We're in da 'hood. Keep your chin down.
Alright, playing a bit of catch-up here… So last Monday I clambered onto a Greyhound to get to Vancouver. Normally a scenic and light 4.5 hr drive easily became a horrendous, traumatic 7.5 hrs. And I had the best seat too!! Yay!! I was in a spot right behind a short little woman who was bawling her eyes out the entire drive cause her friend wouldn’t answer the phone, and directly behind me was a young aboriginal boy on his cell phone who went on and on about his gang’s happenings in the lower mainland. Needless to say, I have had less stressful bus experiences (barely better though!). I was pretty relieved to see my Auntie Lori waiting outside the bus for me to give me a ride to the old Gma’s place for the rest of the week.
Old Gma’s place was pretty good. Fairly quiet and relaxing, giving me a few days to rally the troops for the move out to Whistler. I didn’t get much training done that week since I was just wrecked from the century “race”. I did a few runs here and there and had a chance to spend time with family. One particular night stands out. My Aunt Lori made a wicked baby-back ribs dinner, and after I slammed about 40-50 of those, we made a little waddle down to Kitsilano beach for some gelato and a walk in the sunset. I love the whole Van environment! Just tons of people out enjoying themselves; just sitting and enjoying one another’s company or having fun and dabbling in a broad spectrum of sports. The best was some dude rocking out HARD to his walkman, eyes closed, solo at a picnic table, just having the time of his life. Really cool place, and like my Aunt Lori likes to say “It’s all about the lifestyle out here”. Touché.
So anyways, the Champion of Highlands was set to arrive on the Thursday, early afternoon-like. Not knowing Vancouver and the surrounding area very well, I set off to pick the guy up in the old Acura EL (gma’s). I somehow made it to the airport, and then we somehow squeezed the giant Dakine bike box into the tiny Acura. Then we had to pick up his dilapidated Volvo somewhere in Abbotsford, so we somehow found our way out there. After getting the car, we somehow found our way back to Gma’s. Lots of somehows, especially the last one. Instead of making it off the highway directly to the Main street area where we wanted to go, I ended up giving Pate the tour of North Van, West Van and Downtown. What should have been a 2.5 hr journey became a 5 hr journey. I’m all about the doubling of travel times these days… In the end we made it back in one piece (2 actually, cause I was in the Acura and Pate was in the Volvo) and had a big ham and scalloped potato dinner waiting for us. Good stuff, that.
After a goodbye brunch with family and friends on the Friday morning, at which I busted out the Finn pancakes, Pate and I started the slog to Whistler. It took a while, since the loaded down 240 wagon could barely maintain 70 km/h on the up-hills. We set up shop at Amy’s since we hadn’t quite secured a place in Whistler and then made the pilgrimage up to the sacred Olympic grounds. With a few leads set up by Karen Blaylock from Whistler Nordics, we had a few back-up options if finding a place proved too difficult. Turns out it did prove too difficult, and it just so happened that one of the “back-up” places we checked out was dope man, so after poking our noses around the neighbourhood a bit we decided we wanted to seal the deal. We out-charmed some hot Aussie girls to get our Tapley’s Farm suite and this is where we are pumped to spend at least our summer and hopefully more! The landlords PJ and Jacinta are very cool and understand us very well as high-level Nordic skiers so our situation couldn’t be much better. Pate and I are now locals!!! Schnapps… (hahah, MG…)
I suppose that’s a decent update for last week. It is now this week. Hahah, so I guess I should get that together soon… But yeah, this week has been incredible. Nothing short of incredible. I have never skied in June before.
More to come very soon.
Taker Easy.
Old Gma’s place was pretty good. Fairly quiet and relaxing, giving me a few days to rally the troops for the move out to Whistler. I didn’t get much training done that week since I was just wrecked from the century “race”. I did a few runs here and there and had a chance to spend time with family. One particular night stands out. My Aunt Lori made a wicked baby-back ribs dinner, and after I slammed about 40-50 of those, we made a little waddle down to Kitsilano beach for some gelato and a walk in the sunset. I love the whole Van environment! Just tons of people out enjoying themselves; just sitting and enjoying one another’s company or having fun and dabbling in a broad spectrum of sports. The best was some dude rocking out HARD to his walkman, eyes closed, solo at a picnic table, just having the time of his life. Really cool place, and like my Aunt Lori likes to say “It’s all about the lifestyle out here”. Touché.
So anyways, the Champion of Highlands was set to arrive on the Thursday, early afternoon-like. Not knowing Vancouver and the surrounding area very well, I set off to pick the guy up in the old Acura EL (gma’s). I somehow made it to the airport, and then we somehow squeezed the giant Dakine bike box into the tiny Acura. Then we had to pick up his dilapidated Volvo somewhere in Abbotsford, so we somehow found our way out there. After getting the car, we somehow found our way back to Gma’s. Lots of somehows, especially the last one. Instead of making it off the highway directly to the Main street area where we wanted to go, I ended up giving Pate the tour of North Van, West Van and Downtown. What should have been a 2.5 hr journey became a 5 hr journey. I’m all about the doubling of travel times these days… In the end we made it back in one piece (2 actually, cause I was in the Acura and Pate was in the Volvo) and had a big ham and scalloped potato dinner waiting for us. Good stuff, that.
After a goodbye brunch with family and friends on the Friday morning, at which I busted out the Finn pancakes, Pate and I started the slog to Whistler. It took a while, since the loaded down 240 wagon could barely maintain 70 km/h on the up-hills. We set up shop at Amy’s since we hadn’t quite secured a place in Whistler and then made the pilgrimage up to the sacred Olympic grounds. With a few leads set up by Karen Blaylock from Whistler Nordics, we had a few back-up options if finding a place proved too difficult. Turns out it did prove too difficult, and it just so happened that one of the “back-up” places we checked out was dope man, so after poking our noses around the neighbourhood a bit we decided we wanted to seal the deal. We out-charmed some hot Aussie girls to get our Tapley’s Farm suite and this is where we are pumped to spend at least our summer and hopefully more! The landlords PJ and Jacinta are very cool and understand us very well as high-level Nordic skiers so our situation couldn’t be much better. Pate and I are now locals!!! Schnapps… (hahah, MG…)
I suppose that’s a decent update for last week. It is now this week. Hahah, so I guess I should get that together soon… But yeah, this week has been incredible. Nothing short of incredible. I have never skied in June before.
More to come very soon.
Taker Easy.
The Champion and The Legend
Threading the needle in downtown Van.
Snow means skiing.
Hahah, look at Pate! (he didn't even know a picture was being taken. He was like this the whole time being around the heavy machinery...)
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