In which our intrepid heroes made it through the ski trip with only sore and bruised bodies.
I was surprised to make it through all five skiing days (out of six). I finished my last two days on Whistler. Blackcomb was great, but I liked the trails on Whistler better. Dave Murray was a rush, and my favorites were Harmony Ridge and Harmony Piste. Twist and Shout on Blackcomb was good as well. I had a slight muscle pull on Thursday, but I managed to work it out so I was fine on Friday. I was pretty worn out on Saturday, but I felt fine.
They never got more than a couple inches of snow on the mountain each night, but that was fine with me. I went through some deep powder and didn’t like it that much.
No more slopeside accidents, though one lady in our group came precariously close to marrying a guy she’d met at happy hour 3 hours before (I think bartender/ordained ministers are extremely dangerous).
Wednesday Jill and I left the group and got sushi at Sachi Sushi. I got an assortment of Nigiri that was amazing. Thursday we went to the Keg steakhouse, where I had a 20 ounce T-bone. Friday, we joined the group at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I tried the Pesto Linguini (it’s odd to eat regular pasta after eating the low carb stuff for a while), pretty good (the club subsidized our meal). The Mexican place I mentioned previously was Gaitors (in the Shoestring Lodge, a 10 minute walk from the village). I had the beef fajitas and half a pitcher of strawberry daiquiris. My favorite meal, although the sushi and steak places were close seconds.
The dog sled ride we took on Tuesday was something I’ve always been interested in (my family’s only owned Huskys). The driver had us help him harness the dogs and attach them to the sled. The dogs were named (left to right, front to back, best seen in the eighth dog sled picture) Kona, Apache (lead dog), Saila, Bucket, Mercedes and Tank. Tank tried to get away every time we stopped.
The track we took led next to a riverbed for a couple miles, then we turned around and took it back. The sled driver, Eric, stopped after about five minutes and let me ride on back. Since Jill didn’t want to, I rode almost the rest of way, until we were near the end. We had to stop every couple of minutes to stop from running into the team in front of us. On the way back Eric let me yell “Let’s Go” to the dogs to start them. No, “Mush” is not used, although he said they’ll take anything yelled at them, so once I yelled “Magic Hat” (after our favorite beer, natch). At the end, they got treats, and even Kona, who wasn’t friendly earlier, was happy to take one.
The big news of the trip was buying a vacation place (kinda). I’ll explain more tomorrow, but when it’s paid off, our lodging for vacations will be (essentially) free.