I think there are belt buckles in Texas bigger than that skirt.

Ahhh…Whistler. The slogan for the resort appears to be “Go to Heaven, Ski like Hell.” Yeah, check that one off the list as we definitely did that last weekend. Thursday night we busted out to town like we were being chased. It was great. There were three cars headed towards Seattle and it was a gorgeous start to a fantastic trip. We rendezvoused at REI Seattle for dinner and a car swap. I ended up in Marshall’s car and it was a giddy trip indeed. Of course, I had to tell her all about Eire, as he had called that day and then we just spiraled into girltalk all the way to the border, where we stopped for drink purchases (aka Grey Goose…yum.). We caravanned to Squamish with Mayday and Canuck in the car ahead of us and finally found Senor Muzzle and Minnie, who wanted to kill us. Probably still does, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, we purchased cheap lift tickets (cheaper to ski Whistler/Blackcomb than Mt. Hood Meadows. Rockin!) and jumped back in the cars for the last push to the condo. By the time we got there, Mountain Man and Diesel had already checked in and met us in the parking lot by the Marketplace Lodge.

The condo itself was a little smaller than we expected (damned websites make them look enormous. Go figure), but it was comfortable. There was a little ski closet with racks for skis and boards, two bathrooms, a kitchen with necessities, a bunk room, a bedroom, a balcony and a great room with a fireplace and pullout couch. So really, it was a cool little place. Minnie and I shared the pullout, Diesel and Senor Muzzle got the bunk room while Mountain Man and Canuck got the floor. Marshall, being the Cruise Director, called the bedroom long before we even left the country.

We tried to muster up the energy to hit the bars for a beer, but pretty much no one but Mountain Man and Canuck had the energy, so we all just sacked the idea and went to bed. All the better to get up and ride hard all day on Friday. I called in sick on Friday and received many kudos for my performance (and incidentally, no grief from my coworkers this morning) before we made a little breakfast. Three guesses and the first two don’t count as to what we ate (hint. Tortillas, egg and cheese. Yeah. We’re a little predictable)

Anyway, the morning dawned bright and shiny beautiful. We waxed up our skis thanks to Mountain Man being a rock star and remembering wax and an iron. We also managed to start the morning with small shots of Grey Goose because we’re hardcore like that. Mmmm. Grey Goose…Being in the Village was awesome as we clambered down the stairs, walked up the street and proceeded to hop straight on the Fitzsimmons Chair to get up the hill.

Well, almost all of us got on the Fitz Chair. Minnie actually got on the gondola, which we realized after we got to the midstation. We dispatched Mayday and Canuck to go find her and I spent the morning riding the Peak Chair with Marshall, Mountain Man, Diesel, and Senor Muzzle. The snow was incredible. There were bumps everywhere and being that I am not the most incredible bump skier, Marshall and I decided to try a few other runs. At one point, Mountain Man spotted this hike that let out onto some really soft looking and surprisingly deep snow. We decided to hike it, so we shouldered our skis and headed up. It wasn’t a bad hike and we got to the top, took scads of pictures with Black Tusk in the background and then decided to ski. The snow was a little chunky, but it was just as soft as it looked and just as deep. I managed to land on my head, but it was well worth the hike and the pictures kick ass. I will put those up as soon as I get them from Mountain Man and figure out how to put pics on the site. That might take a while, so no breath holding.

Lunch was at the Roundhouse, where we found Canuck, Mayday and Minnie. Apparently, they got to the top of the gondola, found Minnie and then promptly lost her again, setting off a round of searching capped with the discovery of a very upset Minnie. Understandably so, as she’d never been to Whistler before. All was settled and we made certain to keep a close eye on her the rest of the weekend. It worked. I’m pretty sure she even made it back to Portland. She made it as far as Bellingham, to my knowledge!

Anyway, we returned to the Peak Chair in the afternoon to tear it up in the gorgeous sunshine. Marshall and I found a great little side off the Saddle where we could do some mini bumps that didn’t make my knees mutiny. A great time was had by all and we even managed to ski all the way down to the base for aprés at the Dubh Linn Gate. I officially love that place, actually. Minnie and I staked out a table and waited for the rest of the crew to come trickling in off the mountain. We ordered several rounds of Irish Car Bombs, followed by many pitchers of Kokanee Gold and Keith’s. Good stuff all around. After we were done toasting, drinking and joking (and I still can’t decide if our waitress loved us or hated us), we headed back to the condo for more drinks, baked ravioli and hottubbing. By the time we got back to the room, I got a message from SecretSpy telling me that she and Bono had arrived in the village, so Minnie and I went down, checked them in and then went hat shopping as I desperately needed a new chapeau thanks to a decided lack of one that didn’t belong to ski school. Once we got back, it was into the bathing suits and off to the hot tub with Mountain Man, Canuck, Diesel, Senor Muzzle and Minnie. Mayday was passed out in the bedroom and Marshall was making dinner. The hot tub was actually on our floor, so all we had to do was change, grab towels and toddle down the hall with our Kokanees in hand. It was sort of outside, as in the windows were open to the Marketplace and we needed keys to get in and out. The first night, we were the only ones in there, so it was great to just kick back and soak.

Marshall made her famed baked ravioli and we devoured it along with copious quantities of Yellowtail Cab and V&Ts. Yum. After that, it was time to formulate a plan for going out. First, that entailed the girls (OK, well, me) running around trying to figure out what to wear. After much deliberating and running back and forth between rooms (thanks for the pep talk, SecretSpy!!), I finally went with a very short skirt and tall black boots. A skirt so short, in fact, that it prompted Diesel to take one look at me and declare “Coop, I think there are belt buckles in Texas bigger than that skirt.” Awww, thanks, Diesel! Hey, we were going out and dammit, I wanted to wear a short skirt! Fortunately it wasn’t all that cold, so the skirt wasn’t hypothermia waiting to happen.

We started the night back at the Dubh Linn since more Car Bombs seemed like a really good idea. Actually, as Mountain Man pointed out the next morning, they probably were a really good idea!! We got another round and some more pitchers ASAP, and our waitress again kind of stared at us when we ordered 9 car bombs. It was great. Actually, shortly after we finished ours, we noticed that the next table over decided they wanted a round as well. The jury’s still out on whether they thought we were having fun or just liked my skirt length. Who knows? Our next destination was the Savage Beagle, which yielded some hilarious results. I managed to almost kill myself, provide the best picture of the trip, and be bought a drink all within an hour. Awesome. We got to the Beagle and almost immediately I noticed that there were 10 Jager shots on the bar all for us. Wow. Good thing for Kokanee chasers. Whee! Thank you, Bono. So back to killing myself—I was sitting on a stool in front of the bar and went to get up, but unfortunately had hooked my bootheels on the rung on the stool and didn’t get them clear in time, so the stool tipped forward and my feet weren’t on the ground. Conveniently, there was a guy in front of me who managed to catch me and save me a trip to the ER. Which was right next to the hotel, but still. Fortunately, no one in the group noticed, but we had a great laugh over it the next day. Shortly after that, I made the acquaintance of a somewhat annoying guy from an Ottawa ski academy, who insisted on calling me a particularly cloying version of my name and then proceeded to buy me a drink and continue hitting on me. Mountain Man managed to click a picture just as I was reacting to something this guy said and it is priceless. The look on my face is pure revulsion and without context, you can’t even tell it’s me. I can’t wait to see it…everyone threatened to blow it up and put it in ski school. Hee!

After that, we took a few people back to the room and then decided to wander around the village a little more. We wandered into Maxx Fish and Garfinkel’s before getting bored and heading back. All in all, very successful.

The next morning, we all woke up feeling like rock stars, so we jumped out of bed, ate breakfast and headed for the Blackcomb Gondola. I ran out the door to catch up with Mayday, Canuck, Mountain Man, Diesel, Senor Muzzle, SecretSpy and Bono. Marshall and Minnie ended up catching up with us at lunch. We hit Spanky’s Ladder first thing in the morning and did the runout from hell straightaway. It was quite the warmup run, really. We didn’t actually do very many runs before lunch at the Rendezvous. After that, the girls decided they wanted a chick ski/ride session, so we skied off to go hit Blackcomb Glacier and do the damned runout again. The guys hit the boardercross and got separated apparently. We saw a few of them get on the Jersey Cream chair as we were getting on the Glacier Express, but decided against yelling across the divide. We also spotted Senor Muzzle waiting for Diesel, but missed that Mountain Man was looking for us. We all reunited at the end of the day at Merlin’s in the Blackcomb base area. We scored a great table outside and demolished the biggest plate of nachos I have ever seen. We also killed quite a few pitchers of Kokanee Gold, as always. We had a delightful walk back to the condo, where there was more hottubbing and drinking as we got ready for dinner at the Brewhouse. Canuck, Mountain Man, and Diesel played pool while we all sat by the fire and partially watched the Edmonton-Vancouver game that had three quarters of the bar riveted. Vancouver won by 3, FYI. After buffalo burgers and a short fry fight, we hit the Cinnamon Bear for more beers and I got to play with the jukebox for as long as I could bum loonies off of Diesel. Mountain Man was laughing at my tune selection, which ranged from Touch and Go to Linkin Park in this swanky, mellow bar. Good times.

We woke up Sunday morning a little less cheerful than Saturday as Daylight Savings had taken a bit of time away. We packed up the condo, moved the cars and bid farewell to Mountain Man and Diesel, as they had to get back to the States at a decent hour. Unlike the rest of us, as it would turn out. The rest of us headed for the Fitz chair again and skied Whistler all day. We did another lunch at the Roundhouse, which was a little colder than Friday. It was a little colder and the snow was a little harder, which made one run an absolute ice rink for all of us. After that, we vowed to go search for sunshine, so we made laps on the Harmony chair all afternoon. The girls decided to download, so we met the guys at the Garibaldi Lift Company for the final apres of the trip. Many cheers and making of eye contact later, we were ready to hit the road and safe from the curse of seven years of bad sex. True story.

Final tally? I’m pretty sure that we each spent less than $350 on everything from lift tickets to food to lodging. It was an awesome trip and I wish this description could even start to do it justice. You guys have got to see the pictures.

However, I did get home at 1:15 am this morning. And missed the best in-car Chinese fire drill ever. Bummer!

Quote of the Day: “I’ve seen you around/I find you very attractive/Would you/Um/Would you go to bed with me?” Would you?, Touch and Go