. Each boat had multiple eating establishments, comfortable seats, televisions, a video arcade and a “kid’s zone.” This is a far cry from the ferries we usually take from Aransas Pass to Port Aransas every year.
The second mistake from yesterday? I incorrectly assumed that all ferries go to the same place. Several years ago, Susan and I visited her brother and his wife when they lived in the Seattle area. When we went to Victoria, we took the Port Angeles ferry from Washington. That ferry landed in the Inner Harbor. The ferry we took yesterday…landed in Swartz Bay. That’s about 33 km north of where we wanted to be. Luckily, we were able to get on a city bus that took us down to the place we wanted to be…for the low low cost of $2.25 CDN each way.
We took in the sites, took a bunch of pictures at the Legislative Buildings, ate some really tasty pizza at Brickyard Pizza (hole in the wall, but very good food), had our customary Blenz Coffee and made our way back to Victoria.
We’re due to hit Whistler today.
We had a great day down at Granville Market yesterday. We bought some fresh fruit and had a great fish n chips lunch.
We decided to eat in at the condo last night. Kayla made spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner. It was really good.
We’re about to shove off to go to Victoria, so this post is short.
Kayla and I got up before 5am on Wednesday to start the long trip to Vancouver. It was a long day, but we had a good time. Today we’re much more rested.
After arriving shortly after noon Pacific Time, we made our way through customs pretty quickly. The Customs agent apologized about the “heat wave” in Vancouver. We told him that we were from Texas and rather liked the 22 degrees celcius weather (22 C = about 72 F).
We ate at the Hurricane Grill in Yaletown until the condo was ready (at 3pm). Kayla had an Asian Beef stir fry and I had a Seafood Linguine (both were excellent).
When we got into the condo, a few things were immediately obvious. For one, the place was very, very small. There’s a combo kitchen/living room and a bedroom. It’s 200 square feet or so. It’s cozy for sure. The other thing that we noticed was that there was a portable air conditioning unit going in the corner. Because it’s usually quite cool and damp in Vancouver, central air conditioning wasn’t built in to the buildings. So the place is a little stuffy, but livable.
Aside from the creature comforts, the place is wonderful for it’s location. We’re on the West End of downtown (very close to Stanley Park). We were able to walk to everywhere we wanted to go. There’s a Safeway about a block and a half away. All very nice.
After spending the day walking around and drinking a bunch of coffee (Blenz is Canada’s version of Starbucks), we both had a few observations about the city:
- Green – Vancouver is “green” in so many ways. The city buses run on electricity, people use reusable bags and bicycles. However, the really striking thing is how many plants and trees there are throughout the place. Kayla noticed roses on several occasions. There are shrubs and trees everywhere. Really neat.
- Dogs - It seems like a huge number of the locals have dogs that they walk at all days of the day and night. Anywhere you find a grassy stretch of land, there’s a dog playing frisbee or ball with his owner. Some of the public water fountains have dog dish fountains at their base. Hurricane Grill had a community dog dish set out on the sidewalk for dogs passing by.
- Restaurants – I’ve never seen a bigger concentration of eating establishments anywhere. In just the blocks surrounding our condo, you could eat at a different place every night and not eat at the same place for months. There’s variety too…some cuisines I’ve never heard of. It’s true you couldn’t throw a rock without it being within 40 yards of a Sushi place, but what about Malaysian? Korean? African Fusion? I actually saw a Ukrainian-Russian restaurant.
My little MSI Wind Netbook is holding up pretty well. There’s free wifi in most public places. My iPhone isn’t as useful because I refuse to pay the $15 per megabyte data roaming charges…I usually make due with the free wifi.
Today we hope to go to Gastown and Granville Market. More on that later.
In order to prep for the trip, I’m trying to find ways to update the blog while on the road.
Trying out Wordpress for iPhone now.
