Whistler/Blackcomb

For the Thanksgiving holiday, Em and I decided to head to Whistler/Blackcomb in British Columbia, Canada to do some snowboarding. I had promised her a trip for our 1 yr anniversary, but as I was busy defending my PhD thesis in early September, it had to take a raincheck. So now I made good on my promise......so Wednesday night we headed towards Canada. We stopped to crash at Jo (Em's NU roomie) and Clayton's place in Seattle (much thanks!) and then got up around 5AM to complete the drive on Thanksgiving morning. Here are some pics from the drive:

A cool bridge in the early morning hours:

As we entered into British Columbia, the scenery was absolutely picturesque. These are shots taken through the window while driving.....so you can only imagine how amazing it is in person. I must recommend this drive to anyone who appreciates the beauty of nature.

At about 11AM we finally arrived at Whistler. Here is the view of the slopes from the road.....

...and the view from atop Blackcomb mountain

....and on the lift

Em atop Blackcomb

another view atop Blackcomb

Here's a shot of our accommodations...

...with the best part being the private hot tub on the deck

Best helmet hair ever!!

Whistler Village at the base of the mountains....very quaint with a great selection of restaurants and shops.
On the third day, it was warm and the previous day's powder had turned to slush. As rain tried to drown out our fun, I was determined to salvage the day. So we decided to forego snowboarding in favor of doing a ZipLine treetop tour of the gorge between Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. This gave us our adrenaline fix for the day. There were lots of suspension bridges connecting the treetops.

We're geared up in harnesses and ready for some extreme adventure!

**Please see our videos of the ZipLine at the bottom of this blog. For some reason, blogspot won't let me embed them in the middle.....oh well.

Here's a sampling of local delicacies. No, that's not an abnormally large tongue, Em is munching on a BeaverTail. It's a Northwest invention that consists of fried dough coated in cinnamon sugar.
Another favorite that we had daily is poutine. "What is poutine?", you might ask. Well, my friends, it is amazing.....in detail, it is a Canadian appetizer consisting of fries doused in mushroom gravy and topped with cheese curds. I don't think my Wellness Coach at work would approve of this (especially the daily servings), but hey, I figure I am burning several thousand calories a day out on the slopes. :)
I quickly found out that "bear-proof" trash cans are also "Brad-proof". Seriously, I had to get Em to show me how to operate this sophisticated piece of machinery. Apparently there is a secondary latch underneath the handle that you have to flick sideways to get it to open....kinda like a hood release on a car. Grrrrr.
As our trip wound to an end, we headed back home to the good ol' US of A.....only to be stuck at the border for 2.5 hours!! No joke. Ironically, the place was called "Peace Arch", yet there was no peaceful dialogue here due to the many irate drivers who didn't like waiting. I decided to just have fun with the situation and setup an impromptu tailgate party to help pass the time.


Hey wait a minute....they look familiar! Yes, that is Kern and Kristina. (I forgot to mention that we met them in Vancouver for dim sum as they were in Vancouver visiting family for the weekend.....then they followed us to the border b/c their GPS doesn't work in Canada.) Matt chose to get caught up on some reading while waiting in the border traffic.
BTW, the dim sum in New Chinatown in (Richmond) Vancouver was awesome.....especially since Kristina's aunts frequent the restaurant so much that we got V.I.P. access. No joke, we walked right in and got a table at the hottest place for dim sum in town despite a 45 minute wait. Our bill even said V.I.P. on it and included a nice discount. It pays to have connections.

Finally, we made it to the border after waiting in line for 2.5 hrs.....I was expecting a little better sign demarcating the difference between our respective lands than this 3 foot tall disappointment (that's about 1 m for our northerly friends).

YEAH, that's more like it....at least America put a little effort into this sign. Cheesy, but if you look close, they have most of the good stuff on there.
I also promised Em a trip to her favorite store, which was founded in this area and has an outlet just south of the Canada border. Somehow, she always weasels shopping into things.....;)
Then we met up again with Jo and Clayton in Seattle for dinner on our way through. Korean BBQ at a little local place, yum!

"I have no ending for this, so I will just take a bow." -George Carlin at the end of one of his comedy acts where he just abruptly ended his set after a great joke.

**Please see the videos of our ZipLine adventure below: (the first and last videos are of Em, the middle video is me taking first-hand video as I zip across ~1000 ft)