Blackcomb, Tori
We went off to get my boots, skis and lift pass, I already had my tour guide and all I had to do, was tag along. We got on the gondola, at the bottom of Blackcomb and headed up the mountain, it seemed to go on forever but eventually we were getting off, only to get on a chair lift, got to the top of that, then got on another lift, until we were up top. I was 8000ft high (who needs drugs?) with majestic, magnificent, mountain scenery. Tori had been here all winter and had boarded in 20 below temperatures, in snow that if you were to have a fall, you could disappear. It was coming to the end of the season now, spring time, with glorious sunshine and temperatures between zero Celsius and 8, perfect for this new player, I had a grin on my face all day and couldn’t get enough. I’d get to the bottom, my legs burning, get back on the lift and by the time we got to the top, I was ready for more. I was skiing well I thought, Tahoe was like a warm up for me, eventually though we had to go down, Tori could have stayed longer, with her young legs and a full season behind her but I was beginning to lose control of my legs and making mistakes, there is always tomorrow, don’t want any mishaps, I’m not insured! Time for a couple of beers in the village before walking the 15 minutes home, “hope my legs will carry me”. Tori was brilliant, I was there for a week and if she wasn’t working, which seemed to be most of the time, she was taking me all over Blackcomb and Whistler mountains, if I’d been on my own I wouldn’t have known where to go it was so huge, we got on the peak to peak gondola that stretches between the two mountains, I thought, how can I complain about the cost of a lift pass. The investment, that supplied us with this magnificent spectacle, is worth every dollar. We skied down whistler to creek side, a run of about 8 kilometres. Every now and then we’d hit the moguls, I have to say, my legs didn’t like the moguls, more for young legs I think, I can handle steep and fast but lumps, you can keep.
Back at the house I was beginning to think about getting a bike and spent a lot of time on the internet, looking on eBay and other sites, trying to find the right machine, to take me across the USA. I had started looking into it in California but it was all too hard, which is why I ended up on Greyhound, buying a vehicle wasn’t going to be as straight forward as I thought; you need a title here to register a vehicle. It all becomes a bit difficult if you are not a resident, in this computer age the lonesome traveller just doesn’t compute. I emailed the titles office in Washington to see if they could enlighten me, I got a response just before leaving, saying I could get a quick title and registration the same day at certain registry offices, FANTASTIC! I was getting somewhere; I began believing I could do what I came here to do.
The week I was there was the Telus festival week, a week of music, partying and promotion of all things skiing and boarding. There was a stage set up at the bottom of Blackcomb, so at the end of a day’s skiing we could have a beer and watch a live band, it must have been an Aussie running the show, because it seemed all the bands were Aussies. I was introduced to Cat Empire who I was very impressed with, lots of trumpet and upbeat reggae with a bit of Jazz, that reminded me of Madness but with their own particular slant, the next day we got Ash Grunwall opening for The Beautiful Girls, I was looking forward to seeing these beautiful girls but when they came on stage, they were a bunch of hairy Aussie blokes. Tori had told me of the bear she came across in her garden at the beginning of the season, which might sound crazy; I know it did to me, a bit like some poms in England who think they might see kangaroos jumping down the main street in Australia. Anyway it was spring time now, the bears were coming out of hibernation and I spent lots of time walking to and from the village searching for bears in the woods without success. Tori was applying for a job over east, north of Toronto as the season here was coming to an end, I was thinking about my trip across the States, it was time for me to jump on the Greyhound and head for Vancouver and Seattle.
I am….THE LONESOME TRAVELLER….travelling east….BE HAPPY!