Jan 11 - sampling snacks

It's always interesting to visit different places, especially places as diverse as Whistler. It seems that most of the people working here are Aussies, New Zealanders, Brits ... I suppose that there are some people from Canada but they're not as noticeable because, after all, we are in Canada and we are Canadians (and Americans).

The food stores are packed with international foods, more like Toronto, more so than New York, NOT like New Smyrna Beach or Loring !! When we shopped for snacks -- apres ski avec wine snacks -- we look for flatbread, different crackers, antipastos etc. I picked up a bottle of my Patak's Hot Curry Mango that I favor and we also found an olive tapenade and an antipasto. the tapenade is quite interesting because it has the usual olives but also feta cheese. The feta is an interesting addition and we'll definitely try it in our home-made tapenade. The antipasto is very simple -- grilled eggplant, roasted red peppers and a couple of other ingredients -- easy to make and a variation on our usual tomato-based antipasto.

Skiing today was great. We went up early for the Fresh Tracks breakfast and then got in some runs on the Upper Dave Murray Downhill, which is usually closed for race training but is one of our favorite runs. Bear Paw had been groomed so we also hit that. I convinced Sandy to take the Peak-to-Peak ... and she survived and will probably ride it again. She did stare at the floor for the entire ride, if having your eyes closed while you are staring counts. The gondolas are quite comfortable. It's not busy so it's easy to find seating, rather than standing for the 11 minute ride.

Here are some details from the Whistler website -- the trip is 4.4 km, with the longest unsupported span being 3 km !! There are the two bases + four towers close to those bases, two on each side, and then the cable hangs down between the two mountains carrying the cabins. From the Whistler website - there are 28 cabins which seat 22 each and provide standing room for 6. There are three wire ropes that the cabins run on -- two stationary and one haul rope. I was commenting to someone that if there was a problem they would have to evacuate people by helicopter, but no, they have a rig that rides on the cables like the cabins do and would haul them back to the end points. That's a good thing, because the highest point above the ground is 1427 feet -- yes, over 1/4 of a mile up !!

Without the Peak-to-Peak gondola it takes well over an hour to ski down and take the three gondolas and chairs up Blackcomb to get to the alpine. With the new gondola it's 11 minutes. Hmm ... that's especially important on a day like today where it's above freezing in the village with a light rain, vs below freezing and above the cloud at the top. In any event, we skied much of the day at Blackcomb and then opted to ski down to the village on the Lower Gearjammer run, one of our favorites, and then zipped up (as opposed to whistled up ... groan) Whistler on the Fitzsimmons chair to our favorite Garbanzo chair. Sandy headed down and I got in another three runs on the Downhill/Bear Paw before heading down. By that point my thighs were burning and my skiing getting sloppy -- I don't want to break another ankle.

You do not usually think about or notice your tendons. I have one, however, which has given me problems over the last two days. There is a tendon that runs on the outside of your ankle bone in a little groove, held in place by a band of ligament. Mine doesn't have the band of ligament because it was ripped out when I broke my ankle many years ago. Most of the time it doesn't give me problems but as I shift my ankle it can ride out of the groove. Most of the time it's not even irritating, just an oddity of my body that I can feel, but when I'm skiing, in particular turning left, it's constantly riding in and out of its groove and gets sore. It was better yesterday, i.e. not hurting as much, but bothered me on our second day of skiing. After a few days of this it stops hurting ... normally it pops out so seldom that it doesn't get irritated.

We went to a new restaurant right here in Creekside called Players Chophouse. We expected it to be a steakhouse-style restaurant, and it was, somewhat. Unlike the typical steakhouse, however, everything is not a-la-carte. I had an iceberg wedge to start and Arctic Char; Sandy had a spinach salad to start and ravioli (I forget the stuffing).

So -- here's my restaurant critic or perhaps just a rant. Most of you have taken some geometry at some point in your lives. Most of you could describe the shape of a wedge. When there is an iceberg wedge on a salad list I often order that because I love the combination with the chunky blue cheese dressing. They did a nice job on the dressing -- very chunky blue cheese dressing, diced tomato, a little green onion -- just a hint. The iceberg "wedge" however, was not a wedge. It was a slice, a chunk, whatever, including the entire hard core. I should have had a steak knife to cut it. I have another small rant -- even in the a-la-carte steakhouses you usually get some bread. Of course had there been bread then I would have eaten it ... I was full, didn't need the bread, but that was unusual.

On the positive side, the Arctic Char was wonderful. It was medium rare to rare and I had not even specified that (believe it or not); the potatoes & vegetable mixture was a perfect match for the fish. Sandy called them fingerling potatoes.

Today, more warm weather, with cloud and perhaps drizzle part-way up the mountain. We'll stay at the top. The forecast for the rest of the week is even warmer, but drier. We'll have spring skiing from this point onwards.

Our home number is a Vonage VOIP line that we point to wherever we are, north or south. I had forgotten to re-point it when we left the cottage and when I checked, found that there were several calls per day coming in from a 651 number, whatever that is. I called that number and just got a message, so I have no idea who they are. I call-forwarded the Vonage line to my cell phone and just received the call -- calling for Jeffrey. I said that he wasn't here and could I tell him who was calling and pass along the number -- no, they wanted his number -- no -- they said they would call back later and hung up before I could say that he would NEVER be at this number. So ... undoubtedly I'll get a few more calls from these people, whoever they are, over the course of the day before I finally get the message to them that this is a wrong number.

Sandy's up ... it's time for breakfast.