A day trip to Whistler

Today, I was asked to drive up to Whistler to check out the Olympic sites for the Panasonic Team. I will probably be driving delegates up there later in the games period and we all wanted to make sure that we know where the designated drop-off zones and parking areas can be found. I was asked to take Keiko with me and this proved to be a great opportunity for me. Keiko is a tour guide who was able to point out all sorts of interesting view points along the route, all of the things that were in the dark on my ski trip last week with Nelson and Debbie.

We started our day to beaming sunshine in Vancouver and set out with high hopes for more of the same at the mountain venues. We headed across the Lion's Gate Bridge to the Sea to Sky Highway and soon found our first view point. We stopped at Shannon Falls, took a few pictures, and the headed up the highway again. We also took some photos of the snowy peaks of the mountains that tower over Howe Sound, afraid that the clouds could roll in at any time and obscure our view.

Once we arrived at Whistler, we checked out the Alpine venues at Creekside and then headed over to Whistler Village. We scouted out parking for a local restaurant and then made our way down the pedestrian area of the village. We had lunch and, of course, another Beavertail! It seems that Quatchi, Sumi, and Miga were also enjoying the lovely weather by eating out on the patio! We also had our picture taken in the Omega bobsled. This is the second time that I have found a bobsled for a photo at Whistler and I know that there is another one in downtown Vancouver - perhaps boblsedding should be my sport!

The views of Whistler today were absolutely spectacular! The sky was clear and blue and there was no haze. You can see the runs of Blackcomb on the left and Whistler on the right and they meet at the base next to the Village.

On the way back down from Whistler to Vancouver, Keiko and I made a couple more stops. We got some wonderful views looking down over Howe Sound and then we stopped at Porteau Cove Provincial Park. This is the British Columbia of our childhood, with driftwood on the beach ready for Nick Adonidas to haul away.
In fact,across the sound from Porteau Cove is the town of Gibson's Landing (if you catch all of these references, you know that you were a faithful CBC viewer!).

We eventually returned to Vancouver after a 7 hour round trip thrilled with the adventures that we had.