Monday morning, Leon, Price, and I got on the bikes and headed into Canada to ride the Sea to Sky Highway. This is about a 60-mile stretch of road that runs north from Vancouver along Howe Sound and up into Whistler, the site of the Olympic Village during the 2010 Olympics. This was the most beautiful stretch of road we’ve ever seen, with perfectly blue-green water on one side and the majestic mountains of the Pacific  Coast Range on the other. It took a cold, four-hour ride through the I-5 Washington traffic to get there, but it was definitely worth it.
We stopped in Squamish, B.C, a former logging town turned tourist destination, where you can ride the Sea to Sky Gondola up a mountain for a fabulous view of the Sound and surrounding mountains. Leon and Price were quite amused by my nervousness at hanging thousands of feet above ground by a cable, with 30-plus-mph winds swirling around our car.
At the top, you walk through a restaurant and gift shop and out onto an observation platform that leads to a wooden suspension bridge. There was a film crew while we were there, filming a scene on the bridge for a show that will be coming out in the fall. It was interesting to watch them film, and Price was very excited that she recognized one of the actresses.
The bridge was closed intermittently for filming, but they opened it while we were there, and we got to go across.
We sat out on the deck and ate lunch, a hamburger and poutine. I’d never heard of poutine, but it’s basically French fries with gravy and cheese curds, and we need to have it in Texas. I can’t imagine a more beautiful setting for enjoying a meal. While we were eating, the film crew did a few takes of their scene, which ended with the female character sprinting across the bridge to our side. There was a lot of dramatic yelling and the sprinting, and it was all very exciting.
We rode back down the gondola with one of the gift shop employees, who was very nice and not at all bothered by being suspended 300 stories by a wire. She and Price enjoyed talking about the actress they recognized.
We headed north toward Whistler. The Sound disappears and every once in a while we would see a creek (maybe a river – I’m not sure) alongside the road, but the mountains were stunning as we continued inland. I didn’t get any photos of the mountains because we didn’t see any good places to pull over.
As we got close to Whistler, Leon was leading, with Price on his bike. We had not bothered to connect the Bluetooth in Price’s helmet to ours yet, and she suddenly pointed to the side of the road. Leon thought he had missed a turn or something, but I looked just in time to see a bear at the edge of the road, just hanging out and eating some grass or something. Again, there was no place to pull over to get a photo, but it was cute.
We walked around the Olympic Village and checked out the shops in Whistler. We found the police station but there was no one around. I don’t think they have a big crime problem here.
We really only came here so we could ride the highway, but Whistler is a great place to visit. I imagine it’s even better in the winter, but I enjoyed it this summer evening. We bought a few souvenirs and then went back to the hotel and called it a day.
On a side note, if you plan to travel internationally and have a cell phone and/or wifi hotspot, turn them off or put them in airplane mode before you cross the border. Within about half an hour of crossing the border, we had run up $1000 in international roaming fees on our wifi hotspot and it got shut off. We’re grateful to Verizon for working with us, but it was a hassle and pretty scary for a while when we thought we might have to pay those fees.
On the way back to Issaquah, we took a little side road that Price recommended, the Chuckanut Highway (no, I’m not kidding, that’s really what it’s called). It was a great, twisty road by a lake just south of Bellingham.
We got back to Issaquah around 5:30 and dropped Price off, then went to our hotel and cleaned up. It was a great two days!
Live hard and ride easy, friends.
McGeesBeTrippin 