Whistler so far.....

We arrived in Whistler on the 1st December and it will be our home until the end April. During our RV trip, we had been keeping an eye on the weather and we were delighted to see that November was the snowiest month on record, where over 5 meters of the white stuff fell. This meant that the season was going to be one of the best yet for snow!!!! We are now only 1/2 way through the season and we have already had over 10 metres, which is more that the average.

The house we are staying in we are sharing with 5 - 6 people and it comes with all the mod cons with the best thing about it being that it's only 5 mins walk from the slopes. Perfect.

Whistler is very different from the resorts you find in Europe. There are 2 huge mountains here, Whistler and Blackcomb, with a purpose built village at the base. The difference is that the village has a much more familiar feel about it. I know that sounds so English, but if you are here for 5 months, it's nice to be able to grab a Starbucks, a McDonalds or a Domino's Pizza when you feel the urge.

There is a huge bar scene here too, which again is different from Tignes. In France the bars are small and you are able to strike a rapport with the owners and bar staff, but the bars here are the same size as you'd expect to get in Manchester or London. It does mean, however, that there are some great parties and some electric atmospheres!

But we have come mainly for the snowboarding, which has been excellent so far. One thing that is huge here is the HeliSkiing and Cat Skiing. This is where you get taken to a different mountain where there is no resort or ski lift and the company you use either takes you up the mountain in a helicopter or a Snow Cat. This means you get fresh, untracked powder all day long, and because there were only 12 of us on the mountain on the day we did it, we managed to get 9 beautiful runs in! There was a dump of snow the previous night which meant we were riding on 30cms of fresh powder. Overall, one of the best day's boarding I have ever had.

There are 1000's of Australians here in Whistler, which meant Ozzie day here is one of the highlights of the drinking calender. The place to be on this day is Longhorns Saloon, located at the base of Whistler mountain. Ozzies are queuing up from 8am, and are mostly drunk. Andy, Pezza, Paulie and Karen had scheduled their trip to see Cazzie and I so that it coincided with Ozzie day. All dressed up, we arrived at Longhorns at 1.30pm and walked into the expected carnage. Everyone was in full Ozzie gear, totally smashed and dancing to the plagiaristic Men at Work, John Farnham and Midnight Oil. All the pics from when the guys where here are here.


Another great tradition here is Superbowl Sunday, which means sitting in Tapleys Sports Bar and getting very, very drunk. During this sporting spectacular, I invented "shot pot", which involved putting $20 each into a pint glass and every time there is a touchdown, the waitress brings over shots for us all of her choice and takes the cash out of the pot. Genius. The pics are all here.

The Winter Olympic circus has rolled into town now which last for 2 weeks. Whistler is a host city for the Vancouver 2010 games, with events such as the downhill (the main event), bobsleigh, ski jumping and alpine skiing taking place here. The village has been transformed by the media with huge TV screens, broadcasting booths and music stages. There are performances every afternoon and evening with acts such as Usher, Estelle and The All American Rejects playing. It's going to be a great place to be for the next 2 weeks and there is a terrific buzz about the place.

Overall, this is a great ski resort. The snow was better in Tignes last season, but Whistler has the whole package if you include the restaurants, bars, shops and nightlife.

As I write this, there is a fresh storm cycle starting, which means we should be waking upto 25cms of fresh powder!!

Stuoobs

xxx

A brief RV summary

Almost stealing Andy's idea, here are the facts and figures from our 2 month trip.

Miles covered - 6,374
Cost of RV for 56 days - £4848
Cost of Petrol - £1400
Pence per mile based on petrol costs - £0.22

Parks stayed at - 23
Number of nights - 45
Total cost of parks - £1138.40
Ave park cost - £25.30
Most expensive park - Candlestick RV park, San Francisco - £53.12
Cheapest park - Dicks RV park, Great Falls, Montana - £16.16

Hotels stayed at - 4
Number of nights in hotel -10
Cost of hotels - £959.44
Ave cost of hotel per night - £95.94

Cost of bikes - £419.55
Number of miles covered on bikes - 20 ish!
Pence per mile - £20.97

Cost of ferry round trip - £155.35

Total cost of trip - £8921.22
Pence per mile based on total costs = £1.40

Number of Provences in Canada visited - 2
Number of States in America visited - 8
Number of national parks - 8
Largest park - Death Valley
Oldest park - Yellowstone

Highest point - Crater Lake, Oregon - 2487 metres / 8159 feet
Lowest point - Death Valley, Nevada - -85.5 metres / -282 feet below sea level

Biggest city - Los Angeles
Most drunk place - San Diego
Worst hangover - San Diego

Money hemorrhaged at Las Vegas gambling tables - £ not telling
Total cost of free drinks in Las Vegas while hemorrhaging money - £300 ish

I have put together a video slideshow of all the highlights here I hope you enjoy!

Love

Stuoobs

xxx

Seattle - the final destination

Neither of us could believe that we had already arrived at our last stop on this trip and that it had come round so quickly. We arrived in Seattle on Black Friday - the biggest sales day of the year in the states. There were no RV parks within 20 miles of Seattle, so we needed to book ourselves into a hotel for the next 3 days. The usually reliable Sat Nav decided that it would be a good idea to take us right through the main shopping area, with millions of shoppers and hundreds of cars! This was probably the most nervous I have been driving the van and I was pretty sure I'd either smash into something or run someone over, but we managed to negotiate the traffic and arrived at our hotel in one piece.

On the agenda for the first night was to go and see the Seattle Space Needle before heading into Belltown for a feed and some beers. I have seen the Space Needle before but it looked really good at night.

As it was night time, we decided to take the ride to the top the day after. Next to the Needle there was a Winter Wonderland exhibition on that had all sorts of Christmassy stuff inside as well as a bunch of dancers on the stage which really got us in the Christmas spirit, even though we hadn't seen any decorations yet!

After food and drinks we called it a night. Saturday was going to be very packed. We walked to Pike Public Market, which has loads of little stalls selling stuff ranging from T-Shirts to fridge magnets to huckleberry jam to fresh fish and meat. The place was buzzing and it must be so satisfying to get all your fresh fruit, veg and meat for your lunch or dinner. There is a fish stall here that every time they get an order for a large fish, the fish gets thrown around like a rugby ball from one side of the stall to the other. It's really fun to watch and attracts a large crowd. The only place that rivals this is the market in Barcelona. One thing that is very cool about Pike Market is that it's the location of the first ever Starbucks. The queue inside was massive, so we didn't bother getting a coffee here, but it was quite cool to see it!! We also decided that we could get a coffee at one of the other billion Starbucks in the city.

After here we headed to Pioneer Square, located in the downtown district, to go and see the Mariners American football stadium, which is now shared with the Seattle Sounders football team. As we pitched up , we were in time to take the tour of the stadium, which was amazing. We were taken round the whole place ranging from the changing rooms, to the corporate entertaining area and even pitchside. To see how this stadium compares to the ones back in England was really good and shows that the Americans really know how to build their sports grounds.


Final part of the day was to go up the Space Needle. which gave us great views of the city. The plan for the evening was to hit the bars in downtown, where we ended up in Fago's Irish bar! I had been here before a few years ago and the place was as good as ever, including the live band that was the same one as I had seen here before. We got chatting to a Sol Campbell and Michael Clarke Duncan lookalike (John Coffey from the Green Mile) and ended up doing a few Lemon Drop shots with them.


A cracking night had by all. We stayed there until we got kicked out and jumped a taxi back to the hotel, where we both wanted a late night snack. Right by our hotel was a place called the
Hurricane Cafe. This place is open 24 hours and there were about 100 people in there. It's probably because we were both drunk, but the food we ordered tasted soooo good!!!

Sunday rolled around and we had planned to spend the day watching American footy in the local sports bar, which is exactly what we did, and after quite a few beers, another few bars we called it quits and headed back to the hotel.

Seattle is a great place that has everything. A lively nightlife, suburb restaurants, great shopping and a fantastic market as well. It's somewhere most Britons will never go as it's not touristy, but it's one of my favorite places and a perfect way to finish a perfect trip.

All the pics are here.

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx