Irelandsking's Blog

Off to work with a minute to not spare. Today I headed over to The Village in Kirkland. I worked on the decks all day.

Home to Angela. We talked for a while. Tasha arrives home. Then Barry and Joyce come by to say their goodbyes to Angela. They leave and we head down to see Realta at Pagliacci. Eat a good dinner here.

Home

We talk until the wee hours.

We wake up and pack up our stuff. A cup of Awake Tea from Starbucks downstairs and we are off. We head out over the Lionsgate Bridge again and up the road towards Whistler. We stop off around the half way mark in the town of Squamish. We go into The White Spot for breakfast. A fine fellow of Greek descent gets me a next to sodium free veggie breakfast.

After the breakkie we head off over to Whistler. We find our hotel “The Crystal Lodge”  http://www.crystal-lodge.com/   We check into room 322. We head off up the gondola to the mountain of Whistler.

My Bitches

We then take the ski chair up to the highest point of the mountain and walk around up there for a long time.

Black Tusk is off in the distance.

another Inukshuk up where we are at.

Our grandfather Daniel Dillon is dead 50 years ago today. Even though we never met him we build a dolmen on the mountain in his memory.

Grandad’s Dolmen

We say our prayers for him. Then we take the Peak 2 Peak Gondola over to the mountain of Blackcomb.

A wee walk around up here.

Then we take the long ride down to the bottom in the ski chairs. This was such a nice ride down the mountain. We arrived in the the Upper Village and headed down to the lower village.

We buy some shirts in the Olympic Store there.

more walking.

Back to see 322. We get ready and head out for dinner. Angela goes to the Dubh Linn and we go to The Mongolian Grill of course.
We all meet up and have dessert at “Cows”

More walking

Tasha heads back to the room. Angela and I become bums and chat on a seat for hours. We take a walk before we head back to the room.

Lights out with a pill. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Woke up early. Headed downstairs to Starbucks and had a tea. Angela found a wallet with like $85 in it. No ID so we will ask at the desk later. Off we go over the Lionsgate Bridge and up to Grouse Mountain. We park the Malibu and pay the $5 parking fee.  We get our stuff out and get ready to do “The Grind” We read about it a few months ago and it was closed when we were up here in July. It was in the PI at the time.

Thursday, April 7, 2005

Grouse Grind: You’ll curse and love this stairway to heaven

By BRENDAN SAINSBURY
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

WEST VANCOUVER, B.C. — Some call it Mother Nature’s staircase, others Canada’s most taxing mountain trail. Still others say it’s a nightmarish re-creation of hell on earth. Whichever way you look at it, the Grouse Grind, situated a proverbial stone’s throw from the dazzling skyscrapers of downtown Vancouver, is not your average Sunday afternoon hike.

Cramming 2,800 feet of elevation into just 1.8 miles of trail, the Grind — as hardened regulars affectionately call it — climbs its way out of the suburbs of North Vancouver like a fire escape bolted onto the south face of 4,100-foot Grouse Mountain, one of the city’s premier ski playgrounds.

We Leave for the top at 9:30am.

We separate along the way.

Each quarter is marked on the way up. Beginners do this hike in about 2 hours.

My time to do each quarter was:

1st  21 minutes and 23 seconds
2nd 13 minutes and 32 seconds
3rd  17 minutes and 16 seconds
4th  13 minutes and 39 seconds

Total time on the up for me was 66 minutes and 52 seconds.
Natasha followed in right behind me at 69 minutes and 22 seconds
Then along comes Angela like a burro at 105 minutes and 13 seconds.

Next time we will make a go to blow our time out of the water. We will have to do it early to avoid been slowed down by the crowds going up.

We were up on this mountain back in July 1996 with Angela’s and my mother so they are remembered and talked about a lot today. We laughed about when they saw the bears and they took the next chair back down before they were mauled.
We take the chair lift up to the top.

We built a Dolmen and prayed for the dead members of our family.

Down we go.

We go into the lodge for a look around.

Then we take the Gondola  down to the car park.

Back to the HYATT.
Then we go for a swim and a hot tub for a few hours.

Afterwards we head over to The Mongolian place for dinner. Then a bit of shopping. Drop the stuff back at the 1922. Off we go down towards GM Place. We stop off for a crepe on the way. With full bellies we walk down to the concert. We saw The King’s Of Leon a good few years back backing up U2 not they are the main act.  http://www.kingsofleon.com/
We get to our seats and get ready for the show. A band called “The Whigs” open the show. http://www.thewhigs.com/  They are ok enough. Time may be good for them.
Next on come the Kings Of Leon and the arena is alive. The show was great. I think this is my concert of the year so far this year. A good long encore by this humble band and the show was over.

Back to the hotel.  Oh yeah I forgot to mention earlier we found a room number in the lost wallet. Angela asked the front desk if the same people were still in that room from this morning. “Yes”  She called up the room and they were the ones who had lost the wallet. Happy Days the wallet would make it’s way back home. A nice retired educator from Germany comes to collect the wallet. It was an odd scene to have this fine man enter our room late at night. We talked with him for some time. His good wifey was probably worried about him been gone so long.
Auf Wiedersehen
A ZZZZZz pill and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 
Woke up early.

We went out for the walk of the city.
First into Gastown.

The 2010 Winter Olympic shite is selling everywhere.

Then up through the Mission type of District.

And into Chinatown.

Back through the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Park.

Then over to GM Place and we got tickets for the “Kings Of Leon” concert tomorrow night.

then off towards the waterfront.

Then took the ferry over to Granville Island.

Into the market there.

We had crepes for lunch. Well breakfast too so brunch it was.

Then on off walking again
Elvis will be dead 32 years tomorrow.

We head back over on the ferry to the other side.

We bought some lotto tickets for the big win.
Then we head down along English Bay for a visit. We built a Inukshuk here to give us luck in the Lotto and luck in our life moreso.

We named it “Carrig Glas”

We leave our little fellow behind.

and head down to the Inukshuk at the pointe.

Then down along to Second Beach

We rode the trolley around Stanley Park.

We stop off at the Totem Pole Park

Walk around some more.

Back on the trolley

and rode around the park and got off at the Lost Lagoon.
Then walked back downtown

Had dinner at the Mongolian Grill.

and dessert at Cafe Crepe.

Back to the hotel after nearly twelve hours of walking, We  watched TV for the rest of the night.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ