Day 3 Whistler Village and Mount Whistler

Mount Whistler
Flowers on the Valley trail
one of many lakes
Whistler Village
Flowers everywhere

It turns out yesterday we were really not in Whistler Village, we were at Whistler Creek village. We thought it was pretty enough for us but today we drove about two more miles to see the real Whistler village. It is a complete alpine village with two 8000 feet mountains, numerous lakes, creeks rushing through the middle of pedestrian only town and kids and flowers everywhere.

We did "peak to peak ride" which is a combination of gondolas, chair lifts and hikes to go from Whistler mountain to Blackcomb mountain and down. At one point we were going up

( by mistake) rather than going down and JAgdish asked someone about if we can go to the peak that way. He said , " i come here all the time and i never see anyone go up but you can do it. He also said, he just saw two girls going up and he tried to tell them the same thing and their reply was , "but we are Swiss..."

Anyways we had a great day. This place is full of little kids with little bicycles and running around. Interesting observation, most people are European tourists( or local Canadians) as well as Australians and a large percentage of Indians from Canada itself. We are not seeing very many Asians or Spanish people.

Tomorrow is our driving day, so i need to go to bed on time. Good night and send good thoughts our way for the drive up north.

Day 2 Whistler, Canada

Second biggest Monolith in the world ( Chief Girabaldi?)

Totam Pole at Horseshoe Bay

A creek at Whistler

Branywine Falls near Squamish ( on the way to Whistler)

Bald Eagle Habitat at Squamish, BC

Today we started early from Bothell for the canda/alaska adventure. Trip to Vancouver was uneventful, we passed through nice scenery of mountains full of pine trees and lakes with blue water. Entering Canada was easy five minutes wait. As soon as we entered, we saw flowers all over and speed limits in 100 or 90 ( it was in Kilometers...) Drive through the suburbs of Vancouver was boring, trafficcy and lots of construction. But, once we started going on hwy 1 and then 99 north, everything changed. As you can see from the sample pictures, the road is beautiful. Mountains on one side and the bay ( riddled with islands on the other side) . It is supposed to be the second most scenic road in Americas ( not sure why every thing here is second best:) but it is spectacular. We stopped at many places and used our newly acquired photography skills ( please feel free to critic it). There were several water falls and the Chief Girabaldi ( one of the biggest monolith in the world). We are in Whistler now, a world class ski resort, complete with beautiful pedestrian only village, lodges, mountains with snow of them and creeks full of fast flowing water and flowers everywhere. Will post more pictures tomorrow. No camping yet, may be in couple of days depending on the weather. It was cloudy and cold all day, but it is supposed to improve...good night for now, see you all tomorrow.


View To the top of the world in search of Bears and her wild llifeother things...Sarah ... in a larger map

Day 1 Seattle ( Bothell)

Microsoft Office ( one of many..this is Soumya's office, i.e where the microsoft phones are made)

100 hours old Mysha
A false start at 5am. Anupam took a turn towards 280 freeway, I asked how are you going to the airport , he said , " I am taking 280. Me:' ' oh , i usually take 237 and 101 south" . He was all puzzled and a few moments after a very appropriate question, " where are you wanting to go"...I said, "San Jose airport of course". He was taking us to San Francisco Airport. At that point Jagdish mumbled something that I chose to ignore.
Rest of the morning was uneventful. Ariport security lines were huge and plane was full, even on the 6:30am flight on weekeday. But, the flight was on time and we landed in Seattle..no problem.
At Budget rent a car , ( i had prepaid for the car) they said you are early. I said reservation was for 10 and they said yes but it is only 9. I was quite annoyed and said ok, we can go get some breakfast be be back at 10...he called his supervisor and we were all confused for a while, till it dawned on me that I had made the reservation for 10th August and I thought we were arguing about 9am or 10am reservation time ....:) LUCKILY JAGDISH WAS FAR AWAY PICKING UP THE LUGGAGE....I hope he does not read this blog:)
To make the long story short, we came out with an upgraded car, Mazda..4WD SUV and no extra charge.

Our dear friends Soumya, Ruchi live here with their 100 hours old daughter MYSHA ( picture attached). We had an Indian feast for lunch and shopped at REI etc for camping. All ready to leave early tomorrow. Soumya took us around ot see the (evil..may be) EMPIRE and do you know there are 20,000 people work here for them and the building spread as far out in all directions as you can drive or see. After we were very impressed , he pulled out his Microsoft phone and showed me all the features. I have to say , i am either totally brain washed or it is actually much more than all others around.

I have also taken a crash course on photography from Soumya and from tomorrow you will see the "professional" pictures. Mysha's picture below is a trial of my newly learned skill. Everyone is sleeping, including Mysha, the 100 hours old..so good night and sweet dreams.

Day before the trip...frantic planning

The adventure is about to begin. Our flight is at 6:30am. I just like to start the trips with a bit of excitement, like wake up at 4am etc. Believe it or not, almost done packing for all sorts of weather conditions as well as for camping. Not much to say today except Anupam and Shalini and Xiouyun made a wonderful BBQ dinner on the brand new grill. We had a family meeting to decide who will water what and when. Watering the garden is the biggest chore in our household, rest is a piece of cake.

I plan to blog most nights, check often to see where we are and what's going on and let us know how are things going here. Please write on the blog or email when ever you feel like it.
Let me know if you have any message for our dear friend Sarah and if you need anything from Russia.


View To the top of the world in search of Bears and her wild llifeother things...Sarah ... in a larger map