I’ve realised I got my days a bit mixed up and forgot to mention in yesterday’s report that while en route to Kamloops, we saw our second black bear! No pic of this one, as he was on the other side of the highway from us. We both spotted the dark shape from a way back but thought it might be a tree stump or something, however as we passed the “stump” raised his head and we realised what we’d seen was in fact a bear’s bottom! He was happily chomping away on something that looked like grass, I swear he smiled for us! We cheered
Back to another day of mostly car time! We were up at 7.30 as we wanted to be on the road by 8.30; DH had got confused when booking the hire car return time and, although we’d managed to extend it by two hours at pick up, we were a bit worried about making it on time. Before checking out, we headed to the breakfast room, as this meal is included.
There’s juice and hot drinks, a selection of cereals as well as oatmeal and toppings, a waffle maker, pastries, eggs and sausages. I had to try some maple sugar on my oatmeal, along with almonds.
I also added some hot sauce on my eggs!
The food was fresh and the room empty when we arrived, but it was starting to get busy as we left.
There are a couple of potential routes from Kamloops to Vancouver but we had decided to take Highway 99 all of the way, which we’ve done before - it is a spectacular road that goes high up into the mountains, particularly just after you leave Lillooet.
There’s even one high steep section where the road surface basically disappears and it’s one way traffic on shingle rock - not sure if it’s an area so prone to rockslides they don’t bother trying to lay the road, but it’s been that way both times we’ve driven it, ten years apart!
I’ll be honest, I’d been dreading this day a bit; as I hate heights I don’t exactly love the really high narrow bits, given the passenger side is usually closer to the edge and my memory suggested there’s not always a barrier. At least there was a vineyard nearby with an new and open tasting room where I could have stopped for sustenance...
Sadly we had no time today, but if there’s ever a next time...!
I’m joking here as I do obviously trust DH’s driving, and I also think the road has been generally upgraded since our last visit, so it wasn’t as bad as I’d remembered. And we were happily distracted at the major switchback section by a coyote who decided he was going to happily bound down the road barrier to meet us! If he can live life on the edge like that, I’ll be fine, right?
The road is single lane most of the way through the mountains but luckily it was fairly quiet this Sunday, so only a few RV overtaking manoeuvres were needed. It gets busier as you leave the major mountain section towards Squamish/Whistler, but it also becomes a dual carriageway.
We had decided to stop at Whistler - last time we visited the area it was just before the 2010 Winter Olympics and we went home with a Quatchi mascot, so we thought we should see his spiritual home!
I’m sure he’d approve that lunch was the first order of business. It was a lovely sunny day so we ordered sandwiches at Ingrid’s Village cafe and sat outside. My chicken pesto was delicious and felt almost healthy! DH went for his favourite, a Rueben.
We then made our way around the site, looking at the various Olympic landmarks.
We felt we’d earned a treat after that - well, walking is an Olympic sport - so found a place called COWS and ordered a “Cownadian maple” to share!
A browse of the gift shops and a bathroom break later, we were back on the Sea to Sky highway and heading to Vancouver.
We stopped again only to refuel the car and, despite our worries, were at the car rental return (in a hotel close to ours) only 15 minutes outside our agreed return time. Where it became apparent we needn’t have worried about the return time, because despite the rental company agreeing we could return the car there on a Sunday, it was in fact closed!
We were unsure what to do - we were able to park in one of the company’s marked spaces, so we took lots of photos to show the return time and the fact the car was undamaged. I decided we should head up to the hotel lobby in case there was at least a rental desk there - and if not hopefully someone at reception could suggest what we should do! There was indeed a rental desk there, and while it was unmanned it had a return box for keys, so we dropped in the keys and hoped for the best!*
We headed to our hotel - Hotel Blu. Although I’d booked this based on trip advisor reviews I was still surprised by how nice it was, LOL! There was one concierge in particular who was just lovely, he ended up chatting to DH as I spoke to reception and trust me, it’s difficult to get DH to chat with strangers!
After we’d recovered from the stress of the hire car return, we headed out for dinner. As we weren’t overly hungry after lunch DH suggested we go for a lighter bite and found a branch of Dunn’s Famous nearby.
Their speciality is smoked meat so I decided to try that; as DH had his Rueben for lunch he went for a Cuban instead. He added a side of poutine for us to share, and we both had fountain drinks. The food was tasty and just what we needed!
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a supermarket for some snacks. We decided we had to try the flavours we don’t often see at home. I liked my blood orange Diet Coke but DH’s strawberry tasted like a fake milkshake to me; I wasn’t a fan. We still haven’t eaten the chocolate.
We also got two boxes of maple cookies for our respective work colleagues and I got some different Hershey’s chips for baking.
Then we spotted Terry Fox plaza just down from our hotel, so walked down to take some photos before calling it a night.
* the confirmation of return came through the next day; the car company noted the car as returned 4 hours after we actually returned it and charged us extra as a result. Accordingly, I don’t recommend Enterprise.