Whistler, and Edmonton

Yesterday we traveled to Whistler, which is about 110km away from Vancouver. We had a couple of options to get there, having researched on Tripadvisor. Other people talked about how great the train ride is, and said that it takes four hours each way. We figured that getting up early enough to catch the train at 8:30am was unreasonable - we are on holiday after all! The alternative is flying (expensive) or taking the bus. In the end, having walked past the Budget rental car office the previous day, we decided to splurge and rent a car for the day. We were lucky and got the last Ford Mustang Convertible GT. White is not as fast as Red, but beggars can't be choosers.

The trip to Whistler took about two hours, because of the amount of road-works under way. I guess with the Games coming up in 2010, summertime gets used to do a lot of work. Whistler town itself is a neat little place, full of restaurants and bars. The hotels (particularly the Four Seasons) look amazing. The probably look even better when surrounded by snow-covered trees in winter.

The drive back was another opportunity to make the car "growl" as Sonia put it - pressing on the accelerator produced a very satisfying noise. Strangely, though, the car did not feel as responsive as the SLK used to. Maybe just that it was that much larger and heavier than the Merc. On the way back, we were treated to some amazing views across the water. Blue sky, blue water...

In the evening we drove back to Granville Market, arriving just in time to get bread, cheese, and wine for dinner. 10 minutes before closing time (7pm), and the stalls were already shutting down. It's quite a difference to KL, where the shops stay open much later.

Today we are flying to Edmonton, and as I write this I can look out the window over the Rockies. There's a bit of snow around, dusting the tops of the mountains. The rest is very dry. Speaking of which, the big news of the moment is Tofino (a town on Vancouver Island), which has run out of water. Being a town dependent on tourism, and this being the long Labour Day weekend, this seems to be a bit of a problem. Understandably, the good citizens of the town are up in arms and banging (literally) on the door of the council rooms to find out what the council is doing about it.

Security at the airport was interesting - they are more thorough in scanning people, and even asked one little girl (3 or 4 years old) to remove her sweatshirt for scanning by the x-ray machine. After all it might be a security threat. In the end the lines were not much longer than normal in Asia, so maybe it's not such a big deal. They were stopping people from taking their Starbucks coffees onto the plane, which I imagine will irritate some people.

We are now just coming to the edge of the Rockies. It is quite a defined line - one minute you're over the mountains, the next it's all flat off into the distance. Another half an hour and we'll be in Edmonton. Looking forward to seeing Evan, Kirsten, and the girls. And not long until Evan's 40th(!) birthday on Saturday.