DUMB-ASS TRIPS
by Leslie Strom

You can write to Leslie here

Whistler Blackcomb

The Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort (we figured they deserve the plug for putting up with us) has great rooms and a great location at a great price

From Whistler WorldWeb Travel Guide

B.C. Museum of Mining
This museum is built out of a an old copper mine and so provides a very accurate account of life in a mine during the 1920s and 30s. Visitors can ride in an underground mine train and experience the sights and sounds of the mine. It is also possible to see a more modern piece of mining equipment - a giant super truck.

Tel: 604 896-2233
Fax: 604 896-2260
Directions: Hwy 99 North of Vancouver to Brittania Beach on Howe Sound
Address: Britannia Beach BC V0N 1J0
Transit Info: Maverick Coach Lines

West Coast Railway Heritage Park
This is a notable collection of railway heritage cars, locomotives and various equipment and memorabilia. For children there is a miniature railway, and this combined with picnic and food services makes it an ideal day out for the whole family. It is even possible to take the train to Squamish from Vancouver or Whistler.
Tel: 604 898-9336
Address: 39645 Government Road Squamish BC V0N 3G0

July fourth weekend I did something rather unAmerican. I went to Canada.

Each of us is living on a short shoestring in this economy, which seems to make us especially prone to Dumb-Ass trips. The trip is actually not dumb, the dumb component is how my buddy John comes to get it for free.

One evening John receives a phone call urging him to attend a presentation for a vacation time share company. In exchange for just showing up and listening to their pitch, he will be given two free nights at Whistler Village, British Columbia. John has always wanted to go to Whistler, so he shows up at the sales presentation. They grill him for three hours interrogating his vacation needs. Their offers slide from $30,000 to $10,000 to sign up for a week a year at any of their properties. John considers each deal. He'd say, "You know, $10,000 is a lot of money. I'd much rather go to Paris every year for a week for ten years." Then they'd launch another bargain price at him. On their side they have aggressive salesmanship. On his side he has poverty, the best kind of sales resistance there is. They get a fresh lesson in sales resistance and John gets the two free nights at Whistler.

One other dumb-ass component to this trip is that he phones me the day before he is driving to BC from Seattle, on the 4th of July weekend. All of Friday Harbor where I'm working is getting ready for the ten-minute parade and the Pig War Picnic and the American Legion ham and potato dinner. How could I think of missing Small Town America on the Fourth of July for a mindless free vacation? Small children blow soap bubbles on the sidewalk, a weiner dog barks at them. It's adorable. I am on the ferry to the mainland before I can blink. John picks me up at the terminal and we head for the border.

There are other ways to get to Whistler besides driving, though the drive is wonderful and not all that long. Amtrak trains go up the west coast to Vancouver, then BC Rail's - Cariboo Prospector runs three times a week from North Vancouver. There are special buses, and Whistler itself has a great public transit system that makes driving unnecessary.

We drop by the Whistler train station on the way in, just to see what it's like. A group is waiting for a dinner train back to Vancouver. The train station at Whistler is tiny and opens half an hour before a train is expected to come through. A freight train comes through so we squash a coin on the track. Why? Because we're there with a freight train and a coin and a track, and what else do you do with them?

Whistler village is strictly pedestrian. In winter people probably clump around in ski boots from hotel to gondola to hill. My first thought is that it is like that Main Street USA area at Disneyland except with reasonable restaurants, alcohol, and more ways to injure yourself. The village design covenant is more than cute European buildings; people live there in condos, and there is a post office, a large grocery store, a drug store, some theaters, and good public washrooms everywhere.

John realizes he didn't bring a jacket. It's summer, and it didn't occur to him. So he springs for a spiffy black polarfleece turtleneck that says Whistler on the front and I accuse him of inventing an excuse to buy himself clothes, which he weakly denies.

We walk to the end of one pedestrian street to the gondola - for $15 CDN the half-hour ride goes near the top of Whistler Mountain where there is a beautiful giant lodge and the tops of ski runs. We ride up, throw a few mooshy snow balls, then ride down again.

We're staying at Whistler Village but we are in a mood to walk around. We head over to the newer Upper Village which has its own gondola to the glaciers on Blackcomb Mountain. At the time we are there, they won't let non-skiers ride up. It's a much longer ride, as well.

While we are musing over our timing, we are approached by a woman who wants to know if we can spare an hour to hear a presentation about a time share resort there at Whistler. She offers us fleece vests for our trouble. Our sales resistance is high - John already has a new pullover, and we actually don't have an hour to spare because it will take us away from a steak and caesar salad.

Our room at the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort is not only great but well-priced, and sized for the cheap student and ski-bum crowd. There's a bed and a comfortable Murphy bed all of which will theoretically sleep four. There's also a kitchen, coffee maker, microwave, room for food, a jacuzzi tub, cable tv, fireplace, and a washer dryer. It's obviously geared for housekeeping, not just sleeping. I regret not packing my dirty clothes.

This three-day trip was exactly what a weekend escape should be. It is long enough to enjoy the nearby Starbucks for breakfast, walk the whole place, have some nice dinners out, soak in the jacuzzi, watch some Canadian television, get two really good nights of sleep, and... it should come as no surprise that this time-share company sent us to a hotel that might just be better than time-share ownership. The best part of the vacation is the price, but John makes sure I know it's my turn to endure the next marketing presentation...

FROM OUR FORTIFIED STORY VAULT:

Review - Landmark Trust Handbook can feed every lodging fantasy 10/01

Book Review - Ghost Towns of the Northwest 8/01

Review - four packing books: Pack It Up!, Simple Chic Packing, Fodor's How to Pack, and a bit of Rick Steves. 11/00

Priceline and MSN Expedia: buying plane tickets on line 3/00

Darkest Chinatown 5/99