You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!

We had a great day in Whistler on Thursday. We went took a chairlift to the top of a mountain - actually we took 2 chairlifts. Then at the top of the mountain, we took another chairlift to the peak. It was awesome. At the top there were skiiers and snowboarders. Then we took a gondola to another peak. The gondola ride as it passes over the valley is the highest gondola in the world. On our way back down the mountain we spotted a black bear from the chairlift.  The boys, John & I went on an alpine slide while Alexa did a ropes course. We also worked through a large maze and then to close the day played putt putt. Yes, this was the match to decide the trip champion - it's not me. John came in at 2 under par and I was, lets just say a bunch over. But it may not be completely over yet - there is a putt putt course on the cruise. On Friday we stopped at a couple of Olympic sites before heading out - the sliding center where the bobsled and luge took place and Whistler Olympic Park where ski jumping, cross country skiing and the biathlon were held. We spotted another bear on our way there. John, Alexa and Jimmy actually shot a biathlon rifle at the targets - 14 of 15 targets hit between the 3 of them! We left Whistler and headed to Vancouver - what a beautiful city! At the seawall, we saw sea otters playing on the rocks. Jimmy is a huge Tron fan so we checked out a couple of filming locations. On our tour around Vancouver we took in the seaplane airport and the Olympic cauldron. Also the stadiums and the venue where the opening ceremonies were.  We headed back south to the US. Our border crossing was uneventful, which is a good thing. Our first mission for today was to collect all the 'extras' we picked up along our route and box them up to be sent home. It was emotional for us all as stuffed animal friends got packed in the box. We met John's cousin Cari for lunch and then headed to Boeing for a factory tour. We saw  747, 777 & 787s being assembled - it was really impressive. In Seattle, we checked out Pike Place Market where we saw fish being thrown - it was pretty cool. We saw the Space Needle, the original Starbucks, the original Nordstrom's, and a lot of cool neighborhoods. We found our way to the port so we will be good to go tomorrow. We ended the day at Shakey's - the same one that we went to our first day of the trip. We had such a good time on this road trip it is sad to have it come to an end.  Tomorrow we'll get on our cruise to Alaska - I won't be blogging - internet is not cheap on ships - but I'll catch you up when we get back next Sunday.  We'll keep you posted.