Whistler MTB – Day 10

Sunday, 05 August 2007

Clear to partly cloudy, 20-25C, still

We awoke early and puttered around the condo until opening time then headed down to Blendz for Belgian dark chocolate mochas. The sun was just coming over the mountaintops, and the still-sleeping village was quiet and deserted, save for a few odd souls who had risen with the sunrise. We wandered down toward the health clinic, passing fresh bear scat on the sidewalk. The intent was to go to the tennis club for breakfast, but mapless and going on only a vague recollection on its location, we ended up going on a nice 1.5km stroll down Blackcomb Way, then over to 99 and back again – basically circling around the tennis club! Not to say a brisk walk on a crisp, clear morning was unwelcome – it was a good way to loosen up the tightness and soreness from the many riding days before. The air was cool and a layer of convective fog hung in the low-lying areas aside Blackcomb Way. The sun rising in the clear sky would soon heat the air and burn the fog away, but in the meantime the wispy ether cast a faint rainbow in the light that managed to ply the spaces between the pines.

Finding the tennis club, we went in for breakfast. I had the Original Eggs Benedict, which was served along with fruit and fried potatoes for $9 CAD. The food was quite good, and the outside seating comfortable and casual. I seem to remember that the breakfast in winter is also good, but possibly more expensive, and maybe buffet-style or something.

We returned to the condo and took our stuff downstairs to meet the taxi. It was the same wheelchair-modified Chrysler minivan as our inbound trip, but the driver was a young snowboarder kid from Toronto who worked as a liftie before getting his commercial driver’s license. He apparently didn’t have a little portable mp3 player, since he had his laptop balanced on the center console with an octopus of power wires, USB cables, and an RF modulator to get the sound from the digital world into the crappy factory radio. Sure he had to use all the power taps in the front of the vehicle (including the one under the rear passenger armrest), but it worked and he had some good tunes. We had a good conversation about living and working in Whistler and the recreational agriculture industry.

Our arrival at the airport was earlier than expected. We had lunch at the Opa! franchise in the main departure lobby. It was as good as the one in Whistler, but maybe the workmanship wasn’t as good. The one free table we found was in the seating section that was predominantly Asian-dominated. I don’t know if they were all in one group, but they were all speaking Chinese. There were some Japanese girls in line in front of me at Opa!, but I don’t know where they went to sit.

We checked in at the AC counter, paying the $50 CAD bike ransom. Check in, immigration, customs, and security went smoothly and quickly. The only time there has been any issue was the time we came in winter with Ckucke, when there was a crazy line at the US immigration aisles. I browsed the newsstands for something to read, since I had read my Guns and Ammo cover-to-cover and packed it away. I couldn’t’ find anything – no Shock, no HK Maxim. I got a Canadian Maple cream-filled donut and a bottled Coke from Tim Horton’s as a pre-flight snack.

Our gate was the normal 76. The gate lobby was warm… Okay, to be truthful it was hot. The AC couldn’t keep up with the heat gain through the expansive windows from the afternoon sun. either that they didn’t have it turned on or something. It was nice and cool outside… They need an outside observation deck like Narita or Shin-Chubu. I ate my donut and drank my steadily warming Coke. I was planning on saving it for the plane, but I figured it wouldn’t last. I finished the notes for this trip journal then read Jeff’s BMW Club magazines.

Around 16:45, they boarded us onto flight AC 047. Apparently the plane arrived late from NRT. This would be different than the winter routing where the YVR-HNL plane continues on to Sydney, then backtracks. In winter, it apparently does a HNL-YVR-NRT and back again route. The equipment was a 767-300 with dual overwing exits. The air in the jetway was hot and had a toilety smell – probably from the changing of the blue fluid. The inside of the plane smelled toilety too, and it was hot from sitting in the sun without the AC running. The poorly labeled seat rows and discontinuous/offset rows caused a fair amount of musical chairs at boarding. We were all seated in the center section this time, across row 32. I was in F on the right aisle. My nose had become habituated to the stink of the plane before I went to the head. The bathroom was visually clean, but the urine-smell was extremely strong and pervasive. I wondered if it was possible for the smell to “soak” into the plastic surfaces and become permanent…

The bevvie cart began to make its way down the aisle when the turbulence kicked in. The turbulence wasn’t too bad, and this wasn’t JAL, so service continued, albeit wobbly and slow. I got a Molson Canadian from the hot Asian flight attendant – she looked like Fujiwara Norika with tied-back hair. The little snacky crackers were certified “peanut free”, and were “imported”. Hmm… Not much different from the slightly-off-flavor Wholesale Unlimited stuff from the PRC they sold back home.

The smell of dinner began to waft through the cabin. The choices were “lasagna” or “chicken”. For some reason, everyone on the left aisle chose chicken, so by the time the cart got to Sara, there was only lasagna. On the right side, everyone chose lasagna, leaving me with the chicken. At first I was dreading getting horrid L & L –style lemon chicken when I saw the label, but I was pleasantly surprised with a moist, tender, chicken breast with a mild lemon flavor served with wild rice and not-too-soggy green beans. The food wasn’t as good as the outstanding food on the HNL-YVR flight, but it was good – dare I say better than some of the recent JAL entrée offerings. The sides were on the marginal side though – the salad was dried-out iceberg lettuce and the blueberry topped coffee cake was dry and had a fake berry/chemical smell/taste. I managed to get some milk from the flight attendant to go with the cake, but it didn’t help. The sesame roll was familiar from previous AC flights. I sampled some of Sara’s lasagna afterwards: It was good. It was meatless AFAIK…

I tried to sleep a little on the short flight back home, but the seat was particularly uncomfortable. The cabin never did quite cool down. The pilot apparently gave us a little more throttle, and the plane had a good tailwind, as our arrival time was going to be only about 10-minutes late, even with our 50-minute late departure. The sky outside was turning to sunset colors as we descended through the gold-topped clouds on our final approach into HNL. We touched down on the main runway and quickly arrived at the gate.

The adventure was over. We were all tired and worn and a little sore in places, but we were floating in a euphoria from over a full week of outstanding riding.

Final ride tally:

D = 103.2-miles, Vavr = 6.6 mph, Vmax = 32.8 mph T = 15-hours, 56-minutes