Exploring Whistler

Tuesday, May 19, 2009--Hope to Lillooet

We drove through mountains in the area of the Canadian Gold Rush today. We made several stops:

Yale--This is a town that was the largest settlement west of Chicago and north of San Francisco during the Gold Rush with 30,000 inhabitants. Today there are 250. There isn't much to the town, but there is a nice long board with photos and a history of the community. The only worthwhile building remaining is a very nice and quaint church.

Alexandra Bridge--This is a suspension bridge on the old roadway which has been abandoned. It has a nice design and is now part of a park with hiking trails. The bridge was named after Alexandra, the Danish princess who became the queen of England.

Hell's Gate--The whole trip today was through Fraser Canyon. The Fraser River narrows here to its narrowest, and the flow of water is greater than that of Niagara Falls. There is a tourist trap that has been constructed to take people down to the river on a cable car for $17. We just looked from above!

Ashcroft/Casche Creek--We took a side trip which took us into the desert mountains. They were dry, but there were beautiful purple wildflowers blooming on the mountain sides. These two towns were only 4 km apart. They are nice, simple towns, but they are rather poor. It is a tribal area of British Columbia.

Lillooet--This was our stop for the night. It is an okay town in a beautiful setting with a river through it and snow-capped mountains around it. We walked the main street seeing the historical sights. Then we bought food to cook in our room which was an apartment with a full kitchen and two bedrooms.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009--Lillooet to Whistler to Vancouver

We took the back road between Lillooet and Whistler. It was a wonderful twisting and winding road through the mountains which were snow-capped and even had a fresh dusting of snow on the trees at the top to give a lacy look from the roadway. There were beautiful lakes, and it was a very remote area. It was one of the nicest roadways we have taken in terms of scenery.

Whistler will be home to the 2010 Winter Olympics. It is a very new and very nice town. To me, however, it lacks character. Although the buildings are of nice design and of high quality construction, there just seems to be something missing in terms of character. Maybe it's just that there must be some time for them to age.

From Whistler, we followed the Sea to Sky Highway back to Vancouver. It is under construction the whole way so that it will be in shape for the Olympics. It's a beautiful drive, but would be nicer without all the detours that keep one from looking across at the scenery being passed. We stopped in Squamish on the way. It's a commuter town about 30 minutes from Vancouver. Nice, but nothing special.

We just missed the worst of the Vancouver rush hour traffic. That's good, because we had to go through downtown to get to our hotel in the airport area. Still, there were long delays along one part of the roadway.

We had real problems getting gas to fill the tank for returning the rental car tomorrow. The stations are all full service, so the attendants try to work fast. First, we spent all our last Canadian dollars to get rid of them. Then we put gas in with a credit card. When it clicked off, we drove off only to find that the tank still did not register full. The back-flow from the fast pour had caused it to click too early. So we had to return again to get more gas so the tank would be full!!!

There's a Costco just a block from our hotel, so we went there to have dinner and look around. We had nothing special planned for this last evening, because Wes' flight is at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow.

Note: I will be traveling and will not arrive in Malaysia until almost midnight on the 23rd of May (due to the international date line and time eaten up making air connections). Therefore, I cannot be on the computer again until the 24th (or maybe the 25th). Don't be worried about there being no entries.