oh canada : the travelogue

last year our mother/daughter road trip took us to the east side of our neighbor to the north, so this summer we decided to explore the west. we rented a little blue fiat, piled in our luggage and headed up the sea to sky highway...

whistler : british columbia

this quaint little ski town was not only the host mountain resort of the 2010 winter olympics, it was also my favorite stop on the trip. there was quite a bit of hiking involved as we explored the capilano suspension bridge, as well as the beautiful lakes and waterfalls around the mountain. and since we needed to relax after all that fresh air and activity we indulged in an afternoon at the outdoor scandinavian baths.  

vancouver : british columbia

the first two stops in vancouver were especially fun. first was the olympic cauldron from the 2010 winter games, because i LOVE the olympics! and second was a visit to the meinhardt store, discovered a few years ago by another member of the meinhardt clan. after lunch and a stroll though the granville island public market we headed over to stanley park for the rest of the afternoon. my mom took a horse drawn carriage tour of the park while i rented a bike for a ride around the seawall.

victoria : british columbia

after squeezing onto the early ferry as the second to last car we sailed over to vancouver island, where we stopped at butchart gardens on our way down to victoria. we checked out the float houses at fisherman's wharf, took a water taxi across the harbour and visited miniature world...because i love miniature things!

seattle : washington

a little more ferry luck took us back to the good ol' usa and olympic national park where we took a drive up to see the mountains. in seattle we rode to the top of the space needle before visiting chihuly garden and glass. mr. gott introduced me to this glass blown art in college and i've loved it ever since. then we headed over to the pike place market to watch the fish throwers before having dinner at the crab pot and capping off the trip with a ride on the great wheel.

Read more

d.w.d.w.d.

even with the lure of free chicken, sitting outside in a parking lot for twenty four straight hours on a 100 degree day probably doesn't sound like an appealing option to most people. it wasn't donald's first choice either, and since he was such a trooper at chick-fil-a, i thought he deserved a little treat. so on friday he got to choose everything we did, all day long. it was the first ever d.w.d.w.d...or 'do whatever donald wants day'.  

since donald's day doesn't really start until about lunchtime, (who am i kidding...when it's summer that's when my day starts too) the first thing we did was order a pizza. because all good days start with pizza. and the olympics. always the olympics.

next up: fantasy time. i was the scribe for some sort of heads up baseball competition versus mark. and then he taught me how to do a mock football draft. he was pretty excited about this part...it was kind of hilarious.

we perused pinterest for some dinner ideas and landed on these. they are little smokies, wrapped in bacon, swimming in a pool of butter and brown sugar. donald's crazy for health food...obviously.

and we wrapped up the night with some movies, more olympics, a shoulder massage and a game of gin. i think it turned out to be a pretty good day.

Read more

will sweat for chikin

my second first 100 was a smashing success. the lee's summit chick-fil-a just opened this week (finally...chick-n-mini's for breakfast!) and i was lucky number 16. my first camp out was back in november, when i was wearing seventeen layers of clothing and hibernating in the tent for warmth. this one was a teensy bit different in the sense that if i hadn't been able to borrow a canopy to block the sun, we would have certainly withered away in the scorching heat. but the weather wasn't the only difference, this time i had friends! donald and amber (a former co-worker) decided to be adventurous and brave the heat with me.

coincidentally this opening happened to fall on chick-fil-a appreciation day, and since we were on the outside edge of the parking lot we became the unofficial spokespeople. there was a lot of confusion about the store not actually being open yet, along with a good number of people who assumed we were participating in some sort of 'occupy chick-fil-a' movement. we did have an actual protestor show up late in the day, but he just politely stood on the street corner with his sign.

we had a fun time playing games, eating free food and getting our picture taken by just about every other car that went by. we really should have kept a tally for that. the heat gave us a rough couple hours in the late afternoon, but once the sun went down all was well. amber and i did get the giggles around 3:30am when we were woken up by the butternut delivery man...the hilarity of sleeping in a parking lot voluntarily is compounded in the wee hours of the morning.

donald and amber at our campsite

the guestbook...to document our visitors

 our free chick-fil-a!

Read more