2015 summer plans

We have decided to stay on the west side of the US next summer and do the rockies and west coast loop. The Reynolds are planning to come out to the Grand Canyon and California in August, so it gives us a chance to catch up with them again.

as a basic timeline we are thinking about:

• may - vancouver island, leave canada (by may 10th), maybe alaska round trip cruise from seattle, washington state, seattle, oregon inland, bend, terrebonne, maybe inland to yellowstone
• june - colorado, denver, great sanddunes, mesa verde, canyon of the ancients,
• july - utah, monument valley, bryce canyon, zion, arizona, 
• august - arizona, grand canyon north rim (4th), california, yosemite (7th), sequoia , santa barbara (14th)
• september - california, monterey, san francisco, napa valley
• october - oregon coast, washington, back up to canada for the winter (maybe)

I'm sure there will be lots of other places to visit along this circuit, and we may choose to leave Yellowstone until another spring when we head across the north of the US to the east coast, so nothing is set in stone except the dates specified. Open to suggestions of additional destinations, and if anyone else fancies meeting us anywhere along this timeline let us know.

Its only 5000 miles so quite a short year by recent standards....

Winter week 1

Its been a mixed first week skiing since we got back to Whistler - 3 days of sub-zero clear skies conditions on the mountain, 1 day of wet snow, 1 OK day once I got above the valley cloud base, another day of wet snow. Decided today was going to be a rest day anyway as the forecast was heavy rain all the way up the mountain, and as it turns out all but 1 low level lift are currently closed, probably due to high winds - there is a series of fairly serious storms and unseasonably warm weather hitting the southern BC coast at the moment and flooding warnings for north vancouver.

The thighs have been holding up OK with the new skis - figure the cycling before we went back to the UK helped a bit with that - but everything else has taken a bit of a battering and is complaining after a couple of hours, so I've just been skiing mornings so far. In my defence as I'm skiing solo i'm basically running laps on the chair lifts and not stopping on the slopes, so keeping up a fair pace. And there are only a few lifts and runs open as its still early season.

11 days until Kevin arrives as our first visitor - hopefully more of the mountain will be open by then, and I can last a bit longer on the slopes.

Another minor project success

‎The apartments we are staying in don't have boot driers in the ski locker room, and I failed to buy one at walmart last time we were in the US as they were all sold out. So, nicked the mains cabinet cooling fan from the old TV bay in Badger that is no longer needed now we have a flat screen, and some waste pipe I had left over from fixing the sink in the slide out, plus some plywood left over from making the room divider and a bit of duct tape and hey presto, one home made boot/glove drier. And if you want warm air, stand it in front of the baseboard heater...

I'm such a cheapskate :-)

And this is what we came back for

‎Just managed to get up for an hour before the lifts closed for a play on the blades. Usual first day aching feet but otherwise not too bad.

Need to wax the new skis and fit the bindings tonight and then can take them up for a spin tomorrow

Bye Bye Blighty, welcome back to Canada (sort of)

our manic month back in the UK has come to an end. It was great catching up with everyone and thanks to everyone who put us up, especially Knees and Clive for feeding me so much curry and lamb and living with the consequences. We got done some of what we wanted to on the house, and caught up with family, friends and neighbours pretty much every day we were back, so time well spent.

They let us back into Canada after a fairly rigorous questioning about why we are spending so much time here and so little time at home, but showed them the apartment rental agreement and the canadain bank balance to prove that we do have a plan to leave and enough funds to last us until that point - kind of expected, but a little wearing at 4:00am by the body clock.

Head up to whistler tomorrow, assuming we can get a jump start for the car, and start the 5 month ski-fest. Living on soup to detox until Kevin arrives just in time for Yule...

Last curry

‎Just enjoyed what may be my last decent curry for a few years. Mango tree with Mr Earle;  onion bhaji, lamb rogon with a bit of extra spice  (learned curry power ordering from Clive) , good naan and aubergine bhaji. All I need now is a couple of rennies....

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

A few of my favourite things...

‎Onion bhajis, lamb madras, back bacon, white poppy seed bloomer, Melton Mowbray pork pie, steak and kidney pie, bramley apple pie, sausage rolls, greggs steak bake, hard water that rinses the soap off, eccles cakes, friends and neighboirs.

Things I haven't missed : London commuter trains.