Whistler - The Beginning

Whistler is so magical when the snow arrives and this year proved to be a stellar year to be sure. Curtis had just returned from hosting a trip to Thailand and it was not right to send him up on our 16th Annual American Thanksgiving Weekend without some help. I was able to get Jodie and Rob to join in on the fun and it was a real treat to see my sister, Janet, decide she would like to experience a place I had talked about for years. Uncle Markie decided that he had nowhere to be and joined in for the weekend. So with this troop and 54 members, we were off to Whistler by car and bus for a weekend to remember.Other than Curtis the rest of us made tracks north on Wednesday to get things set up for the arrival of the masses the following day. We departed the Emerald city just a bit before 10am on the 24th and made good time. Janet knew we were headed for the mountains, but by her own admission she was not prepared for the beauty that laid in store. Cleared the border in record time and you have to know that Markie is up here just a few too many times when the people at the Duty-Free store know him on a first name basis. Seriously, that is scary.There are times in life when you say something that you just wish you had not said. In this case it was sitting in the back seat of Rob’s Suburban and commenting on how there are “so many Canadian flags on all the flagpoles.” Mind you we were driving through Vancouver at this point. I do not think I will ever live that one down in part due to the generous gifting of a Canadian Flag patch to be applied to an item of clothing, a 3’ X 5’ Canadian flag and the face painting kit in the shape of the flag from the great white north, eh?! It did provide much laughter and that is a good thing.

After stopping for lunch in Squamish for lunch at White Spot (kind of like a TGIFriday’s) we made our last push for the Crystal Lodge in Whistler arriving just after 4pm. After getting settled in to the three bedroom suite Several of the clan headed to market for the first of four food runs in the coming days and I dealt with confirming reservations and checking in to see how things were going in Seattle. Mind you, Curtis was not leaving until the next day on the bus, but spent the beter part of Wednesday shuttling all the incoming members from the outer offices from the airport to the local hotel. Have to love that we actually had a member from the bay area that did not get his ticket until the night before and thus was on a 10:00 flight – OY!Quoting from Markie’s blog: “I’m doing tonight’s meal (and breakfast tomorrow) which is a standing rib roast – damned expensive up here in Canadaland — $49 for a four pounder, ouch. Add some roasted vegetables in the bottom of the pan and a salad on the side and you have a meal. Thanks Rob for the two bottles of wine. Yummy. The main event for the night was watching Jodie make the Jello shots for Black Friday.” This is how the trip kicked off and there was some personal drama as I was not feeling up to snuff and dealing with an infection, plus the whole weight issue and add on the altitude plus not sleeping great the first night…well, Happy Thanksgiving!