We landed in Vancouver around 9:30 in the morning and headed straight for our Greyhound bus up to Whistler. Nancy was a little nervous about hitting the slopes since she hadn't snowboarded in 7 years but I convinced her she'd be just fine..."come on, just because it's the home of the 2010 Olympics doesn't mean it's steep"
We got to Whistler and were greeted by amazing snow...and an even more amazing -8 degrees. Yup, -8. We seemed to have stumbled into Vancouver's worst winter in 60 years. But we were going to make the best of it, even if we froze along the way.
We were staying in Whistler Village right at the base of both Whistler mountain and Blackcomb. The next morning, it was time to brave the coldest weather either of us had ever experienced and head on up to the mountain.
That's me in there...
Interestingly enough, even though it was, oh about -14 on this crisp and refreshing morning, they hadn't had that much snowfall so only about 30% of the runs were open, but the snow was so perfect that it didn't really matter. Nancy quickly realized it was a much steeper mountain than we'd anticipated so we hit the ground running...well, for Nancy the key word in that sentence would be "hit." But she hung in there and definitely improved after a few runs.
That night we decided to wander around the village.
The village is a lot like a large promenade, there's a ton of restaurants and shops and you just wander around all day. The best part is there really isn't much of anything to do so after the slopes close at 3, you're pretty much forced to relax.
Nancy needed to cool off, so she got some ice cream. It took her about an hour to eat it and we were cracking up because it got more frozen as time passed.
On Wednesday, Nancy decided to hang around the town while I went skiing, and Thursday we went out for one more day on the slopes. Then she finally managed to convince me to go on the Ziptrek Ecotour zipline adventure! The funny thing is, I'm really not afraid of heights, but the idea of my life hanging on the line (literally) just didn't seem too enticing. Especially at these heights.
But once I took that first step, my legs trembling so much they were about to give out...I must admit it was a blast.
On Friday morning, we packed up and headed back down to Vancouver...another beautiful drive later
and we arrived...
Since it was a whole 5 degrees warmer, about -4, we headed over to Granville Island for a bite to eat.
Then we wandered around the Granville Island Market and everything looked amazing...so much good food.
We decided to take the Seabus back instead of a taxi, which made for some amazing views...
and wait a minute...is that the sun?! Oh my God, it's been so long!
The concierge told us about the Stanley Park Christmas decorations at night and once the sun set, we ventured over there to check it out. Though walking there wasn't the best idea...it was probably about 3 miles...and did I mention, it was really cold? But nevertheless, the trek was way worth it... (though the bus would have been worth it too)
The next day, we headed over to the Capilano Suspension Bridge which is a 450 foot suspension bridge sitting about 230 feet above the river.
Then we went out for a nice dinner at a place called the Boathouse and we could see boats with Christmas decorations sailing by. They're actually called the "Caroling Ships" because the people on them are supposedly singing Christmas carols...we wouldn't know because we opted to stay inside where it was warm.
But we did take the long way to the taxi stand so we could see these trees. The fire department decorates them every year...they look like one massive tree.
(btw, we didn't hear any carolers on the ships...then again, if it was -10 out, I wouldn't be singing either)
There was talk of a huge storm rolling in on Saturday night so we figured we'd be snowed in on Sunday...and considering Sunday is football day, Nancy was just fine with that.
This was the view from our room...we'd never seen snow flakes so huge!
We did manage to leave for a few hours and I must say it was actually warm out...a whopping 15 degrees, which trust me after -8 feels really warm. We went to the movie theater and watched Seven Pounds...great movie but take a box of kleenex with you.
Then came our last day...we wanted to see Stanley Park in the day time so we took a long walk around and after about 7 inches of snowfall, Monday turned out to be a beautiful clear day.
After our long walk, we had to say goodbye to beautiful Vancouver.
Because of the severe storm, we knew all the flights had been canceled on Sunday so we figured we should get to the airport really early just in case. Well we got there about 3 and a half hours before our flight and there were about 500 people in line for Air Canada and only 2 people working there. I'm actually not exaggerating when I say there were 500 people in line. Because of the storms all throughout both Canada and the US, a lot of flights were either delayed or canceled...so this was what we were looking at...
Amazingly, our flight wasn't canceled or delayed...we really were in better shape than 90% of the people there...most of them had been there for 2 days trying to get on other flights...but the fact that ours was the only on time flight became quite a concern considering we'd been standing in line for about 3 hours and our flight was leaving in 30 minutes...and we were nowhere near the front of the line. So Nancy managed to get to the front of the line in order to ask ONE OF THE TWO PEOPLE WORKING what we needed to do...they brought us to the front and let us check in...phew!
We finally make it to our gate and realize the plane isn't even there yet! All that stress, and there's no plane. Then the plane arrives but the doors don't open...why you ask? Well because Air Canada didn't have an available agent. So by the time the available agent rolled around the pilot and crew were about to go into OT...well if that happens, they get sent home. So all of us panicked passengers, knowing that if we miss this flight, we're spending Christmas in the airport, hussled our asses onto that plane in about 20 minutes. Well...then there was nobody to taxi the plane out to the runway so we sat there for another 2 hours...what happened to the OT you ask? No clue.
We finally took off...the entire time I was praying for all those poor people who weren't as lucky as we were to have a flight that somehow managed to not get canceled and not get delayed more than a few hours.
When we landed, the flight attendant welcomed us to Los Angeles and said "the temperature in Los Angeles is negative...oh, I mean 52 degrees"...NO MORE NEGATIVES!!! Woohoo...
We had an amazing time, but it's nice to be able to take off the beanie and let my head breathe.
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