NORTH BUT NOT TO ALASKA

I left Oak Harbor, Thursday afternoon. I had Peter, Paul,and Mary's CD "Songs of Protest" blaring on my radio. Singing along with "The Great Mandela" and feeling as though I was flying down the road, even though I was only going 55 mph. I had been looking forward to this since Christmas. This was my Christmas present from my son Bryan. For Christmas, he gave me 4 days and 3 nights with him at the Fairmont Chateau, in Whistlers, British Columbia with him. That was the best part of the gift, I would get to spend 4 days with him! Love spending time with my children. He was going to ski at what was said to be on of the best skiing resorts and mountains to ski in the world. I was going to "Ski Bunny" at what was considered one of the best ski resorts in the world. That was okay with me, seemed like a fair division of labor.

Well, here we are at Saturday and we leave tomorrow evening. It has been all I hoped for a more. We have had a wonderful time. Bryan found the skiing not that good the first day, kind of ice chunks, but today he said he knew why they called it the best skiing in the world. He said the conditions were fantastic.

I have been swimming in their indoor/outdoor heated pool. I've been in the sauna, the steam room and the whirlpool. Feel completely relaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxed! I walked around the Village today. Not much to see, but it was fun to look at the stores they did have. Found a great kitchen store. Because I love gadgets, I can always spend time in kitchen stores. I imagine that kitchen stores for women are like hardware stores for men. I remember, on a Saturday morning, Gus could go off to the local hardware store for a box of nails, and I might see him back by mid afternoon. He might have the box of nails, or he might not, but he had a wonderful day! Same for me with book stores and kitchen stores. I can easily spend a day in either one, and may or may not buy something, but be perfectly happy with the experience.

We have had some wonderful conversations. I feel so blessed to have really interesting children. They have great thoughts and opinions and I always learn something from them. Yesterday, we discussed what constitutes racism vs prejudice. Found a whole new way of thinking about racism. Need to think more about it.

Tomorrow, we are thinking of trying their "luge" run. Hope we do, I've always wanted to see what that would be like to tear down hill. I use to be a "wild woman" on a sled. Once, on a dare, when sledding under the cars along the side of our hilly street. Tore a little hair and skin off the top of my head, but won the bet!

Well we're off to dinner.