Oh Canada!
Anyone who's known me for any amount of time knows that I'd move to Western Canada in a heart beat. Half a heart beat. Love the terrain, love the people, love the vibe. Alas, apparently one cannot (yet) make a valid claim for asylum there, so I'll either have to wait until Americans qualify or just keep visiting as a tourist. 😆
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| I mean seriously, does it get better than this? Click on the photo and look around. |
I left Doug and the pups in Lynden, WA and drove up to Whistler, BC with Kat and Brookes (adopted daughter and step-daughter-in-law). We had been planning this (man-free) trip to the Whistler
Wanderlust Yoga Festival since last September!! We arrived several days before the festival started, so we did our best to eat & drink our way through Whistler Village (a marathoner would justify that as carb-load; we just call it living!).
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| Brookes, me and Kat on top of Whistler Mountain at the Farm to Table dinner. |
I did one long hike along the
High Note Trail before all the yoga started, and it was absolutely f-ing amazing!
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| The lakes are really that color - the silt from the melting glaciers turn them bright blue. |
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| Wildflowers everywhere! |
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| Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one that led to the mountains. |
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| Seriously, this is what it looks like. No filters, no photoshop. Just natural beauty. |
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| Imagine no sounds other than this babbling mountain creek. |
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This is a marmot. He sat and chomped down his breakfast about 20 feet from the trail.
(He may have given me the finger when I took his picture, but he obliged nonetheless.) |
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At the end, there was beer. Good beer. (Oh stop ... I'm sure Doug was drinking his very own beer somewhere that didn't require him to hike 8 miles.)
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While we are on the subject of Marmots, did you know that Whistler was named after the whistling sound they make? I hope someday you win a trivia contest because of that fun fact.
The yoga festival started on Thursday and was so much more than I had ever imagined. I took some amazing yoga classes, attended meditation workshops, chanted with a Tibetan monk, learned about fascia release and attended some more amazing yoga classes. I even met the yogi I want to be when I grow up,
Seane Corn, who made me think about yoga as a way of living, not just some movement on a mat a few times a week. This may sound corny, but I absolutely experienced the awakening I had hoped to experience. Long story short, I'm already locked in to go next year.
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Some of the classes were out here on the plaza -- right outside our rental condo.
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| One of the "experiences" was walking out into the woods to hear this guy play the cello. |
I was also so fortunate to have my longtime friend Stephanie join us for the last two days of the festival. I hadn't seen Steph in 4 years and it was so good to catch up, meditate together, do some yoga, and yes, drink some wine together.
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| Steph and me at the Farm to Table dinner. |
After all those days of yoga, meditation and wine, the boys
crashed our zen met us in Whistler on Sunday after their
motorcycle trip. We took them to our favorite tapas
restaurant, where we all ate way too much and experienced some amazing Spanish wine. Reluctant to let the experience slip away too early, we (foolishly) followed that with more exploration of the Whistler
tourist traps watering holes.
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| Pete (Kat's husband) bonding with an oilman from Edmonton. |
