Third time lucky

Our third xmas in Whistler ‎- we were here in 2005 with James, Steph, Gary and John  for his 40th - and we've finally managed a white xmas, at least up on the mountain. Mainly blue skies but the odd light cloud was blowing through and there was the odd flurry, so i'm claiming it as snowing on the day. 

Yuletide again

Decided ag‎ainst paying whistler prices for a tree, and figured the ski patrol would not be too happy if I took my Swiss army knife up the mountain and cut down one of theirs, so I got my Blue Peter head on and made this from some wine boxes and the fairly lights from the bus.

We've had a fantastic start to the season, and the best description I've heard of it has been "normal" so here's hoping things stay that way. We've had more snow in a month than I think much of the mountain got all last year, and runs that didn't open until mid January or not at all last year are now skiable. I had my first proper day skiing off piste in one of the alpine bowls today and my practise on the lower slopes has definitely helped my keep my momentum  which makes it easier to keep going as the bow wave of snow breaks against your thighs. It's still harder work than piste skiing but it s getting more enjoyable and opens ‎ up so much more of the mountain to me

Bit of a lull in the snowfall  this week ‎but still cold and cloudy with a few flurries forecast most days, and hopefully Maria will finally get a white xmas on friday‎.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

We've seen a fantastic start to the season with a cumulative 430cm (168 inches) of snow, and 35cm (14 inches) in the last 48 hours. Neither of us have ever experienced this constant snowfall and Mark has started having fun in the powder.

In the last ten days there has been one glorious sunny day, which happened to coincide with Mark's day off, so we went for a walk in the sun. I've tried to capture some of the scenic beauty that the white fluffy stuff brings

Even the snowmen here like to party :-) 

In Olympic Plaza last year, the snow mound was only big enough for kids to walk up and sled down one side. This year, the mound is already large enough for 3 sets of steps to be cut into it and at least 4 slides of different steepness for the kids to sled down. And the snow has kept on coming, so this is now larger than it was when I took the photos.

More volunteering opportunities for me this week including participating in a yoga class with Whistler Adaptive Sports Program and running the coat check for the Arts Council's amateur dramatics production of the Chairlift Revue (which I got to watch too). Tonight we're helping out at another charity event in one of the bars (Buffalo Bills) for Whistler Adaptive. I'll be selling raffle tickets and persuading people to part with their money (which I seem to have a talent for) and Mark is running the silent auction. We're certainly meeting a lot more people this year and having lots of fun at the same time :-) 

Cheesecake, pork pies and frozen soup

The weather this week has been constant rain/snow down in the village, so not very nice for walking far.

As you all know, I love to cook but I get bored with everyday meals. So I'm branching out and trying to hone my baking skills. The cheesecake I baked yesterday took me by surprise when it rose 3 inches above the tin then sank when it cooled. It didn't look like the picture in the recipe but tasted fantastic

My pork pies are getting better although I'm told I need to look at the meat/pastry ratio (as in more meat would be nice)

Sausage rolls are around $6 each in the local supermarket so I've had a go at making them too and they were quite tasty.

I normally make a large pan of soup for lunch which will last us a few days. As there was no room in the fridge, I put it out on the balcony. Big mistake. When I brought it in the next day for lunch, I had a pea and ham Frisbee. Well, it had gone down to -12C overnight so should have thought a bit more about that one.

I've also been volunteering more, mainly for the Whistler Arts Council. Their main fundraising event, Bizarre Bazaar (aka Whistler Christmas Market) was a few weeks ago. As a 'thank you' all volunteers got  tickets to the Whistler Film Festival which was last weekend. I didn't get to meet either Kiefer Sutherland or Robert Carlyle but did see a few films I wouldn't have normally considered. 

I volunteered there too an now know how to make popcorn on an industrial scale :-)

Here we go again....

Sun, snow, ski. My feet are wondering what the hell just happened to them, and the legs are complaining after 7 runs, but that is what the hot tub is for....

Whistler - 2 weeks in...

and what a busy two weeks it has been. In addition to clearing out kitchen cupboards to make room for food (there are so many pots, pans and gadgets) and filling the freezer with all the meat we bought at Costco and other supermarkets (yes it did all fit although occasionally a pork roast tries to break free and my toes at the same time)

we have been volunteering at Cornucopia - Whistler's 11 day festival of food and drink. The recipient of many of the events was the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program, a not-for-profit society that provides year round recreational programs for people of all ages with disabilities. It was a chance for us to meet locals and help a worthy cause at the same time. We also learned how to get 20 - 26 pours out of a bottle of wine (for the tasting seminars). the professional tricks for glass polishing, how to run a coat check (the last Saturday night was manic, and all the c. 400 coats were given to their owners in less than 15 minutes) as well as helping out where we were needed. There were a few perks such as sitting in (and tasting) at some of the wine seminars, tasting some of the food prepared at one of the culinary stages (Mark was handing out the wine pairings for that one) and getting to taste as many BC beers as we could in under an hour (I was taking tickets and handing out glasses for that one, so I got given a couple for us). 

I'm back with the Whistler Singers and so sang at the Remembrance Day service. I've never seen so many people - I think the whole village turned out for the service. It was a holiday here and many of the shops were closed too.

We've also had a couple of glorious sunny days so we went to see Brandywine Falls

and had a lovely walk around Lost Lake before the snow sets in and the cross country skiers take over the trails

It started snowing in the village this morning so we went down to our pool for a swim them a bubble in the hot tub. What a great way to start a Monday morning. It has been snowing all day so there is a lovely covering on the ground, and the mountain opens on Thursday, a week early which is making Mark happy.

To top it all off, today we got the wine delivery from our favourite Niagara winery  :-)

That should keep us going for a while

Summer 2015 in review

Well 2015 all went pretty much to plan...ish. After visiting Vancouver Island and the Alaska cruise we picked up Badger and took him round the central and southern rockies and west coast for about 6000 miles, with another 5000 miles in Toad as side trips. We modified our original plans slightly to see Bryce and Zion canyons before the monsoon rains on the advice of someone I met on a chairlift, and that proved to be a good decision - people were killed by flash flooding in Zion at the time we had originally planned to be there. We also had an unexpected trip to Tijuana for dental treatment but that worked out well - much cheaper than getting treated in the US, and my travel insurance paid out to the policy limit which helped temper that pain.

We had a couple of issues with the car (serpentine belt) - and coach (ice maker, jacks and charger/inverter) but there is always the possibility for things to break, and we paid a lot less for an older coach than we had originally budgeted, so you expect a few more issues but I think its still working out a lot cheaper than buying a newer coach and suffering greater depreciation. I guess the one thing I have learned is that the west was won by greed, corruption and screwing over everyone else, and that ethos is still alive and well in many of the people and businesses we've had to deal with, so it really does pay to shop around and be willing to vote with your feet and wallet....

It was great to meet the Reynolds and a bonus to catch up with Xav and Reika, and of course Pris and Bill who we met in our first year in California. Shame Yvonne and Tony couldn't make it out to San Fran, but we will probably be back there again in 2017...

Hadn't planned on a trip home but we'd always said that if house maintenance needed it we would fly back, and again that proved to be a good decision as I was able to fix a lot more problems and do a lot more preventative work than just the two headline issues that paid for my flight.

We've now been in the new apartment in Whistler for a week and are getting sorted out, so I think we're on track for this winter. Doug, my ski buddy from last season is due back here in early January, Blair and Cheryl, Knees and Clive and Kevin are all booked to come out to visit and ski in the new year and we should be good here until the end of April...

Looking ahead we are planning to go through the northern US states next spring - Glacier national park, Yellowstone, Devils Tower, Mount Rushmore, Milwaukee and Chicago. From there we may loop down through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas before working our way up the east coast for fall in New England. And Maria has already been looking at apartment rentals in Banff for winter 2016/17.....its good to have plans :-)

Digging in for winter

Having seen what klondike miners had to pack into the goldmines for winter, we thought we would do a Costco run to Vancouver and do the same:

• 6.3kg rib eye, 
• two legs of lamb, 
• 5.5kg minced beef
• 2.5kg minced pork
• 2.6kg stewing beef
• 2.3kg beef roasts
• 2.7kg pork roast
• whole ham
• 3kg pork loin
• 3kg sausages
• 6kg chicken
• 5kg cheddar
• 12 jars Pataks curry sauce

and 72 rolls of toilet paper....might not be enough

and the first person to quote the WHO report on red meat and cancer is going to get a slap.

We're baaa-ack...

....in Whistler.‎ Put badger back in storage at the same spot we used last year, and crossed the border into Canada with no dramas at all - border guard was far more interested in our retirement and lifestyle as something to aim for than as a problem, so we were through in under 5 minutes and never had to get out of the car. Lousy weather for the drive up the sea to sky but the waterfalls were really flowing, and met our landlord about 3:30 

Maria has done really well with the apartment - it has its own front door and stairs up to the living, dining, kitchen area with the first balcony ( and a bbq - have to stock up on steaks at costco) and then another flight up to the en-suite bedroom, guest bedroom and shower room and large balcony ‎ across both rooms, all overlooking the hot tub area just across from our front door. It's a bit overcrowded with furniture and fittings so we will have to put some of those out on the top balcony to make a bit more space in the coming weeks - normally it's let to more people for shorter periods, so I guess they are less concerned with having space to cook and chill out, but I've already worked out how we can rig up the surround sound and projector for watching movies. I think we will be very comfortable. 

It's 3 months until our first visitors are booked in - Blair and Cheryl in early Feb - should have time to  get it all how we want it. It's the same cooker as the last apartment so Maria should be up to speed for her baking pretty quickly with all that prior knowledge. I probably have a little over 3 weeks before the mountain opens - usually for US thanksgiving, so we will have to go down the sea to sky and hike to some of the waterfalls we missed last time as they were running very dry....remind my legs what they are for and try and work off some of that baking ‎.

Oregon and Washington

From Eureka in northern California, we continued up Highway 101 into Oregon. The coastline is rugged and absolutely stunning:

The following day we drove up the coast to Seaside, and the end of the Lewis and Clark Trail. The monument commemorates the 18 month, 4,000 mile journey from Saint Louis to the Oregon Coast 

and more of the stunning coastline on the drive back:

We stayed at a little RV park and Netarts on the coast outside Tillamook, and the bay and sunset from Cape Meares at Oceanside was breathtaking:

The next morning we took a drive south along the coast road and were rewarded again with crashing waves and more stunning scenery:

On our way back into Tillamook, we called in at the Air Museum which is housed in an old military blimp hangar and the largest clear-span wooden structure in the world. The museum has a Boeing B-377 which was delivered to Pan-Am in 1949 then converted to a 'mini-guppy' for carrying contract cargo in 1967. In 1972 it carried the Pioneer 10 Spacecraft launched by NASA, and in 1981, transported the 'Goodyear Europa' which was used as an aerial TV platform for Charles and Diana's wedding.

In the afternoon, we visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory which has been a farmers-owned co-op for over 100 years. Not only do they produce many varieties of delicious  cheddar cheese, their butter, ice-cream and other dairy products are yummy too. Here come the big blocks of cheese:

and cut into smaller blocks:

and sent off for packaging:

Time to head away from the coast and across to Portland. Sunday was Mark's BIG birthday, and as it was absolutely chucking it down (well, he did say he was getting fed up with blue skies and hot weather - be careful what you wish for), we spent the afternoon in Deschutes Brewery, where it was warm but not dry: 

Over the next few days the weather was much better so we did the usual tourist stuff and walked around Portland. We also discovered the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum about 50 miles south of the city, and what a discovery! It is the home of several historic aircraft, including the Hughes H-4 Hercules the 'Spruce Goose' - the largest flying boat ever built

They had an SR-71, the Blackbird, (Mark's favourite plane) which we got to see from a different perspective: 

There's also the 'Wings and Waves Waterpark' next door which has a different kind of waterslide :-) 

Time to hit the road again, this time to Everett, north of Seattle in Washington. Today we visited the Boeing factory which is the largest building in the world by volume and covers over 98 acres. The building is so large that ceiling fans had to be installed as it was creating its own weather system and raining inside! The factory assembles the Boeing 747, 767, 777 and 787. I couldn't take photos on the tour but here are a couple I downloaded from their site:

Tomorrow we head further north and start packing up and getting Badger ready to go into storage for the winter.

Sacramento to northern California

After spending a month in Sacramento and the surrounding area, it was time to move on. A few people I spoke to commented that 4 weeks in the capital would have been 3 weeks too long for them, but it worked for us, giving Mark the time to do what he needed to on our house and also to do the tourist stuff, such as visiting the capitol building:

Sutter's Fort built in 1839 and the beginning of the town of Sacramento and where gold was discovered in 1849 to the California State Railroad museum:

We also visited Old Town Sacramento and the History Museum where we learnt more about the gold rush and also the massive earthquake of 1906 that devastated San Francisco.

Lake Tahoe wasn't too far away so we decided to go and take a look. The views were stunning:

We carried on over the pass into Utah and stayed overnight in Reno. I thought it would be like a small Las Vegas, but was very disappointed as there were only 4 hotel/casinos downtown and nothing like the 'glamour' of Vegas. We did, however find an excellent Teppan restaurant in Hurrahs, so a good end to a long day. 

The next day we followed the old highway 40 to the Donner Memorial State Park, a tribute to the Donner Party that didn't make it across the Sierra Nevada range in 1846 due to an early winter setting in, and many other things. 

The scenic byway was very steep and winding and I would have hated to do it by wagon train or on foot!

As it turned out, there was so much traffic on this road (soon after I took this shot), including many trucks, and we found out later that I-80 (the main interstate from Reno across the pass) had been closed due to an accident. 

During our time in Sacramento we had a few day trips to the Napa and Sonoma Valleys to do a little wine tasting. Well, as we were in that part of the world, it would have been rude not to. 

Moving on up the coast, the landscape changed from wild oceans to giant redwoods and back again. The main highway (101) goes through the Avenue of the Giants and there were a few trees close the the road that had chunks taken out of the bark, about the right height for truck and RV mirrors :-) 

 This is the Shrine drive through tree, which we drove through in the car, not Badger

Unlike the Dodge pick up before us (who got wedged and had to reverse back out again), Mark had no problem getting our car through, although he only had about half an inch spare on both mirrors.

This was a lunch time stop in Badger - beautiful.

The last California sunset before we head up into Oregon.