Heading Further West

We made it to Whistler in one piece! The drive, to be honest, was not nearly as bad as the 9 hour duration would suggest. Because of all the beautiful surroundings, we spent most of the time admiring or anticipating what was coming around the next bend (although I must've spent a good 68% of the time focused on the road).

We rented a 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan through a good friend of Amy's, Sheila, who works at Enterprise. We were able to get a great deal on this, so many thanks all around. I affectionately nicknamed it JLo because the thing's got a huge trunk (enough for much junk!). Not the best on gas, but plenty of room for our gear. We left Trail by 10 and stopped for a couple timeouts and a sit down dinner to stretch our legs. Some highlights of the trip:
- Osoyoos, a small town in the Okanagan. Just beautiful with a hint of self-aware cheesiness. Kinda like a Niagara Falls that didn't take itself too seriously, in the shadows of monstrous mountains, beside a pristine river-fed lake.
- On Paul's advice we took a brief stop at a spotted lake, which is apparently thought of as a sacred place by the Natives of the area, and has immense healing properties. The salt and mineral contents of the lake are uniquely concentrated, which give the lake it's 'spots':

- Just outside Princeton, we rounded a corner and I caught something out of the corner of my right eye, moving above us on the escarpment. We weren't able to process in time what had happened - a herd of deer had just been spooked on the hillside by a tenacious Jack Russel - but we definitely got to witness the aftermath. I slammed on the brakes as 3 of the 10 deer came hurtling down the slope out onto the road. They were frightened and not all that surefooted, so their escape route across the highway was a last resort. As if in slow motion we watched one doe scramble down the pitch, up onto the pavement and directly in front of our car, about 5 feet from the front bumper. No animals were harmed in the writing of this blog though, thankfully. The most amazing thing, which both Robyn and I shared, was the eye contact that this animal seemed to make with us as it fled in terror from a loud aggressor out onto the hunting grounds of our motorized death mobile. There was a brief animalistic life or death connection that we had with the doe, as it scrambled to safety. I admit that I let more than one "Holy Shit!" fly, first as a reaction, then as a method to help my swerving, and finally upon reflection of the entire event.
- We got to drive through, twice, a severe storm system that was cutting through the mountains carrying vast amounts of rain and lightning. The storm moved in quite rapidly and then was gone just as quickly: 50 feet from the outer edge of the storm, the pavement was dry. I have never seen anything like that in Ontario.

The whole day flew by. And we're now at our next adventure!

We are extremely excited to ski Whistler tomorrow (Monday). We got our reduced passes at the local 7-11, and are now secured in our room for the night in anticipation. We're staying at the UBC Whistler Lodge, which is as close to a hostel as we can get out here. It's great because we can literally walk down the street, strap in, and ski to the bottom of the mountain. We're on Creekside for any of you who that might resonate with. Have you seen how big this resort is?! We're not going to be able to see 40% of it in one day, but we'll sure try. Oh, and we've brought the snow with us again. It will surely be another memorable day.