O' Canada (part1)

Here you are Mo, lots and lots of pictures from the trip. Click on the picture at the bottom of the page.

For those of you that don't know (and I can't imagine there are many 'cause I told anyone and everyone that would listen) Christie Elwin and I took a little trip up to British Columbia and had ourselves a damn good time.

Traveling was the most interesting part of the trip thanks to rain, complete lack of road signage, one badly placed flag, and the lady who works the night shift for the condo company.

On our way to Whistler, we got to see a large section of downtown Vancouver while aimlessly driving up and down the streets trying to find a sign for Highway 99N. We found signs for 99S a couple of times but no 99N. We crossed the bridge that connects the airport and downtown 4 times - one time following a cab driver that claimed he knew where we needed to go...doubtful. On the fourth time across, we figured out why we couldn't find a sign for 99N - it had been covered up a flag. You know those flags that cities put on light poles for decoration? Yeah, one of those. That's how small the sign was on a major bridge going away from the airport. Oh well, we got on 99N, good for us. The time was now ~2AM eastern time.

After driving a couple of hours on some pretty sketchy roads, we get to Whistler Village. The village is cute, there are some shops, a Starbucks, a grocery store, and some restaurants in a little shopping area connected to our condo. I printed out the instructions for getting into the main lobby of our building before we left Knoxville. Now, normally, you go to the lobby, check in the with person there, get your keys and go to your room. This place was different. If you arrive after hours, which we did, there is a number you call to get the main lobby code. So, I call the number and get the code, and I ask the lady "Where do we get our keys and how do we get into the parking area?" The lady says "Well, I'm not sure. The code for your room is either *** or ***. The garage should open once you pull your car up to the gate." We pull up to the gate, it doesn't open. I call the lady back and tell her we can't get into the garage and she says, "Well, I don't know. Do you want me to wake up the owner of the condo and ask him?" I tell her no and I get off the phone because it's super later, and I'm about to lose my temper. Christie and I decide to park the car and go to our room to see what the deal is. We get to the door and find out that there is a lock box outside our door. We punch in the code and look inside. One key. We think that maybe the key works for the door and the garage so we go downstairs to the car, drive up to the garage, put the key in the keyhole and nothing happens. Crap. I figure maybe we can open the door from the inside, so I get out of the car, go into the building, get into the garage and search for a way to get the door open. I try to open it manually, I look for a button, I even hopped on the rubber hose on the ground that opens the door for that cars that are leaving (yeah right, like I weigh enough for that). Nothing. So Christie comes into the garage and we try the same things over again. Nothing. We get out of the garage, go back to our room, and Christie calls the lady and asks for the owner's phone number. It was almost 5am our time, so she was going to wake his ass up. We find out that a garage key was supposed to be in the room next to the phone, but the owner forgot to leave it for us. He tells Christie that if we both dig our heels into the rubber hose sensor at the same time, the door should open. I have my doubts that it will work, but we go downstairs and try it anyway. What do you know, the damn thing opens. So we pull the car in, unload our stuff, and get some much needed sleep.

Next up...snowboarding 101

Whistler