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Our travel day started early, as they always seemed to – at 6am. We had to be up because for some reason our transport was picking us up at 7:30am… strange, considering our flight wasn’t scheduled to depart until 11:20am. Regardless, we woke and got ready for the day ahead, having breakfast as per normal. We attempted to use as many supplies as possible, but weren’t all that successful in doing so.

7:30am came, and the transport didn’t arrive. By this time, we were all standing out in the snow (as it was falling from above) – freezing. We decided by going back inside the house that we would not only warm up, but also speed up how quickly the shuttle driver arrived… we weren’t wrong. After loading up the bags (all 10 of them), and taking up most of the room in and on the shuttle, we made tracks to pick up another group of people who were also flying out from Kelowna airport.

While the town nearest to Silver Star, Vernon, did have an airport, none of the commercial airlines seemed to fly here (and it was nothing really compared to Kelowna’s ‘International’ Airport). The drive to Kelowna took just over an hour, and was South of where we were at Silver Star. While the weather was a little nasty at Silver Star and Vernon, the sun had peaked through and it was a mild 0C by the time we reached the airport.

Upon arriving at the airport (with still ample time to spare), we moved to check in our bags. Luckily there was no queue of any sort, and we moved right up to a free counter. Unfortunately for us, however, this was where the simple life ended. Four of our 10 bags were overweight – with Air Canada’s going rate, that’s 4 x $50 = $200 for a little too much shopping. So much for Ed’s ‘balanced’ bags. After a bit of reshuffling, and Pip’s removal of her tightly packed ski gear into her ‘handbag’, we managed to get every bag under/on weight.

After ridding ourselves of the mountain of bags, we moved to the Skyway Cafe for a second breakfast as was typical here at Kelowna Airport… there wasn’t really anything else to do. As we waited for the time to pass, we finally decided to make a move into the sterile area, and get through all the rubbish associated with airport security.

Unfortunately for me, I had made a bad choice in clothes, and was subject to many scans/sweeps/patdowns/remove your shoes, they have a metal bar in them/etc on the way through. Everybody else seemed to fair a lot better. We finally cleared everything, and after making a mental note never to wear any of the clothes I had on through security again, made our way to a seat in the boarding lounge.

While we waited for our plane, and laughed at the passengers who were getting more and more delayed by their plane’s late arrival, we soon realised that our plane hadn’t arrived either, and that we too – although not according to the sign – were going to be late leaving Kelowna. We got off the ground shortly before midday, after numerous further delays due to de-icing and so forth, but were finally on the way – the 28 minute flight seemed like nothing.

Upon arrival into Vancouver, we collected our bags with no worries (my god – we still had all our bags this far… what was Air Canada thinking?!) and made our way to the Perimeter Bus area – our ride to Whistler. The bus was a scheduled pickup at 1:30pm… unfortunately, due to poor planning on their behalf, we didn’t see the last of Vancouver airport until about 2:30pm.

The drive to Whistler was scenic, as always, along the Sea to Sky Highway. Unfortunately for us, it was a little longer than any of us remembered – at 2.5 hours – but it was a generally pleasant ride most of the way anyhow. Pip saw her first wildlife for the entire journey (apart from birds, which didn’t count), seeing a squirrel as we left Vancouver. I managed to miss it, and as such, was the only person not to have seen anything.

We arrived at Whistler Village as the sun was setting behind the mountains – it must have been about 5pm. After a number of shuttle transfers and drop-offs, we finally arrived at our home for the next few days – the Residence Inn. Here we checked into our room, and quickly made our way back to the village to get some dinner.

Saturday night at Whistler is bad… real bad. Drunk people everywhere, just real stupidity the whole town over. The bus drivers had obviously had enough of the crazy behaviour as they were driving a little crazy themselves, but no injuries here. If there was any advice to come out of this, it would be to see Whistler during the week – and especially not on a USA long weekend…

Dinner was nice, however, and we were quick to get out of the crowds and craziness and return to the hotel for some much needed rest. We hadn’t been doing anything but sitting all day, but everyone was exhausted. We settled down and got some rest, ahead of our first skiing day here at Whistler/Blackcomb.