Last coffee.

Having our last Whistler coffee and a scone. Rain's coming in but it's still sad leaving.

Mmmm....Fresh Bacon

The best was Trav's "Back Bacon" (on his back) - he wouldn't let me photograph it.

He's going again today.

Carolyn and Kathleen celebrate Christmas

Found this tree while hiking. Weird but kind of fun.

Last full day

It poured last night. It's raining this morning. We even cut our training session off with Zoey (we've been taking her to a local park and going through her tricks - see below)

There is a bit of a break right now. Trav is going down hilling again (I'll see if he'll let me get some pictures of his fresh bacon for a blog post - for the non-downhiller "bacon" is a scar from falling off the bike - "fresh bacon" is a new abrasion). Fran and I are going to take a hike and get some pictures (hopefully of things other than mushrooms). Chris: Elliot has no bacon or any other injuries as of 10:37 on Friday. Good Trip!

Mushroom De Jour

Better Day

It was bright and sunny today...;)

Lost Lake with steam risking off it...That's actually Kelsey and Yvonne on the beach over there.

Blackcomb mountain reflected in Lost Lake

On our walk by the creek.

Mycology

Fran found an interest in wild mushrooms. I think she liked photographing them as much as flowers...

Hiking in the rain

It rained today but we still all wanted to go hiking. Chekamas lake is the place. I've seen photo's from clear days and believe me - it would have been real nice had it not been raining...

Disbrow's and Friends

Doherty's

Fran and Kathleen - the instigators of this whole wet thing...

Your's truly and Trav - soaked to the bone.

Around Town

Some shots of the village...

Waiting

 

Waiting...

Gone to lunch

One of our favorite places around here is the "Gone Eatery" - used to be the "Gone Bakery" but I think it's changed hands.  It's a funky little place that always has four or five different soups served with slices of homemade bread.  Highly recommend it.
 
Zoey likes it (or likes Elliot's chili)

Kelsey is having french onion soup.

We pretty much eat lunch here every day.

Skateboarding at night?

Kelsey and Elliot longboarding at night.

Birthday dinner

Here's some birthday dinner pics. This is at Blacks by the gondola (one of the most dog friendly places around - Zoey is under the table).

The family took me (frisbee) golfing on my birthday

Trav and I have an annual disk (Frisbee) golf competition. This year the whole family decided to go for my birthday.

Trav and I always play holes 1-9 and then 19-27. They are closer together than 1-9 and 10-18. This year we started on 10. Turns out 10-18 is a class 4 scramble with some 5.1 climbing involved. Probably a 1000 foot elevation gain total. The picture here is Fran and I on the 18th "tee" - it's a 150 foot drop to the pin. Yes I'm "glowing" a bit - this is a 1000 calorie course.

This is the family celebrating our surviving er rather completing the "back" 9. Overall this was fun. My knees hurt - time for some asprin.

Spawning salmon kills kayaking

For my birthday the kids and Fran were going to take me kayaking. This is one of our annual rituals. However this year the salmon are out and they don't allow water activites right now. Bummer - guess I'll just take a nap for my birthday (actually we're going to ride the valley trail in an hour - after the nap).

Made it

Made it up here w/o much incident. Walked the village noting the new places. It's sort of the same locations that change ownership. The upper village is definitely more stable than the lower. There's a new tapas place I want to try... after the usual's: auntie ems, ingrids, gone eatery etc.

John and Kathleen won't be up until Sunday. Looking forward to seeing them.

They sure have a lot of work to do before the olympics. The awards plaza us still a dirt hole and the roads into whistler remain really bad. Not my problem I guess.

Excited

Trav is off shift in 30 minutes and will then be home in 2 hours. Kelsey is downstairs packing. Our house sitter is here. Fran and I are packed. I still bet we won't get out until 1 today.

This is the first time in a year we'll have really been together as a family in a relaxed setting - really looking forward to it. Will post some packing pics in a bit.

What do you do in Whistler?

So I'm often asked what I do in Whistler...in September there's no snow.

Well for starters:

• Down hill biking
• Cross county biking
• Hiking
• Kayaking
• Swimming
• Golf (both the real kind and the kind I play - miniature)
• Eating (Gone Bakery - mmmmm)
• Coffee (Moguls)
• Pub-ing (Dublin Gate - is pub-ing a word?)

The picture is of Fran and Zoey last year around Lost Lake.

Starting the travel season again. The trip line up so far looks like:

1. Canada (Whistler)
2. San Juan Islands
3. East Coast (Trenton, New York, Boston)
4. Great Britain
5. Spain and Western France (ending in Paris!) - many are suggesting Portugal here too.

More soon.

We're home!

We just got in. 11:41

8 hours gone 2 to go

Bored to tears

Breakfast in the Air France lounge

Ok not as good as some of the other meals.

Best Meal in Paris

Our final meal turned into the best meal in Paris. It was at Auberge de la Reine Blanche at 30, rue Saint-Louis En l'ile. I highly recommend this place. I’ll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves.

This is a ravoli in a cheesy cream sauce

Vegetables au gratin

Roast beef with feta sauce and cheesy potatoes

Lamb stew

Carolyn got a special dessert – this is, what else, chocolate cake

A great way to end our trip.

See you all soon.

Sigh...

We're in from the day doing our pre-dinner wash up. We walked the Luxemborg gardens and just around Paris. Didn't make the Louvre - next trip.

We're anxious to see everyone again but we're a touch melancholy too. It's been a great trip and though we're anxious to be home we're also kind of sad it's ending. We've got one more dinner, a stroll around Paris and then we're done. Our taxi is arranged and is showing up at 7:30 tomorrow morning which should get us to our 10:30 flight in plenty of time. We arrive home after a long flight at 11:45AM your time.

Some brief trip statistics:

We (well mostly Fran) took over 1500 photographs this trip. That's like 50 a day. Some I'm sure you'll see - others are mostly of interest to us (Fran loves flowers - I bet we have 100 photos of flowers). Anyway Fran has weeks and weeks of editing for the photos.

We've kept a rough count and believe we walked over 150 miles this whole trip. That doesn't include stairs - just the strolls around town.

As you know we saw 10 cities/towns, ate about 80 meals total in them, and to the best of our ability to remember consumed 20 bottles of wine (excluding the occasional glass at lunch). We took 9 train trips, 1 bus ride, and 3 flights.

Thanks for all the comments, e-mails etc. It's been fun "blogging" this instead of keeping a hand written journal. It made us feel like we could share our trip with you in real time. I hope you all enjoyed it.

We'll keep you posted on our status as we head home with some quick entries or photos but it won't be as fun.

Looking forward to seeing you all but not looking forward to our trip ending. The only consolation is the weather is turning cold and rainy in Paris right now and is supposed to remain that way through the week. Once again we lucked out.

What would we do again?

Definitely will go to again

• Paris
• Orvieto
• Sorrento (Split decision - Fran)

If we’re in the neighborhood:

• Nice (for the seafood and frittes)
• Santa Margherita (for the seafood)
• Sorrento (Split decision - Ken)

Wouldn’t mind but won’t go out of our way

• Colmar (for the food)
• Arls (for the food)
• Beaune (for the food and wine)

Glad we saw it but won’t go back

• Bologna
• Parma

Made most of our plan today

Well we made the Arc de Triomphe and strolled the Champs-Élysées today. We’re headed out do dinner soon to the place John Z says has the best frittes in France (hmmm we’ll see).

We didn’t get to the Luxemborg gardens. Don’t know if we’ll make both the gardens and the Louvre tomorrow. One of the many reasons to come back here I guess.

Why are the eggs so much better here?

I’ve kind of grown used to French breakfasts.  A roll or croissant, an glass of juice and a coffee.  Breakfast is the same in Italy except the croissant is replaced by a sweet roll.  There’s a little café down the street (the St. Regis – which is also the name of the company my Dad worked for) that serves the typical French breakfast plus for a few euros more will give you  an omelet or oeuf au plat (fried eggs).  The omelet is nothing to write home about but the fried eggs are so much tastier here than at home.  Not only at the St. Regis but everywhere.  They are always sunny side up (I don’t think you can order them any other way) and they are rich and creamy.  I’m going to miss this – I’ve had farm fresh eggs in the states (my sister on occasion raises chickens for the eggs but they are a mess) and they’re the closest you can find.  Hopefully we can find a farm that sells fresh eggs at home.

Plans for May 2

Sigh.  Only two days left.

Today we’re going to do some walking (that’s different in Paris).  We’ll take the MO (Subway) up to the Arc de Triomphe and stroll the Champs-Élysées.

If we’re up to it we’ll then go to the Luxemborg gardens in the afternoon.

Dinner is planned to be at Capricorne just north of Plac du Bastille.

We’ll see what actually happens.

Best Laid Plans…

So yesterday was May 1.  May day here in France.  They take this pretty seriously here.  There were parades complete with thousands of police with riot gear, most shops were closed, museums were closed, and everyone in France and most international tourists were in the city.  This meant our afternoon plan of getting to the Eiffel tower went, while not awry, not exactly as planned.

  The trip down was great.  The Paris subway iPhone app is amazing and worth the $1 I spent for it.  However…when we got to the tower it appears everyone and their brother had the same idea we did – go see it at dusk.  There was a 3 hour line to get in.  Sorry it’s cool but nothing is worth waiting 3 hours for.  So we took the obligatory photos and wandered on.  As Burns (Robie not Mr.) said “The best laid schemes o mice and men aft gang a glay” or as Mr. said “Excellent”.

One last comment – I don’t feel quite as bad because the top level was closed for some reason so you could only go to the first two (which is where the best views are from but I’ve got to settle the cognitive dissonance somehow).

More Random Paris Shots

Don’t have a lot of time to write but here are a few more random shots from today.  You can see the weather has been a problem.