2023 Whistler: Rest Day

 For our rest day, we started with a 10:00am scenic flight to see the glaciers around Whistler. The day was ideal, with little wind and calm skies. It was Boen's first time on a float plane. What blew my mind was how large and beautiful
Garibaldi Lake was --- reflective and calm in the morning.

The cindercone and the closer up of the crevasse on the glaciers were also sights not to be forgotten.  We even spotted people walking on the glaciers that morning --- someone had gotten up pretty early.

After the beautiful flight, we got back to the hotel to pick up the camera and proceeded up the Blackcomb Gondola, the only gondola allowed for the peak to peak sightseeing trip. 

I expected it to be crowded but the gondola moved at a quick clip and there wasn't much of a wait at all --- I guess when you don't have to load bikes the gondola moves a lot faster. The top of Blackcomb had a poor restaurant that we ate a few snacks at and then proceeded to the peak to peak Gondola, where the kids opted to wait for the glass-bottom gondola, which takes an additional 20 minutes but in reality proved to be a bit disappointing --- the look down might give you a better chance of spotting wildlife but didn't grant as gorgeous a view as the windows did. The peak to peak gondola was a great engineering effort, possible only because the end of the valley was closed off by mountains so the gondola was relatively protected from the worst of the winds.

From the peak to peak gondola you have to walk down to the peak express, which takes you to the tippy top, for both cyclists and hiker. We visited the suspension bridge at the top (and Bowen loved the Peak Express), and we walked around.

The return from the peak express to the top of the village gondola was actually a long uphill in the thin air, and Boen and Xiaoqin opted out of any extra hiking to take the peak to peak express back. Bowen and I tried to do the Harmony Lake hike, but the mosquitoes started biting us at the start of the hike and without mosquito repellent and reports from other hikers telling us it got rapidly worse, we bailed as well. At the bottom of the Blackcomb Gondola we saw that there was a pop-up store for the Lucia Gelato so we bought some and it was good!

Dinner was at Nogomi sushi, which was so good two days ago that we went back.

November 20-21: Prologue: San Francisco, California to Jolly Habor, Antigua

 We'd originally planned the trip to Antigua for Spring break of 2020, but with COVID19 outbreak at that time, everything got cancelled. There was a ton of miscommunication between our yacht charter company, our yacht broker, and AirCanada. First of all, Dream Yacht Charter thought we were rescheduling for Thanksgiving 2020 instead of 2021, then after (with some expense) we got it straightened out, AirCanada rescheduled our flights (we were intended to arrive on Saturday, but we got rescheduled to Sunday). Fortunately, our sleepaboard had been scheduled on Sunday anyway, so all this meant was that we had to spend an extra night in Toronto in each direction while at the same time not having to spend any nights in hotels in Antigua.

Joining us this time was Arturo (who was flying to Antigua via Miami) and Niniane, who was going on her first sailing trip and was already situated in Puerto Rico and had to scramble at the last minute to find flights to Antigua when Mark Brody discovered he suddenly couldn't make the trip.

We got up at 4:45am, got into our Lyft ride, and made it to the airport and through security without major hassle, and an uneventful flight which got us into Toronto at 2:45pm. Since we were staying overnight, we had to exit, use Switch Health for another round of PCR tests, and then piled into a rental car (which was cheaper than a round trip Lyft ride to dinner) and drove to the hotel, where the receptionist was very surprised to see vaccine cards even for our kids (they were only partially vaccinated, so did not qualify for the PCR test exemption).

Bea was at Niantic but left earlier in the year before we had a chance to work together. Since she was in Toronto and was a foodie (her food pictures were amazing), we asked her to pick a restaurant and after we left our lugguage at the hotel, we drove to Zukkushi. I've heard a lot of people complain about Bay Area traffic, but Toronto's traffic was if anything even worse. It took us a good hour to get to downtown, and once there we had several minutes to walk around the neighborhood before meeting Bea for a scrumptious meal, where she was surprisingly not terrified by Bowen and Boen, who put on quite a show for her.

The next day we got onto the flight to Antigua, which was on a small plane that didn't have screens but had wifi which you could use to access onboard content. We managed to watch several movies we'd missed including Black Widow, Luca, and Thor Ragnarok. Arriving at Antigua, our PCR certificates got checked and then we were at Jolly Habor in an hour. It didn't take long to find the dock, where someone told me I was clearly there for the Chinook.

The Chinook was a Fontaine Pajot Astrea 42 sailing Catamaran in an owner's configuration, which is a complete waste of space with the starboard side of the boat filled with an owner's suite with an extra large bathroom. There was fortunately a V-berth in front for crew, so no one would have to sleep in the saloon. Cleaning was still happening and the cleaning crew was upset that we'd showed up early, but we were allowed to leave baggage on the boat and walk over to the curry house for dinner, just as Niniane showed up. Arturo showed up while we were having dinner, so now we had a complete crew!

When we were finally allowed onboard, the provisioning had been done, and we could now take a look at what was missing. They'd bought us bread and cheese but no ham, I'd way over-provisioned on water, and I'd forgotten to ask for a paddleboard. There was no gear for diving to be rented for love or  money on the island (the rental places had been hit hard by the pandemic and closed, and the shops that were still open were no longer renting for a week at a time). I met the base manager and her staff, and they were very friendly, assuring us that we'd get a chart and technical briefing the next day and the paddleboard and fins would be no problem.

We went to bed thus reassured and ready to sail the next day.

June 30th: Lindau to Garmisch Partenkirchen

The whole point of making it to Lindau was to make use of the Bayern ticket. With the ticket, you can travel all throughout Bavaria using as many local trains as you like, all day. The catch is that you must use the local trains, and unless it's a weekend, you can only use the train after 9:00am. Well, it was a weekend, but the train from Lindau to Garmisch didn't leave until 10:00am, so we had time to leave the hotel at 9:06, take pictures and say farewell to the Bodensee, screw up and go the wrong way and still make it to the train station with plenty of time to buy train tickets.

The first of the trains we needed to take was an Alex train. It had narrow corridors and was a massive pain to get a tandem on, but once you're in, you get these massive private compartments where the two of you can spread out and lounge around in.

Surprisingly enough, the train from Lindau to Garmisch-Partenkirchen did not go through Munich, as I would have expected, but switches in Kempton for a train to Reutte (which is in Austria), and from Reutte we had to take the train to Garmisch. Being German, the train schedule was setup so that we never  had to switch platforms for a transfer. We could just stay on the same platform and either switch sides or get on the next train that arrived on that platform. Because getting off at Kempton was a pain, I enlisted the help of other cyclists to assist with the transfer. The nice thing about the bike car being so big was that nearly everyone in the car was a cyclist and hence eager to help!

Once on the Reutte train, we got to see some Austrian scenery, which reminded me once again that I had yet to explore the part of Bavaria that connected Kempton/Lindau to Reutte. From the window, it looked gorgeous, and I guess I should have considered riding instead of taking the train, but what was done was done.

Local trains are slow. By the time we got to Garmisch, it was nearly 2:00pm. But the train we were on from Reutte was going to link up with another train to get to Munich, and we got to watch that and even capture it on video!

After watching that, we got off the train station, found a supermarket, and then found a little city park nook to picnic in. It was gorgeous, with a stream running through it, and a place you could sit and dip your feet into the water! The bread was also delicious.

We checked into the guesthouse, and I asked the owner about Partnach Klamm, and she said that it was closed because of high water, but I could check at the ski center for further details. I was disappointed, but we figured we had nothing to lose, it being too late in the day to do anything else, so we rode out there after leaving all our luggage at the guesthouse.

Indeed, we were told that the Partnachklamm was closed, but the Hollentalklamm, which I hadn't been, was still open. The tourist information person gave me a map, and when I looked at it, I said, "Oh, it looks like we can do both Hollentalklamm and the Zugspitze in the same day. Can we ride up to the Klamm?" She said she thought it might be possible, but didn't provide more details. Well, our trip wasn't wasted: we stopped by a supermarket to  buy some shampoo/body wash, and then on the way back downtown we saw that everyone was wearing white!

When we went to dinner, our waitress told us that tonight was "White Night", apparently a huge party and an excuse to listen to music/DJ and dance. Our waitress also confirmed that it had actually been raining hard in the afternoons over the last few days in Garmisch, indicating that we weren't being lied to about rain in the mountains. Back in town, we stuck out like sore thumbs, not having  brought anything white to wear.

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July 10th: Vigo di Fassa to Pescul

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The morning greeted us with blue sky mixed in with clouds, which gave me hope that we might be able to make Cortina D'Ampezzo today. Regardless, the first step was to traverse the Fasso valley to get to Canazei. The last time I did this the traffic was pretty bad, but this time, we spotted a bike path under construction and decided to beta-test the pavement, which held out very well until we got near Canazei, where the pavement turned into construction. Exiting the bike path 2km from Canazei, however, I discovered that my bike wasn't shifting into the lowest two gears. A quick stop and the diagnosis was that the anchor bolt was not tightened properly by the mechanic (namely me!) before leaving California. Fortunately, this was an easy fix, and retensioning the cable took very little time. I took care to cinch down the bolt properly, and up we climbed, headed for Fedaia pass.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

At just over 2000m, Fedaia pass was an easy 600m from Canazei, but filled with cyclists who used it as a prelude to the Sella group, and even cross-country skiiers on training blades. After a series of galleries, we emerged at the summit lake, where once again a few raindrops sprinkled on us here and there. The climb to Fedaia is so easy that day riders ride up the road to the war museum but as tourists we didn't feel the need to do so.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Instead, we prepared for what Jobst calls the fastest highway in the Alps. Unfortunately, we encountered some slow going traffic that day and I did not exceed 50mph, though we certainly each got a taste as to how fast you could go if you just let your brakes go down a 13% grade.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

At Savina di Laste, I made a wrong turn and went up the tunnel road towards Selva rather than the white road towards Passo di Giau. This turned out to be a good choice, because there was more rain on the other route which could see while we were climbing. The other route looked prettier, however. I'd skipped Passo di Giau in 2007 because my knee was hurting, but this time, we were stopped at Selva because it looked like there was rain up ahead. I wanted to push on, so I called the hotel at the top of the pass to see if they had room for us, and while they said they had room, they also said they didn't have dinner! That was such a strange response that we wondered if I misunderstood, but the remainder of the climb was said to be quite hard so we turned back to the tourist information center. There turned out to be no lodging in Selva (despite the information center being located there), but there was lodging the next 2 towns over. After perusing the options, Arturo got excited by the TripAdvisor reviews of a B&B in Pescul, so we picked the place and went there. They didn't serve dinner, but the walk to the hotel restaurant in town did give us excellent views.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The forecast was food good weather the next day, and we needed to get Hina to Munich by the 13th via train, so the plan was to have a long day the next day to Cortina d'Ampezzo and then Lienz, and then climb over the Grossglockner in Austria the day after where she could catch a train at Zell Am See bound for Munich. The weather forecasts supported this endeavor, and I was optimistic that I'd finally be able to climb Grossglockner on my single, as well as attempt Passo di Giau.

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