It’s road trip time.

 Weds 1st Oct..

Awake decently early so I went for an hour in the gym. My PT gave me a couple of plans to do whilst away (I’d asked him to, he didn’t force them on me!!). Keeps me on top of it and also keeps me with aching limbs..bloody Bulgarian split squats euugghh!! 

Really annoying bloke on there though. Constantly wandering around between his ‘sets’ readjusting his privates or pulling his pants out of his ass. He was on the phone at one point too, chatting on whilst wandering around. I believe ‘seriously mate’ left my mouth at that juncture….

It’s not even a big gym so it’s quite uncomfortable when he does it. I spotted after a while that he was mostly doing it to go to each mirror and admire himself. Fecking tit! 

Anyway, after I got back & showered etc we went out for breakfast. After much deliberation and discussion we went back to Yolks. I was STARVING! Frit-tots-ta was what I had 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Was

Basically a frittata with mushrooms and goats cheese on a bed of spinach with a drizzle of hollaindaise over the top. SO good but so big!! I stuffed it all in though. Even the server said ‘wow you really were hungry’ hahaha

Back to the hotel, wrote up part of yesterdays events and then off to get the car.

Pretty hassle free really. We’ve got a decent car (SUV style) and we were off for the next stage of our adventure…toot toot!! 

Let’s hit the road to Whistler baby!

Weather is pretty crappy, none stop rain so our plans for a bit of a hike / gondola up a mountain may be scuppered as it’s not just drizzling it’s proper raining!

We stopped off in Squamish for lunch which was bowl of potato and corn soup for me. It was a ‘interesting’ place that we went to (found by Dan of course 😉🙄) and had a few tv screens showing different things ranging from a baseball game to Martha Stewart cooking with Jamie Oliver. There was also one screen showing the Cornhole games !!?!?  The what games now…?

There’s an actual American Cornhole league ! 

It’s teams of two and they just throw what looks like a hessian bag (I’m choosing to believe it’s a bag of corn!!) down the other end of the court to get it in a hole in a box. 

Amazing! It was also shown on The Ocho on ESPN8 - isn’t that the spoof channel that was broadcasting on the Dodgeball championship in Dodgeball film?? (I’ve looked it up since- it WAS a spoof tv channel in dodgeball but actually inspired ESPN to create ESPN8 - The Ocho in real life!!) 

Post lunch and a Kombucha (for me not Dan!) we headed on again. Whistler isn’t far from Squamish really so it wasn’t a long trip. We stopped again on the way to do a nice little hike to see ‘the train wreck’. In 1956 a freight train came off off the rails travelling too fast. They couldn’t get all the carriages fully lifted away so they basically, using machinery, pushed the remaining ones into the forest, salvaged as much as they could and left them there. It’s not a bit of a tourist spot and has been used in films apparently. 

The hike has more than one sign reminding you that you are in Bear country and telling you how to behave should you see one.. did make be feel a tad nervous to say the least! 

It’s not a long hike but is mildly challenging - especially the need to cross a suspension bridge to get to the actual train….GULP

Once I finally managed to get myself over it, it was quite eeery really to see these abandoned carriages strewn across the first floor. They’re covered in graffiti now and no one died or was injured but it’s just a bit weird..out of place etc. Interesting though… 

From here we drove on into Whistler which was only a few more km away. Checked in, freshened up and em headed out into the village. We had a stroll around and found the Gondola - as it was now after 5pm we agreed we’d do a trip out/up/across in the morning…turns out though that most of the Gondolas are closed after the summer period whilst they prepare for Winter (as this is a very popular skiing/snowboarding resort) ahh best laid plans and all that. The one that appeared to still be going up was $135 dollars p.p for a day pass…bit much when you only want to go up for an hour or so really…we’ll see we said.

(That is not a photo of the Gondola we’d go up in by the way..not doing them scary seat things!) 

We went for drinks then at Beacon pub and then over the road from there to La Bocca for some lovely food and a bottle of vino whilst it hammered down with rain. 

Then went round to a place called Neighbourhood bar. Oh we were the oldest in there by a country mile! It was all caps/beanies and being cool dude. So many moustaches and mullets too! Almost everyone got id’d at the bar 😂. We got chatting to Mark who was working the bar (he was closer to our age) and he gave us some great tips for the route we’re taking to Kelowna (pronounced Ke-loh-na I found out!) including where to stop for something to eat! 

He also told us the bar was the kind of central hub for all the workers there so it did get a bit crazy! 

We pushed on from there to Bearfoot Bistro which is next to our hotel. Again got chatting to the barman who was only 29 but he had had such a full life already - he is a ski instructor (now teaching other ski instructors) and has worked in Japan (for 2 years) & NZ and Switzerland and now here. Which has been his dream for a while. Working the bar most evenings as the money is really good apparently with a couple of afternoons teaching. 

Had a laugh with him but as I was getting tired and aware I couldn’t really drink much more and Dan was getting giddy and trying to drink much more, we called it a night and headed back!