Snowboarding - Take 2

My day in Invermere was very long! We caught the bus at 7:40 and started with breakfast at Huckleberries. It is so like the movies with the lady in her apron and big frizzy hair bringing the coffee out with her strong accent. I had eggs benedict and the hollandaise sauce was see through and kinda gross but I still devoured it. We managed to chill out there until 10:30 then we made our way up the hill into 'Downtown' which is pretty much one street with everything on it. We made our way down the left side towards the end of the street where Quality Bakery is which is AMAZING! We had lunch there and a nice little treat as well :)

Olivia booked a hair appointment at Bliss so Jane and I made our way to Valley Foods and they bought some meat. We then went to Sobeys and tried to be as slow as possible as the bus was 3 hours away.. Sobeys is where you gt the best deal on fruit and vegies. Olivia met us there and thankfully we bumped into Dwayne and Scott who took us to Pano in their car. Long day!!!

We are also having issues with withdrawing money which is becoming a massive pain in the arse! We have contacted TIO and are waiting for a reply. We have thought of a work around which is transferring money to NAB and then doing an international transfer to our Canadian account. Pain! TIO doesnt do international transfers so we are on a tight budget while we wait for the transfers to go through..

We also had a feast that night when our new roomies arrived (Bluey and Blucky - from Aus, Brianne from Ontario and Johanna ANOTHER SWEDE!) I managed to find 2kg of pork ribs for $10!!!! We had roast vegies and potato salad too. YUM YUM!

Aaron and I went for our second snowboard today with Dane. I managed to stay up for the majority of the time which was exciting!! We hiked further up the Silver Platter this time and I was knackered by the top! We had to rest for a bit before we started! We did three trips down the mountain and that took us an hour. Aaron only fell over about twice but I got one on camera!!!! And I lost count again but it was less than last time! YAY! Massive improvement for a second go. I am working on my turns now as I can stop without falling YIPPEE!

We have a Kings of Neon party downstairs tonight so all us 'loft crew' having matching head pieces and glow sticks. Its going to be awesome!!

Drama at Panorama!

Friday brought many surprises and gossip to Panorama.

I was having lunch at the Picnic Deli with four other girls (Hayley, Emma, Olivia and Jane) we were talking about all sorts of things from work, shopping, weddings to the painful process of learning to snowboard. And then all of a sudden a snowmobile comes flying off the mountain and into the Picnic Deli! Smashing the windows and startling everyone. I panicked because Aaron was just scraping ice off the Deli paths right where the snow mobile crashed but thankfully he and his partner had moved on from there. PHEW!  Amazingly, no one got hurt. The snowmobile crashed into the front counter, narrowly missing a customer and the waitress. The waitress got bumped by one of the falling display cabinets and was hit with shards of glass but was otherwise ok. The snow mobile came all the way down the mountain, through the chair lifts where about 50 ski tournament kids were lining up having just finished lunch, over the pathway, through the trees and didn't hit anyone! A miracle! The driver had been bucked off up the mountain as he turned the snow mobile on and it was locked in full throttle for some bizarre reason.

Unfortunately it was the only time I did not have my camera on me but I have a photo of afterwards where a plank of wood is now covering the bare wall. Just letting you all know that the Deli connects to my restaurant, Wildfire.

To add to the drama we wandered on down to the General Store to get some chocolate...mmmm! And there was an ambulance and fire truck parked out the front. We walked in and there was a girl lying on the floor in the recovery position with all these people around her. I bumped into Dane who was the guy we caught the Greyhound bus from Calgary with and it was his Mrs, Gina, who had taken a fall in the guttering at the front door! She had broke her tooth and broke her knuckle! Ouch! So slippery here with the snow!

It has started to get warmer with -6 degrees today. So all the snow is losing its fluffiness and turning icey so everyone is falling over. I made the mistake of wacking my boots together to get the snow off and took myself out but I am ok! No broken teeth thank goodness!

The free shuttle to Invermere starts tomorrow and I am SO excited! Now I can go down whenever I want yay! I am a little bored sitting in the loft all day. There isn't much to do until the season starts.. I have to go pick up my work pants which I had taken up. Love being short... I wonder how much that will cost me??

Aaron got the flu Friday night poor bugger. He had hot and cold flushes and had the shakes.. So I bought him some good cold and flu drugs and sent him to bed with some water. Then I played some drinking card games and went out to the T-Bar again! What a good fiance...! He still wasn't feeling very well the next day so took the day off work. Aaron is at work today though. He just text me and has numb toes again but he is going to try the bean bags we bought so hopefully they will warm his feet up for the afternoon.

So I forgot to update you all on my chat with Nicole about joining an ice hockey team. She said that it was more serious than she expected and didn't end up signing up. She recommended waiting for Windermere lake to freeze over and the town organises lots of events down there like ice skating, ice hockey and all sorts. Aaron and I found a second hand shop in town where we can get ice skates so we might just do that!

Making our way to Invermere

To get to Invermere we need to go via Greyhound buses. Invermere is approximately 4hrs from Calgary. On the Greyhound website the bus ride was going to take 14hrs! Turns out there is a 10hr over night stop over in Radium Hot Springs. We called Greyhound to confirm this and ask if there were any other buses that were express to Invermere. They advised no and the only bus left at 630pm.

We caught a taxi to the Greyhound station which cost $20. We bought our tickets which was around $70 with the additional bag (snowboard bag) paid for. The bus was delayed an hour so we ended up leaving at 730. We had some Aussies sitting in front of us and they were going to work at Panorama as well. They told us that there was no overnight stop over at Radium and that we were getting into Invermere at 1030 tonight! Now 1130 because we were late! Why would the call centre tell us different?! Not happy Jan...! So we rang a taxi to pick us up from the Invermere drop off point and take us into town where we could hopefully find a hostel. And I rang Radium Hot Springs hostel to say we werent coming anymore.  I plan on ringing Greyhound and complaining...

So we got dropped off at the Invermere highway traffic lights and waited for 5mins for our taxi.. it was the first time my teeth were chattering since we arrived.. It was so cold! Did i mention it got to -27 degrees today??

We found a hostel that could take us, thank goodness someone was outside having a smoke! He rang the owner who was asleep at his home, who drove in and booked us in for the night $52.

Its now 9am Friday morning and Aaron and I are heading into town to open up a bank account, buy some bed sheets for our accommodation on the mountain and do some laundry. We then have to catch a cab to the mountain before 430 so Aaron can fill in his Employee manual documents ready to start work on Monday!