Hi Gram,
Well, we didn’t end up taking the kids skiing on Sunday. By the time we thought to look into reservations for classes and rentals, everything was sold out. The weather was a little warm, so it wasn’t a big loss. The kids and I decided to go to Family Fun Center, an arcade and activity center about 30 minutes away. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to one of those places, but I really wish I could have turned my hearing aids off like you can ! We walked into sirens, bells, and screaming children, noise coming from every direction. Andy wanted to play Lazer Tag, so we bought the necessary tokens and found our way over there. Howard wasn’t so sure about the game, so we decided that he and Andy would team up against me. We strapped on our vests and guns and made our way into the maze. The game attendant positioned me at one corner of the room and the kids at the other corner, then told us to begin. Each of us would hide behind one of the obstacles and try to shoot around it and hit one of the other team members’ targets with our lazer. We ran around shooting each other for about five minutes, until a voice over the loudspeaker announced the game was over. I kept hearing “shields up, you’ve been hit”, indicating that they’d shot me, and it seemed like there was a lot more of that than “target acquired. Score!”, scoring a point for me. When we got our scores, though, I emerged victorious. It takes a real man to take pride in outscoring a ten and fourteen year old, but I am that man! haha
After that, we tried bumper cars, a ride that I’ve never quite gotten the hang of. You stomp on the accelerator the whole time, and turn the wheel to steer. The trick is that turning the wheel all the way around causes the car to go in reverse, and if you keep spinning it, it goes forward again. While we didn’t bump into each other very much, it probably looked like a cartoon or old timey movie to the onlookers waiting their turn. We’d be heading toward each other, then all of a sudden, one of us would reverse direction and it would turn into a chase. We’d get near the wall, and someone would turn and we would be facing away from each other, trying to figure out how to get the car going the other direction. We weren’t effective, but certainly laughable!
Finally, we tried the go karts outside. We all wish we would have brought gloves for that, our fingers frozen into the wheel-holding shape by the time we were finished, but unlike the bumper cars, the controls were much more intuitive. Howard decided to ride with me instead of driving his own car, so we split the duties between us. He stomped on the accelerator as hard as he could, and I worked the brake and steering wheel. We were a couple cars ahead of Andy when the race started, and there were another half dozen competitors, so it felt like a real race. People would cut each other off, we had to hug the inside of the curve as we rounded the bend, and Howard provided the verbal taunts about sibling rivalry, and bragging that we were in the lead. His taunts changed tone, however, when with two laps left, Andy pulled into the lead! He tried pushing the accelerator even harder, but to no avail as her driving skills simply outshone those of his uncle Keith.
We all decided to get out of the noise after that, and headed to the car for the drive home. They recapped their adventures to mom and dad, then went to their rooms to recover from their day out. Monday was a holiday, so the kids were out of school. I had planned to head up to British Columbia Monday morning but decided to push that back a day so I could spend some more time with them. We had a pretty relaxing morning, then went to Five Guys for lunch. Howard and I each ordered a hot dog and regular fries, and learned a lesson that day – their “regular” fries are a couple pounds for each order! We could have fed the whole family with one order, and we had two of them! We did the best we could with the fries, then brought the rest of them home where Howard ate the rest of them. I thought he was going to turn into a potato after all those fries!
This morning, I got up early and headed for Whistler Blackcomb, a ski resort just north of Vancouver. I’ve been hearing for years about how huge it is, and that it’s the best snowsports resort in North America. I was excited to see it for myself, and only wished I had more time to experience all of it, and could have brought Zibby and some friends with me. The weather was drizzly and foggy the whole drive up, which made it seem like I was driving through another world! Off to my left, I saw silhouettes of rock formations lurking in the fog over the water. It looked like a scene out of a scary movie. I kept expecting a phantom pirate ship to drift into focus past the rocks, or zombies to come dragging out of the pine trees to my right.
I wanted to pull over at one of the scenic outlooks, but they all seemed to be on the other side of the road, and had signs warning us not to turn left across oncoming traffic. I suppose they only expect you to want scenery if you’re headed south, so I’ll try to remember to get some pictures on Thursday when I head back that direction.
Since I was in Canada, I felt obliged to stop at Tim Horton’s for a donut, and I was of course not disappointed. Tim Horton’s are as frequent and popular up here as Dunkin’ Donuts are back home. It was late morning, so their selection was smaller than I expected, but they still had enough to satisfy my sweet tooth.
got a doughnut, you betcha!
I wanted to make sure I got some riding in today, so when the hotel told me that my room wasn’t ready yet, I told them not to worry about it, just point me to a changing room so I could get on my gear and hit the slopes! This is my first time staying at a resort hotel when snowboarding – usually, I find a cheaper hotel a few miles away and just drive over in the morning. In this case, though, one of the resort hotels ended up being cheaper than the motels in the next town, so I feel like I’m all fancy! It’s a good thing, too. I found out when I got here that the motel I was looking at in the next town is 30 miles away.
It’s kind of nice to put on my gear, walk through the little village, and get on the gondola up the mountain. It was snowing as I walked through the village and it felt like I was in a Dickens novel, if the local shops were replaced by high end specialty ski gear stores. The snow limited the visibility as we climbed up the mountain, but you could just see the next peak off in the distance, lending to the feeling we were in a far away world. It snowed a bit last night, I’m told, so when I got off the gondola, I wasn’t expecting to step down into a foot of loose powder. It made the trek over to the next lift a little challenging, but I was looking forward to riding on this fluffy powder!
I rode for a few hours, and it didn’t disappoint. There weren’t many people on the slopes today, and the mountain is so huge that even when I encountered people, there was plenty of space for both of us to ride without crowding each other. Since I got there about halfway through the day, the powder was matted down in places and felt pretty choppy. It was like water skiing on a windy day, trying to cross from side to side across the wake behind the boat. Fun, sure, but my knees can only take so much of that before I need a rest. I rode for a couple hours, then worked my way down to the base of the mountain again to go see if my room was ready. The room they put me in was well beyond my expectations! First of all, it was right off the elevator, so I didn’t have far to go with my luggage, and when I walked in, my jaw hit the floor. I was expecting an economy room, the size you have to step outside to change your mind. I stepped into the kitchenette of my room, complete with dishwasher, stove, and laundry machines, beyond which was a queen bed, with room for a murphy bed next to it, a fireplace, dining table, and balcony. The bathroom has a whirlpool tub, for cryin’ out loud!
I cleaned up and decided to check out the village, and quickly realized I was hungry. Other than the Tim Horton’s, I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I wandered in and out of shops for a while, looking at the gear, shocked at the prices. First of all, it’s a resort, so the prices are marked up to begin with. On top of that, the prices are in Canadian dollars, which are about a 1.33 to 1 ratio. A hat that costs $40CAD is really only $30USD, but that’s still $30 for a hat! Those two factors kept me from buying any clutter or t-shirts that I won’t end up wearing. I stopped at a pub and had a chicken sandwich and fries. They were both overcooked a little, which made the fries crisp and delicious, but left the chicken dry and stringy. I was hungry, though, so I wolfed the whole meal down and smiled on the fun day I’d had. Tired, I headed back to the hotel to relax a little, stopping to get one more picture in front of the festive lights. Tomorrow, I’m planning to get up early and hit the slopes when the lifts open so I can get as much of the fresh snow as possible while the lines are short and there aren’t too many people around. I’ll let you know how it goes!
