More from Hawai'i

We arrived back in Kailua Kona Monday evening.  It’s a nice town, and clearly the real nerve center of the island.  If Hilo is the business end of things, and the Kohola Coast, where all of the best beaches and ritziest resorts are, then Kailua is sort of the center of actual life.  Along its seawall is Ali’i drive, which is bookended on one side by our hotel, the King Kam, and on the other, the Royal Kona hotel.  The thing to do as a tourist in Kona Town (see how I keep switching up what I call it? I’m just like a local now.) is to basically walk up and down Ali’i drive in the evenings, patronizing it’s same 20 shops and choosing which bar/restaurant at which to have a preprandials (a cool word referring to before-dinner drinks I learned from the Jesuits) and pupus (a cool word because it sounds like “poopoos,” which is funny by any measure), and which to have actual dinner.  There are many slight variations on a theme among these places, and the theme is: vaguely Polynesian seafood place serving mai tais, Kona brewing company beers, and grilled fresh caught ono, mahi mahi, and ahi tuna (delicious, mercury-riddled) at exorbitant rates.  It’s really hard to go that right or wrong with any of these places.  Since we were there for 7 nights, we became acquainted with most of them.  On the Monday at issue here, I think maybe we ate Huggo’s on the Rocks?  Nice beach vibe, good grilled ono, tasty mai tai…you know what?, I won’t belabor the thing you get the picture. 

On the way back we made a few of our customary fruitless stops at the boutiques. 

Now, from here on out, our days consisted of the following: wake up very early for some reason, hit the beach, come back and shower, go out for pupus and preprandials, then dinner, mull about at a few stores we’d already been in, then head back to the hotel for an early evening.  I hope I’m not coming across as being bored by this schedule, because frankly, it rules.

One of these places.  Kona Canoe Club?

On Tuesday morning, we were up and out by 7:00am because we wanted to get to Mauna Kea beach, and parking at this public beach is severely curtailed by the private resort which exploits the beach for its own gain and chokes off parking so as not to subject its clientele to the presence of the hoi polloi.  We did manage to get a spot, thanks to our very early arrival, and the beach didn’t disappoint.  A long white crescent of sand with manageable surf and a mostly sandy bottom?  Can do.  There’s also the resort’s chichi Hau Tree beach bar right on the sand.  We went there. What it lacked in true, ramshackle beach bar charm it made up for in price.  But the mai tai was on point.

The question of whether Manua Kea beach was superior to Hapuna beach got Erica and I thinking of what criteria is best to determine what makes a great beach just that.  Fastidious readers on the blog may remember when I detailed my city rating system.  Here’s the beach system:

Criterion 1: Sand

Is the sand white/light tan and finely ground?  Or is it course and dark (and thus hot)?  Is it wide enough to build sand castles without them being reclaimed by high tide?  Is it too wide (like the beach at Wildwood, NJ), so you have to take special transportation from the boardwalk to the waterline? 

Hapuna ranking: 7.5/10.  A nice, wide beach.  Pretty good sand quality here; light and fine, though not the ideal white white of the Caribbean. 

Muana Kea ranking: 7.5/10.  Ditto, though not quite as wide.

Greatest in my experience:   Bay on St. John; Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman.  Superfine, super white sand in abundance.  Enough to make you want to make sand angels. 

Worst in my experience: Butterfly Beach, Santa Barbara, CA.  A supposedly lovely beach that is in reality comically narrow and covered with rotting, flea-covered sea detritus.  Blech.

Criterion 2: Accessibility

Is it easy to get to?  I don’t mean, is it in a foreign country or on a faraway island? (not the beach’s fault), but rather, can you park at it?  Is it a long walk carrying all of your chairs and umbrellas and coolers?  Is some greedy resort squatting on the beach trying to block public access to it?

Hapuna ranking: 8.5/10.  Parking is up a steep hill, but it’s there a plenty.

Muana Kea ranking: 2/10.  Manua Kea resort doing its best to deny you access to the beautiful beach. 

Greatest in my experience: Stone Harbor, NJ.  Plenty of parking to be had.  Just drive on up, hop the dune with your gear, and you’re on a great, wide beach.

Criterion 3: Availability

How much of the year can you swim comfortably there?  Are there seasons when high surf strips the sand right off the beach, making even the frolicking of landlubbers impossible?

Hapuna Ranking: 9/10, presumably.  Water temp is great even around Christmastime.  Winter waves might make swimming too hazardous, though.

Manua Kea: Same, since it’s just a mile up the coast.

Greatest in my experience:  Rainbow Beach, St. Croix.  Crystal blue, amniotic waters all year around, while open enough to avoid the overwarm “bathtub” effect of more sheltered tropical bays (I am really nitpicking here).

Worst in my experience:  Hills Beach, Biddeford Pool, ME.  A picturesque New England beach whose waters are never quite warm enough to abide, even in August.  More of a tease than anything else, really.

Criterion 4: Swimability

This criterium encompasses several not-unrelated considerations: Is the surf consistently so puny or so rough that you don’t have any fun while in the water?  Does it have a sandy bottom, or do you risk getting bashed around on dangerous rocks or reefs?  Is it good for a particular water sport (surfing, bodysurfing, snorkeling) of your choosing?  I like to adjudge my beaches from a primarily bodysurfing perspective; you might have an alternative criterium.

Hapuna ranking: 8/10 (waves if anything can be too big when the surf’s up; great snorkeling)

Muana Kea ranking: 6.5/10 (great snorkeling, good sized waves, some annoying rocks underfoot)

Greatest in my experience: Cocoa Beach, FL. Just miles of sandy bottoms and enough surf to make things interesting. 

Worst in my experience: First Beach, Vancouver, BC.  Yes, the Great White North has beaches, but not destination beaches. The stagnant water here is filled with bits of trash and pulp.  Sand was coarse, to boooot. 

Criterion 5: Amenities

This isn’t so much about where the beach is, as what is at the beach, if you take my meaning.  For example, Atlantic City’s beach has miles of shops, restaurants, and casinos running alongside it, but they’re not really there as beach-related amenities.  On the other hand, Coney Island or Brighton, England are old-timey seashore destinations built up in concert with beachgoing. Waikiki’s kind of like this, too. Anyway, my primary interest here is great beach bars, not kitsch.  Also, bathrooms/showers/and changing rooms fit into this category, and are nice haves.  You’re welcome to disagree.

Hapuna ranking: 4/10: there’s really only the Three Frogs grill, which is way overpriced and doesn’t serve booze.  I recommend the “Killah Fish Tacos” for those who their small chunks of fish sticks lost in mounds of shredded cabbage.

Muana Kea ranking: 6.5/10. Better, because of the fancy Hau Tree bar, but you need plenty of sheckles to hang at that place all day.

Greatest in my experience: White Bay, Jost Van Dyke.  It’s all here: the Soggy Dollar, Setty’s One Love Bar, and Ivan’s Stress Free Bar--that’s a murderer’s row. Sadly ravaged by hurricanes this past fall, it remains to be seen whether it recovers its former glory.

Worst in my experience: Lots of beaches don't have any amenities, but how about: Punta Vaca Beach, Vieques, PR.  A tiny strip of beach with no amenities, it's showing up here because the poor water visibility ruined our expensive attempt to snorkel there one time.  Sure it's not fair, but this ain't your blog.  

Criterion 6: Ambiance

Finally, this nebulous criterion captures the overall feeling of being there.  Highly subjective, probably, at the upper echelons of competition, but clearly some beaches outshine others in living up to that a special beachy, I’m-at-rest-from-my-labors ideal.  Helpful if there’s shade palms and sea grape trees to string up a hammock or two.  Aesthetics a major plus, too.

Hapuna ranking: 8.5/10.  Feel the aloha.

Muana Kea ranking: 8/10.  Lacks something of the community feel with the resort right there, but it does have some nice shade trees when the sun becomes a little too much to bear. 

Greatest in my experience: White Bay, again.  The backdrop of the BVI and USVI’s sticking up out of the clear blue water across the strait, free hammocks to use at the Soggy Dollar, raggae playing softly in all the bars.  Man, just get me there.

Worst in my experience: This seems especially hurtful to rank any beach here, but I’m going to go with Galveston, TX.  Tankers in the gulf, and oil welling up between your toes on the beach itself.  No thanks, it’s only 6 more hours in the station wagon to South Padre Island.

So, to tab it all up, Hapuna takes the cake over Manua Kea.  We did also spend Wednesday afternoon at Waikaloa Beach, just south of Hapuna.  It was a pretty, albeit rocky beach with lots of trees growing at horizontal angles to the beach, which was cool.  Swimming was made difficult due to the lava rocks lurking in the surf, and the vegetation on the beach meant little bits of organic dross floating atop the water.  Glad we went, because we got to mix it up, and since it was a hot day, it was nice to have the shade available, but overall I’ll take my Hapuna.

Waikaloa beach.  Still better than 99.9% of other places to be.

Ok, this post is way long now, so I’ll finish the trip report up later.

More from the Big Island

Saturday was a big day because Loyola--little Loyola Chicago--was playing in the Final Four.  Now, normally, we wouldn't give a fig about the tournament at this point, but it's Loyola, and I'm an alum.  Mostly, my alumni sports energy is spent on Notre Dame, as it should be, but here I have a team to which I have a legitimate graduate connection playing in the Final Four--yes, we have to make room for it in the itinerary.

So, we hung tight at our little, teeny beach here at the hotel, and snorkeled in the morning.  And boy howdy, did this little, teeny corner of heaven not disappoint.  Right off the beach we ran into liberally-colored reef fish of a hundred different varieties, and even a few spooky-looking long ago jettisoned anchors and other boat parts to complete the scene.  Nice work, Kona!

At gametime, we walked down Ali'i Drive along the sea wall to Laverne's, an upstairs sports bar with open views of our little bay.  Most of the folks in the bar were cheering for the underdog, which was nice, including a family whose awkward son will be a freshman at Loyola in the fall.  Also, we were playing Michigan, and all right-thinking persons of the world ought to have been resolutely set against Michigan winning so much as a dollar scratch-off lotto ticket, nevermind a final four basketball game.  Alas, we lost, which was a terrible bummer, though it did free our Monday up from having to carve out more vacation time for sports.

After the game, we basically just vegged at the pool, which was great.  The Big Island Revealed guidebook lauds our pool bar for having cheap drinks, so I took them up on that for awhile, then we went to dinner at the fab Kona Inn, a 1930s, koa wood drenched, formerly-very-upscale-but-now-just-kind-of-upscale restaurant right on the water.  The Ono was excellent, though Erica cautioned me about my mercury intake levels, which must at this point be just sky high.  

Sunday was Easter!  We celebrated with the fine parishioners and attendent tourists at the lovely St. Michael the Archangel church right on the main drag in Kona.  The church has sliding glass walls, and they all were open for the service.  Because of the overflow, we sat outside and looked into the sanctuary.  It was all very tropically wonderful.  

Afterwards, we headed out of town to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, a 96 mile drive from Kona along the outer fringes of the gargantuan Manua Loa volcano (the largest mountain on Earth, by volume of rock.)  During the drive, we kept track of the Notre Dame women's basketball team, who was playing Mississippi State in the national championship game, via phone updates (there was no available radio feed).  And consarnit, we won!  And in extremely unlikely and awesome circumstances, too.  Just as we had eliminated the perennially-undefeated UCONN in the national semifinal game on a last second miracle shot two days before, the same player hit an even more egregiously-unlikely, fade-away, last tenth-of-a-second three pointer to win the championship game.  Go you Irish.  The drive took forever, since you're not allowed to drive more than 50 miles an hour on this island, and the roads are all just two lane affairs, but we managed to get to the national park in enough time to hike the short Desolation Trail, which traverses a former forest struck dead by an unexpected lava shower in the late 1950s.  Check it:

The Desolation Trail. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. 

Me just slightly off the aforementioned trail.  Now that's what I call desolation!

We then drove around to the Jaggar Volcano Museum (no relation to Mick), and checked out the crater itself.  Here it is in it's smoldering glory:

85+million years and still boiling away

We didn't have a ton of time left before sundown, so we checked into our "hotel" (a very nicely remodeled small condo outside the park, the check-in for which was located in the local True Value store).  We have late dinner reservations at The Rim restaurant in the National Park hotel lodge perched on the crater rim of Hawai'i's currently active volcano, Kilauea.  The food was good, but the view was surreal.  Over 2 miles from our table, across the open plateau of the caldera, was the Hale Ma'uma'u crater, site of a perpetual lava lake, which sites above the Hawaiian Hotspot.  Here's the view from our table, where we dined in the glow of earth's primordial furnace:

That's elemental fire, friends!

The next day, we were all set to do the Kilauea Iki trail, which runs down into and across the bed of, a nearby crater.  Here's a picture we snapped of Kilauea Iki from above the day before:

There are people on the whitish trail down there, if your monitor is big enough to see them

We began the day with a short side trail to the Thorston Lava Tube.  Lava tubes for when the outer parts of a lava flow harden, creating insulting cover for the flowing lava underneath.  When the lava flow stops, a tube is left, and you can walk around in it.  We got there very early, so no one else was around, and the lights in the tube weren't yet on.  So, our time there was lamentably short.

Tubin'

Alas, the off-gassing of sulfur dioxide from Ma'uma'u caught a rare northeast wind, and blew the stuff our direction, forcing us out of the area.  So we didn't get to do our hike (a total bummer), and we ended up leaving the park altogether.  Oh, well, next time.

We ended up taking a different way back, through Hilo.  This town, on the windward rainy side, is a major port, and was once really something.  Today, it is...ratty.  It's one of those places you've been where evidence of former glory is all around you: grand parks and promenades kind of gone to seed, rotting stands of huge trees and rotting shrubbery.  Downtown shopping areas that were clearly cool just after the war during America's tiki culture enthrallment, but are now not, abound.  We ate at a very local place (the straightforwardly named "Hawaiian Style Cafe"), and I got some great saiman (Erica's kahlua pork was smothered in high fructose corn syrup masquerading as barbecue sauce.)  Afterwards, we took a short detour to a nearby waterfall, and then went up, up, up the Saddle Road back to the other side of the island.

The Saddle Road is a recently-refurbished highway originally built during wartime to connect the two sides of the island by the shortest way possible.  It goes right between the summits of Manua Loa and Manua Kea, with stunning views of each.  Though it begins on both sides at sea level and crests at over 6500ft, it does not switchback, owning to the gradual slope of the shield volcanoes.  Frankly, it is weird to drive on a road like this.  Just a constant, endless 5% grade going up, and then down.   Once you're up into the wild backcountry of this island, you begin to appreciate how huge and desolate the Big Island really is.  There are no towns or even residences anywhere, though some of America's largest ranches can be found up here, and even some herds of wild pigs, donkeys, and goats.  At the midway point of the highway, where it is bisected by a road that leads up to the two mountain summits, we pulled over and did a short hike up an ancient cinder cone called Pu'u Huluhulu.  We got some great views of the definitely-not-Hawai'i-looking landscape.  

The snows of Manua Kea 

Weird foliage and Manua Loa

The evening was spent limin' (a great, beachy loan word from Virgin Island pidgin.  I don't know the Hawaiian pidgin equivalent, but I'll look it up) by the pool.  

More later.

Aloha from the Big Island

Hey, reader(s),

Just going to drop a bit of a report here at the rough mid point of this trip.  Being not a true "Big Pig" family-style adventure, I'm not going to be doing full reports, but I did want to get some stuff on the site so I don't forget it all in my dotage.

James is in Danville with Grandma and Grandpa, and Erica and I have come to Hawai'i for a week to celebrate our 10th Anniversary early (summer is already booked up, can you believe it?)

We landed in Kona's mostly-outdoor airport the morning of March 29, after having flown to Los Vegas and then on to LA the night before, and overnighting at a hotel near LAX.  The airport was filled with a bunch of grumpy-looking, sunburned people headed home, and among them happy new arrivals streaming toward baggage claim. That's us :) Though soon we will be them :( Quod es, fui, Qui sum: ecce concipies.

Our first stop was...Safeway for groceries.  But then on to our lovely beach hotel, the King Kamehameha Beach Hotel in Kailua Kona (the town is sometimes called that, but also Kailua, Kona, Kona Town, and Kailua town.  Like "Waimea" there's lots of Konas in Hawai'i (or is it lots of Kailua's?), but that kind of thing is to be expected when your alphabet only has 12 letters.)  Our hotel is on a teeny, tiny little beach that it shares with a super high-priced stand up paddle board rental shack on one side, and on the other, the restored personal heaiu, or temple, of Kamehameha himself, which is part of a national historical park.  The ancient Hawaiians weren't much for building great buildings---the temple is a modest lava rock and thatched roof affair built out into the small harbor on a rock platform, which you're prohibited from setting foot on.  Actually, the ancient Hawaiians aren't even that "ancient."  The first wave of intrepid explorers discovered this remotest of islands after sailing out of probably Micronesia in their canoes around 500 AD--an insane tale of ingenuity and bravery beyond the ken of this pitiable blog.  Anyway, those first people kept it real here for about 500 years or so, but were eventually were subdued and chased into the hills by the ancestors of today's Hawaiians who landed here around the year 1000.  All of the kings we know about, like Kamehameha, whose fame originates from being the first ali'i to unite (i.e., conquer) all of the islands, are mostly those living throughout the 19th century. Kamehameha's personal history overlaps that of the State of Illinois, to give you some perspective.

The hotel, as I was saying, was probably some big deal forty years ago, and today remains a perfectly respectable middle class draw.  It's got a nice beach-side pool and a pool bar with cheap (for Hawai'i) drinks.  We can't figure out how to keep the air conditioning off full blast in our room, but besides that, there is literally nothing not to like here.

View from our balcony...er..."lanai"

View of the pool and pool bar

On the first full day, we went right to it at Hapuna beach, which Conde Nast has in the past rated the best beach in America.  It's about a 30 minute drive north of the hotel.  The beach has all of the fixins: white sand, sandy bottoms, body-surfing appropriate sized waves, a snack bar (sans booze--so maybe not all the fixins), and to top it all off, just killer snorkeling right off the sand (we saw two turtles!)  It's nice to be able to do quality snorkeling without paying some local pirate an exorbitant excursion fee.  We've already had three great snorkeling sessions.  Here's a picture from the beach:

Hapuna Beach!

The Big Island has a bit of an unfair reputation for not having any good beaches.  It's understandable that, on an island as big as the other 6 islands put together, people expect more of the classically desirable beach than is here, but that is because of Hawai'i's very interesting geographical history.  You see, this island is among the very, very few places on earth still be made, as it were.  By the minute, this island is growing--these millennia it's the south flank that's getting bigger--thanks to the amazing power of the Hawaiian volcanic hotspot, the magma pipe underneath the island responsible over 85 million years for an archipelago of islands, atolls, and seamounts that stretch for 3,600 miles out toward Russia (the magma keeps flowing upwards from the Earth's core, but the plate on top of it moves, hence the string of islands left in the wake of the action).  Since the Big Island is the newcomer of the lot, it's still covered in (relatively) fresh lava flows.  Beaches, as we normally think of them, are deposits of tiny bits of coral and shell ground over eons into fine power by the churning of the ocean, and many of places on the Big Island would surely feature such beaches were it not for the volcanoes' annoying tendency to cover them over with lava (there are some black--and even a few green sand--beaches here, but who wants to sit on a hot black lava sand beach all day?)  Still, there are a few great beaches on this island, if one knows where to look for them (guidebooks, the internet), and we found 'em. 

After Hapuna, we drove back to the hotel, cleaned up, and headed out on Ali'i Drive--Kona's bay side tourist strip--for preprandials and dinner at Quinn's Almost-by-the-Sea, a refreshingly honest bar and grill acoss from our hotel that just serves up fresh caught Ono and Mahi Mahi without a ton of fuss.  Good choice, us!

Ok, more on beaches and food later.  In fact, this post is getting long, so I'll post this and hit the hay.

Disaster at Sea

10 days is a long vacation when you're James' age, and today I think we hit a 3 year old's limit.

After a spartan continental breakfast, we made our way down to the Fairhaven ferry terminal for an all-day whale watching cruise throughout the San Juan Islands, featuring salmon lunch.  There was just one other family with little kids, a gaggle of drunk college kids celebrating a birthday, and mostly older couples very interested is seeing whales.  We were told that whales are seen on 90% of the daily voyages.  Alas...

See him now as he stands on the bow of a ship headed for a new land 

The first few hours certainly tested James' patience, but he did manage to sidle up to the other family and make friendly with their 5 and 2 year olds.  Around 11:30am, we landed in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island itself, the largest village in the islands, and the hub of tourist activity therein.  We were greeted before we even left the dock by "Popeye," a geriatric seal who has loafed around these docks begging people for food for over 15 years.  Popeye has her pup with her now, defying both her age and an earlier generation of boatsmen who assumed she was male.

James and Erica checking out "Popeye" the one-eyed seal, and her new pup

The hoppin' little downtown area of Friday Harbor was full of upscale boutiques and quaint pubs, and classy in the way these types of places are when they're on Cape Cod or up in Maine.  Not fancy per se, since there's still advertisements for happy hours and stacks o' cakes and and things, but extremely expensive price-wise, and there's big yachts and sailboats everywhere.  We walked the main drag a few times, then headed back to the boat.  It was a beautiful day and I was feeling pretty good about everything.

James later on rides the marble statue of Popeye, erected seemingly too soon

James' face presages where this day is headed

James was not really having any of it, and it was about to get MUCH WORSE.  Upon reboarding, he noticed that his two little friends had each purchased two small orca whale toys.  Now, he HAS an orca whale toy, and he'd even brought it with him.  But it is (apparently) a "daddy" orca, not a "mommy" or a "baby" one, and he just melted down right then and there.  On a boat at sea, there is no place to take a screaming toddler.  Once the ship got going, he insisted that he couldn't stay outside because it was too cold and the spray was making him wet (neither was true).  Yet he couldn't stay inside because, taunted by the sight of orca toys, he only screamed and made a scene by repeatedly demanding the other kids share them.  None of the other passengers wanted him inside, but outside he became absolutely inconsolable, lost in fits of rage that I have never seen from him. There was punching and kicking (Erica has a legit eye bruise) and even some headbutting (new to the repertoire).   To calm him down, we'd take him inside, but he'd start right up again crying for toys, and this in/out process lasted most of the afternoon.  To make matters worse, there were no real live orcas, or any other kind of whale to be seen anywhere, for that matter.

As the hours ticked on, the boat chased whale-sighting rumors it was receiving from other boats all over the archipelago.  James followed the 5 year old around, endlessly hounding her to borrow her baby orca.  Time stretched into infinity; the lower deck, trapping the suns rays, heated up like a sauna, while the outside remained windy, but got wetter as the waves got rougher.  James screamed whenever forced to give the orca toy back.  The deck began lurching more violently beneath our feet.  We'd take him outside to keep him from bothering the other passengers, but he'd lose his marbles as the red mist descended.  This stupid, pointless cruise was never going to end.

Then it did.  We docked.  James, asleep on his feet, fell into his stroller, greeting it like an old friend.  We had a pretty incredible dinner at Aslan Brewing Company, one of Bellingham's 1,500 amazing brewpubs.  Bedtime went smoothly.  Erica and I drank beer while watching Game of Thrones.  Good night, actually.

Tomorrow, it's home, and Tuesday, it's work.  Oh, well.



Grant

Whistler

Since I missed yesterday, I'm doing a double shot here.  Two glorious days in and around Whistler!

Whistler is basically a made-up town from the later 60s, possible early 70s.  Someone said, "hmmmm...here's a place of extreme natural beauty, and I've got a ton of capital, so lets just build a resort town right here."  And some native Squamish probably put up a fight, but they lost, so here we are.  It's the world's premier ski resort destination (3 years in a row), and an Olympics host site, to boot.  It's basically Stepford, but with enough "extreme"outdoor adventurey-type of a vibe to be spelled "Xtepford."

In order to get to Xtepford from Vancouver, you have to take the Sea-to-Sky Highway (aka BC 99), up the Howe Sound fjord to a place called Squamish.  You'll recall how bad the smoke has been in these parts.  Friday was a wee bit better ("best in 9 days!" we were told), but still not great, since we missed out on a lot of the eye candy.  Our first stop was to the port inlet of Horseshoe Bay, where we breakfasted and watched some ferries depart to wilderness parts unknown.

BC Ferry Port in Horseshoe Bay

In Squamish proper, we did the hair-raisingly verticle Sea-to-Sky gondola, up about 2,600 ft. above the road.  This mountaintop had a bit more going on than Grouse Mountain.  We did about 2.5 miles of trails up there, some of which featured obviously stunning views.  Alas, the smoke obscured much of that.

The stock photo from the internet at the top of the Sea-to-Sky gondola ride

What we saw

Anyway, we still had our fun.

Suspension Bridge, with Sky Pilot Mountain in the background

Tried to make this look a lot more vertical than it was

Yipes!  On the way down.

After a brief stop off a Brandywine Falls Provincial Park to see a 200+ foot waterfall (because this area is lousy with that type of thing), we made it to Whistler in time for James to spend a good hour running back and forth between the extremely cold pool and the whirlpool.  Erica and I enjoyed some cider and chatted with some fellow stayers at the Aava Hotel, which, as fate would have it, was ground zero for the massive "Crankworx Festival" happening this weekend (and you'll note how extreme is was, given the unnecessary replacement "x" at the end of the title).  This is a gigantic mountain biking festival, where riders from all over the world come to risk their necks riding the very steep downhill ski runs on bicycles.  There were many of these hardcore bike bros wandering about, many of whom seemed to be sporting limb injuries.

Our first evening in town saw us grabbing "upscale pub grub" (what restaurant in the entire Pacific Northwest does not describe its menu thusly?) and a pint of craft brew, and then placating a tired and whiny James with a bit of chocolate gelato.  Did I tell you how lovely Whistler is?  It's just exactly the kind of pristine alpine village wonderscape you want it to be--like if they didn't make Hogsmede look 19th century for whatever reason--and in the summer you don't even have to worry about tracking dirty wet snow into your hotel room.  It was Friday night, so the entire town was jumping.  Thousands of bikers, hikers, Japanese tourists, and Australian service industry workers on their nights off (there are almost no actual Canadians who work in any of the bars, stores, or restaurants) crowded the pubs and eateries, and it was bangin'.  James puts the kibosh on all the coolest stuff!

This morning we got up early, grabbed a hot n' hearty Northwoodsman type of breakfast, and headed up the Whistler Vilage gondola to the top of Whistler Mountain.  Just about 3,400 feet up, no biggie (also there were lots of old people about, and I'm going to tell you that the gondola really open up a whole area of retiree entertainment.  Just hiking alpine mountaintops without any of the work to get up there.   Also this works well when you have a 3 year old on your back).  Wouldn't you know it, the smoke was by and large gone!  So the views were much better than anything we'd had to date.  Anyway, the three of us did a nice set of loops, 3 miles or so, on the top of the mountain.  It looked like this:

Pre-hike carbo load

Whister vistas

Ibid.

A boy and the rock he found

The gracious winner

After our hike, we got on the Peak-2-Peak gondola ride, over the Blackcomb Mountain, Whistler's other main ski area.  This extremely scary thing holds, per Wikipedia, the world records for the longest free span between ropeway towers (1.88 miles) and highest point above the ground (1,430 feet).  It  sucked!  James and Erica were somehow nonplussed, whereas I, as a sensible person cognizant of just what was at stake, spent a lot of the time staring at my feet.

View from the window

After planting our feet back on the solid ground of Blackcomb Mountain, we grabbed an extremely overpriced lunch at the ski chalet and, and rode the gondola back the other way.  Then, it was back down to the village.  After a long car ride (thankfully James napped), we landed in Bellingham, WA's Quality Inn & Suites, hit the pool (it was 70 degrees and windy, but James insisted), and then dinner at the Boundary Bay Brewery (salmon chowder, people!).  Tomorrow, it's over to the San Juan Islands for a whale watching cruise.  More on that tomorrow!

Grant

“I’ll have the ice cream, you guys can drink the beers”

Today was a good day, eh?  Whereas the smoke was actually somewhat worse than yesterday, the comradery and to-doery was wonderful.

The morning got off to a late start, which was ok given the hectic pace we’ve been setting on this trip.  First up on the ol’ itinerary was Grouse Mountain, one of Vancouver’s encircling mountains, which is noted for its steep gondola ride (it ascends about 2,600 vertical feet in 8 minutes).  It also featutes the “Grouse Grind”—a “trailcase” built straight up the side of the mountain, which is the province of superfit hardbody types who run up it, presumably for fun, and then there’s a large ski park at the top.  The gondola ride up was just the right amount of scary, given that it wasn’t an open air car, but the activities at the top left a bit to be desired.

I'm not going to lie, I freaked out a bit

There were certainly hordes of fellow tourists up there, but not a ton for us all to do.  They do have two grizzly bears, rescued as pups, who hang out all day in a generously-apportioned enclosure.  We saw a talk about barn owls.  James played with a beat up, oversized Jenga set that constituted almost the entirety of the so-called “Wild Wilderness Games” activity section.  Basically, what’s happened is they had this winter sports venue and they wanted to monetize the summertime, so they chucked a bunch of stuff up there, and that’s Grouse Mountain.  However, they did have a mildly entertaining lumberjack show.  It was kind of cheesy, but fun, and James like it (but not as much as Erica.)  Essentially, two beefy millennials, trussed up as lumberjacks, told corny jokes and competed in various lumberjack-related competitions (axe throwing, who can chop and saw the fastest, log rolling, tree climbing, etc.)  One of the guys climbed a 60 foot tree and then descended at basically free-fall speeds, and we later learned he is the 5-time world champion speed tree climber. Not bad, eh?!

 Bears!

Ye Olde Lumberjacke Showe

Our next stop was supposed to be the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, which is a very long suspension bridge (just as it sounds like it would be), plus a tree top walkway thing, but it was so crowded that we skipped it and headed back into the city to enjoy the very large swimming pool in Stanley Park.  James, who was terrible yesterday, held it together much better today, and of course loved the poor and its several water slides.

After, we headed out to Granville Island, a kind of touristy market warf kind of deal.  The restaurant was adequate, if overpriced, but we sampled some of the wares of the microbrewery on the island, and it wasn’t bad.  We'd promised James ice cream for being a good boy, and he's the source of today's post's title.

The hotel room is hot again tonight.  Tomorrow, we head up the Sea-to-Sky highway to Whister.  Toodles!

Grant

The 'Couve

Koo-loo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo!*

Greetings, eh?  We’ve taken off for the Great White North!  In one afternoon in downtown Vancouver alone, we’ve worn touques, downed a “2-4” of Molson, seen loons, hunted moose, trapped beavers, wrestled salmon from the mouths of hungry grizzlies, unhorsed a pair of brawny Mounties, panned unsuccessfully for gold, survived a grueling, 8-months-long blizzard on nothing but hard tack and salt cod, and then buried the vicar when the ground unfroze. Oh, Canada!

Our eventful day kicked off with a morning drive across the famous Peace Arch border crossing into the greater Vancouver area, which marked Erica’s first time in Canada, and James’ first time as a foreigner.  Sadly, the forest fire smoke continues to obfuscate the views in these parts.  It was bad in the North Cascades, but is worse here, where the smoke has settled into the lowlands surrounding the city.  You might have a mental image of Vancouver as this Hong Kong-like metropolis surrounded on three sides by mountains plunging dramatically into the bay, but today we were hardly even able to make out the shapes of the nearest foothills.  Still, there was fun to be had, so we went to find it.

Our first stop was the 2k-long miniature train ride in Stanley Park.  This park, which sits on the farthest northern promontory in the city, was voted “Top Park in the Entire World” TripAdvisor, and it does not disappoint.  The ride itself was a typically junky kind of kids’ train ride, but longer.  James loved it, so it was totally worth doing, and it wound through several peaceful groves of massive, old growth Western Red Cedar and Douglas Fir, which are prevalent in the park.  

Stanley Park Miniature Train

We then parked our car and rented two bikes and a “chariot” in which I towed Sir James, and did the 9k loop ride around the park atop its seawall.  We made a rather lengthy stop at one point to let James play in a kiddie splash park, which he of course didn’t want to leave and so threw a fit (one of many today—the no-naps-and-a-new-place-everyday pace is beginning to wear on the little guy).  After two long hiking days with James on my back, my quads about quit on me near the end of the ride.

James in his chariot, at a Second Beach stop for some ice cream

It’s uncharacteristically hot here (and, as an aside, there aren’t air conditioners anywhere because they don’t normally need them. And so our hotel room is hot and stuffy) so we went to the beach, which is just across the street. Vancouver doesn’t exactly scream “beach destination,” but there are three beaches near our hotel, one of which is, in fact, lined with palm trees. The beaches themselves are a far cry from the white sand strips of the Caribbean; think big, course sand strew with millions of scallop shell shards. James waded right in of course, so we had to follow. The water was a bit murky and full of bits of organic dross (feathers, dead seaweed, bark, etc.), but after a few minutes Erica and my lower halves were numb, so we stopped noticing, really. James played happily for a while before migrating, shivering, to the beach to lump up clods of sand together and pronounce them “castles.”

Dinner was…well, I made a mistake. Vancouver is known for its Asian cuisine, owning to its large immigrant population. We wanted to find something in that vein that was walkable from our hotel—and so I did. Plus, the Yelp reviews of this place were excellent. Well, as it turns out, it was really more of a takeout kind of place. As in, good for a lazy night in, but not really what you want for a vacation meal in a city known for its cuisine. James liked it, and positively loved both the dingy coy tank and stale fortune cookie. Erica and I not so much. Plus we misordered, and ended up with two dishes that were basically chicken in clear sauce, which no one looks forward to. After, we took a long walk through the southern part of Stanley Park and James found some playground equipment to screw around on for a while. He ended up melting down again and having to be dragged home, so here we are. Got some wine for our room, and I’m typing away (our hotel, the Sylvia, is one of those century+ grand dames gone slightly to seed. It’s still perfectly fine, plus our room is a suite with a kitchen and separate living space, but everything has about 15 coats of paint of in from years of trying to keep costs low, and the keys are still actual keys. I’d stay here again at this point, and the downstairs bar and restaurant look inviting, but it ain’t the Ritz anymore.)

Sunset view from our bedroom window.  The forest fire smoke has at least meant several hours of beautiful sunset per night.

Tomorrow it’s up Grouse Mountain on the gondola for some hiking and nature observing fun.  For now, good night!

Grant

*This reference to Strange Brew is basically in here just for Dad.