A Trip To Whistler, Canada

We've been invited to visit our cousins in Whistler, Canada for Thanksgiving for many years and we were finally able to make it there.

On the way up we stopped at the Britannia Mine and took the tour and it was pretty good. They do a 70 minute live guided tour in a haulage tunnel, then into the big mine building where they have a cute video with things happening inside the building, like the whistle goes off, a large trolly goes up these rails and steam and sparks fly.

This building is huge. They stopped mining here in 1971 and within a couple years they opened it up for tours, mostly for the kids to learn about mining.

They use a lot of the original tools and machinery, this train being one of them.

This is where we came out. I didn't take any photos inside.

After the tour we headed to the Hilton in Whistler for our 2 night stay.

We shared a room with Kari & Eldon; their 'kids' Joli and Jason were both there with their spouses and a bunch of kids.

These are Winter and Anna, Lan and baby Louie.

Louie is dang cute!

There was a bunch of family drama which made me a bit uncomfortable.

Kari is VERY self centered and easily angered and she just couldn't let it go, meanwhile Jasons wife couldn't let it go on her side either.

So Kari had made plans for her birthday with 3 of her friends to go to a resort for Karis birthday. Joli and Gelaine had made plans for a double baby shower since they both had new baby boys but they didn't invite Kari till 2 days before. Kari told them she had plans and she went with her friends, not to the shower so Gelaine was butt hurt and Joli was a little too.

The kids all think Kari is having an affair because she goes off on weekends alone often and never invites any of them. Kari says shes tired of having the little kids coming to her door all the time since Joli and her husband & their 3 kids live on Kari & Eldons farm.

Whatever it is, they all need to get over it. If Kari and Eldon have issues, its up to them to figure it out, not their kids.

We did have a good time, I got to hold the babies, they bigger kids we all super loud and obnoxious, the food was good. I did dishes a lot. 

After we got tired of being there, we left to come home but drove up toward the Olympic Park, which was closed, but we got to enjoy this sign.

It took a couple hours to get to the border and we came right through, then a few more house to get home. 7 hours to get all the way home with stops for food etc.

This is ALWAYS a good thing to see.

Lan wants to go back next year but I'm not so sure about that. Kari is high maintenance, shes a bully to her own kids and their families and the drama isn't how I liked spending my time. My PTO from work isn't easy to earn and wasting it on this crap is no fun. 

 

 

 Clay Maier is the trainer and I heard the other day that hes really sick and the lessons have been totally cancelled. He got sick in Boise and was admitted to the hospital where he had a stroke. I do hope that he's going to recover and continue as he had been before.

We drove 190 miles to see Amble and pay for her final month of training, the final $1,100. I've now got $6,600 paid into her for training, not counting the cash I paid Nina since she didn't do shit for/to/with her anyway. It was already 93* in Granger so I didn't take any lessons, we just gave her some loving.

Then we were on our way up north 200 miles to Leavenworth and beyond, to Index. There, we left the road and drove up to a gold mine and explored that. I don't recall the name of the mine but like all Washington mines, it had water in it, everything was slimy and it was chilly inside. We did see lots of Iron Pyrite so it had shiny stuff.

After we explored that mine we tried to find another trail to a second mine. We knew where the mine was but it was high up on the side of the mountain, only a mile as the crow flies but probably 2-3 with the downs and ups and switchbacks. It was already 6pm, it was only about 73* here but I was getting eaten alive by bugs so we decided to return another day.

That lead to another 100 miles to drive home. We had left at 8:45am and got home at 10pm. A long, nice day spent with Lan. 

My pay check showed up Friday and I was glad to see it was the full amount.  I have another procedure in 10 days to get the stent removed from the Gall Bladder issue and I'm hoping I wont have to miss any work due to that.