Switching directions... Starting back.

We had so much fun in Whistler!  We spent three days out on the slopes, and our last full day there it snowed all day - couldn't have been better, really.  I also apologize for not having any pictures of us out on the mountain - we didn't carry packs and my camera is too big to put in my pocket, so you'll just have to imagine us out there.  It's quite impressive there as far as the acreage goes and everything... It's huge!  You should check out this page (click the “compare acreage” link) to get an idea of its scale.

We also took advantage of having a full kitchen for four nights and days.  We had chicken thighs with onions, mushrooms, and pasta for dinner the first night.  For one lunch we had a baguette with cheese and smoked salmon we bought in a Seattle market, and pâté... Yum.  We had marinated pork loin with black beans, mustard greens, and broccoli one night.  We even had eggs, bacon, and cinnamon roles for our breakfasts.  Ben really took the cake our last night though... A lot of you probably know that one of his favorite meals of all time is chicken with cheesy rice.  Well, he made a beer-can chicken in the oven and delicious cheesy jasmine rice on the stove, and it was sooooo good.

Also, this is for Woody: we had some really awesome beer (seriously, best winter ale ever) from a local brewery called Granville Island.  In fact, we each had a bottle in hand when we opened up a message from Woody where he suggested we give the brew a try.  Awesome!

And now, we’re on the road again.  Geez!  Haha, I was taking a look at the map and had this moment where I was like, “holy crap, we got ourselves way the hell out here.”  I mean, it’s like 50 hours of driving to get back to North Carolina from Whistler, and that doesn’t even count any odd places we may want to visit on our way back.  The good thing is, amazingly, we are still having so much fun.  I mean, 10 hours of driving in one day can make us pretty tired, but we’re still laughing all the time and excited to be out here.  While I may be shocked at the distance to cover with just 10 days before Christmas (that’s when we left Canada), I am so glad we made it to all of the places we did.  And now we can bust out the rest of the bingo... we've been saving it!

So now we’re down to 8 days (counting today and Christmas Eve) and by tomorrow we’ll have covered half of the 50 hours.  We’ll be back in Colorado and spending a day in Breckenridge and hanging out with good friends from camp, Chris and Ashley, who are working there.  The past few days have been pretty busy, but it’ll be nice for the last 5 days to be a little more relaxed. 

I have to admit, I am having some mixed emotions.  Because, now, even though we have places to stop yet, we’re really on our way home.  Part of me is ready to be there and spend time with family and be still for a bit, but part of me is sad that our trip is ending.  The good thing is, we can really just consider this to be the end of the first chapter – we’re going to go up to New England around the New Year and spend a good chunk of time in D.C. in the middle of January.  Then after that everything is totally up in the air, and that is another adventure in and of itself.