Our trip was wonderful! We got to Whistler around five on Sunday, after a long, long car trip from Seattle. The Sea to Sky Highway wasn't as winding as we were expecting, and since we left on a Sunday there was no road construction, although we did get stopped at the border. For like 20 minutes while they drilled us on reasons for traveling to Canada, which I guess they are supposed to. Contrary to many people's opinions Canadians are very nice. Vancouver, however, is a terrible city and should fall into the ocean. All the road signs are the same color, the same size and usually hidden by trees. Highway 99 takes you through downtown which is a maze of one ways and terrible drivers. The drivers are rude and fast and honk if you don't go fast enough. The people who gave us directions, however, are very nice. Vancouver is the number one reason why the Cannucks suck. ^_~ Our week was pretty busy. While in Kent, we visited the Sound because Burt wanted to see the Pacific Ocean and we weren't about to drive to Olympia so he could see it.
Whistler is by every accounts a tourist town. So much so that they boast it on their web page. They are also the largest ski resort in North America, with 200 runs on both Blackcomb and Whistler. (You hear it a lot if you take any treks up the mountain.) We found a park with a small amount of walking trails and a ton of bike trails. We walked on the bike trails. Most of the bikers are pretty cool with it, as long as you let them pass. We took something on Tuesday called TreeTrek which is a series of wood bridges and platforms suspended 200 feet in the air in a temperate rainforest. (In case you all weren't aware, British Columbia contains a rainforest. They just get that much rain.) They also had a zipline connected to the platforms, for those of us more daring. There were a million shops, but we didn't really go shopping-there was too much else to do.
On Thursday, we attempted an ATV trek up the mountain. I panicked and never drove, but Burt was content to drive both ways. However, our ATV stalled on the way down and we had to ride back separately. The salmon bake at 5000ft was totally worth it though, even though it was cold and cloudy and rainy. We saw a bear on one of the ski runs. The downside was we were up at 5am thanks to a faulty fire alarm and then consequently, the front desk apologizing for the inconvience just as I was falling back to sleep.
Friday was much better, it was sunny and warm and we spent 20 bucks to take a series of three ski lifts up the mountain to 7000 feet. It was money well spent. We had lunch and watched skiers and made snowballs and took a ton of pictures.
The trip back through Vancouver on Saturday was not as bad as the week before, but I was driving, so it's always worse. ^_~ I had to cut off a tour bus in order to get to the highway and away from downtown. We were able to see Mount Rainier on Saturday but it was hazy so I wasn't able to get any good pictures. I did take a few though.
http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h118/t
This is the first first batch of pictures. The second batch can be found in this gallery.
I've explained somethings in the comments, so be sure to click on the picture to see it.
