(Joffre Lakes)
This has definitely been my longest hiatus from writing. I've had well meaning plans to get back to this every week, and then life happens. Again...and again...and again. So much has gone on. Ava turned 3 years old, lot's of family activities and the biggest event yet, H and I's 10 year anniversary trip!
Guys, I had the time of my life on our trip. I really did. I welled up with tears the day before coming back because I was just so happy. It had been 5 years since our last vacation alone with no kids! The reason it had been that long was a combination of things. For one, in 2015 we moved to Florida with no family here, not even a second cousin haha! Also we found out we were expecting baby #4. That will definitely make it hard to travel alone--especially if baby won't take a bottle. Moving close to the beach for the first time is also pretty cool and we love it here. We've spent the last 3 years exploring south Florida and there's still much we haven't seen in Florida.
The mountains were calling us back though. The pacific northwest will always be special to us. We first fell in love with Washington back when we were dating and H proposed to me in Seattle. We've been to Washington 3 times and on the 3rd trip we took a fairy over to Victoria in British Colombia, It's so gorgeous there and we loved it. A few months ago H mentioned checking out Vancouver which is the capital of B.C and then a surrounding city, I really wanted to visit Victoria again but it was going to take up a large portion of our time to get there. Instead he mentioned Whistler and I'm so glad he did. Whistler was amazing in every way! Before I get ahead of myself, I'm going to backtrack to Vancouver where we spent 2 nights. Vancouver is great but probably a city I'm ok with just seeing once or twice. We stayed at the Sheraton Wall Center which has these amazing floor to ceiling windows so the view was awesome and the area was great, but I was really surprised to see a lot of homelessness in the downtown area. There's also a big problem with drug abuse. The locals say that there is a big homeless population there because it's on the west side of Canada which is the warmest part. We loved walking all around downtown but we'd literally see some guy coming out from behind the dumpster looking and acting like a zombie! The locals pay them no mind. They just keep walking like they don't even notice. I suppose they are used to them. I would say my favorite place to visit in Vancouver was Stanley Park. It's huge and beautiful. My favorite place to eat was Jam Cafe. If you go, you must eat there and get there early enough or else the line starts backing up all the way down the street.
(The most delicious breakfast place in Vancouver! Jam Cafe)
Whereas Vancouver is like the Miami of South Florida, Whistler is definitely the Boca. The city is super clean, quaint, charming and well to do. One of the reasons I would say to visit Vancouver is so you can drive the sea to sky highway route. It's a 2 hour drive from Vancouver to Whistler and the whole drive is scenic. It's absolutely beautiful! My jaw was literally dropping every few miles. I just couldn't believe how beautiful it was. When we arrived to Whistler we went straight to check in at the Four Seasons to put our stuff away and make another 1 hour drive to Joffre Lakes for a hike. Upon check in, the attendant came around and gave me a red rose for our anniversary and later when we went out and came back, they had left us a delicious desert and card in our room. They also upgraded us to an executive suite which was huge with a view of a mountain. The Four seasons was excellent. Wine tasting every night, along with s'more bars and hot cocoa. Their breakfast buffet was also delicious and had everything you could think of. The spa was excellent Everyone was amazing there.
So on our first day in Whistler as I mentioned we drove to Joffre Lakes for a hike. The hour drive there was also very scenic and at times a little intimidating because you're driving on a mountain. We had researched a head of time in Florida for a great place to hike and decided on this one. It was a 6 mile hike and completely worth it. So beautiful!
On our 4th day in Canada the rain set in and the temperature dropped. We were at least blessed to have had great weather (low 70's) for most of our trip. So with the rain it was a little challenging on figuring out what to do and we decided on riding the gondola up the mountains, and later checking out the rest of the city. The gondola went from the whistler mountain to blackcomb and it was so cool. The best thing is it was snowing up there! It was freezing and we weren't really dressed in warm clothes, but we ran out for some photos here and there. They actually have restaurants, lookout areas, lounges, restrooms, and shops up there on the mountains.
We had such a great time. Just being able to spend uninterrupted time with my husband, sleep in, have fun and no responsibilities was amazing. We had flown my mom in from Texas to watch the kids so they were in excellent hands. Put Whistler on your bucket list, or at the very least British Columbia. You'll absolutely fall in love with it like we did! I can't wait to go back and we'd like to take the kids too.
