One goes to Whistler (in B.C., Canada) for the nature and outdoor sports like bike riding, but kids just want to play, so we indulged Anthony with some of the kid activities the village offered.

Here, five-year-old Anthony ties a “bungee trampoline” kind of thing. The quality of the photos is horrid, but I want to preserve the memory, so they're here nevertheless.

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Watching and Waiting

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My Turn

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Buckling Up

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Whoa... Fun!

He then bounced up and down with the operator's help, eventually getting quite high....

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Flying

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/6400 sec, f/5, ISO 400 — full exif & map — nearby photos

I would have loved to have had a tripod to make a longer exposure, to show the movement....

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was really impressed with our room at the Four Seasons Resort in Whistler (British Columbia, Canada). Not only was the room big, with lots of nice features (e.g. private veranda, two bathrooms, etc.), but like the whole hotel, the interior design and decoration is absolutely first class all the way.

Unlike the gaudy, pretentious, highly ostentatious displays in Las Vegas, or what you might expect from, say, Donald Trump, this place was low-key quality through and through. Las Vegas is what you'd end up with if you had unlimited funds, but limited class and style. This place had quality and style sitting there quietly waiting to be discovered in every little nook and cranny.

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Waiting for our Shuttle
Looking out toward the main entrance, from some lobby sofas

A good example of the attention to detail and the through-and-through class of the hotel design can be seen in the doors to the walk-in closet of our suite. The closet is seen only when walking by from the bedroom to the bedroom's bath suite, so it'd be perfectly acceptable to not have doors, and if you're going to put doors, pretty much anything would do. But “acceptable” and “anything” weren't the bar for this place....

Each of the double doors of the walk-in closet were heavy one-and-a-half-inch thick solid wood, with an inlaid panel surrounded by several levels of delicate moulding. They were certainly heinously expensive, but they didn't scream “expensive” because “expensive” wasn't the point of the design, only a byproduct. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the door detail.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/13 sec handheld, f/2.8, ISO 640 — full exif & map — nearby photos
Main Lobby
Four Seasons Resort
Whistler, Canada

Whistler is in the middle of the mountains, and known for skiing in the winter and all kinds of outdoor activities in the summer. (The skiing and luge events for the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held here; in the summer, downhill mountain biking is popular, but we restricted ourselves to fairly level terrain.)

As such, there's wood everywhere in the interior design. The first picture of this post shows the wood detail of the hotel's front desk, which can also be seen behind Fumie in the lobby photo above.

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Lobby
from the stairs going down

In the photo above you can see a bunch of interwoven twigs/branches used to separate the lobby from some stairs going down to a lower level. It all fits in so well that you might not even notice, but it's a delight when you do.

It's even more delightful when you go up to them to see how they get them to hold together, and realize that it's actually bronze or the like...

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The lower level of the stairs have them as well. Here's looking across a short hallway to the side of the mini in-hotel art gallery...

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There was art everywhere, and it was all wonderful, first-class stuff that fit perfectly into its environment. I don't normally notice art, but the pieces in the room and in the public areas (and in the art gallery) were exceptional.

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Lower-Level Elevator Foyer
with the art gallery at left

The gallery's centerpiece, a painting of a ballerina by Alexander Sheversky is head-turning stunning. My horrible photo below through the gallery doors just doesn't do it justice.

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Of course, the price is head-turning stunning as well: $40,000 Canadian.

There was one piece that Fumie really liked for our entrance way at home, a tall and thin wax and oil piece by Susan Wallis, that – at only $4,000 – was almost free by comparison. The price seemed a bit more expensive, though, when compared to the real world of our wallet, so we passed. I see now, a few days later, that it's been sold.

It's a very nice hotel, but none of this comes cheap. Our bill for the two nights ended up being a bone-jarring US$1,300, so (to put it mildly), I don't think we'll really be able to make this a regular trip.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 34 mm — ¹/80 sec, f/3.2, ISO 400 — full exif & map — nearby photos
What am I?

I'm traveling back to Ohio today, so no time to show all 600 pictures I took yesterday, but here's one. What is it? (Looking at the “full exif & map” link gives a strong clue, so no guessing after having looked.)

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Lost in Thought
Lost Lake
Whistler, Canada

We're in Whistler (British Columbia, Canada) for a couple of days, and this morning went for a bike ride. We rented bikes at our hotel (the Four Seasons Resort Whistler) and headed out on the easy trails to the nearby “Lost Lake”....

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Ready to Go

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Pre-Trip Photo Op

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Some Trails Were Paved

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Some Trails Were Gravel

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The Lake Was Almost Always in View

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Non-Biking Fun, Too

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Minor Diversion

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Time for a Short Rest

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Doggie Contrails

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Heading Home

“Lost Lake” seems to be a popular name for lakes. Two years ago in Oregon, we happened upon a different “Lost Lake” during a side trip on a visit to Portland.

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Out on the Deck
of our suite at the Four Seasons, Whistler (BC, Canada)

We took the Whistler Mountaineer this morning from Vancouver to Whistler. The trip takes something like two hours by car, but three and a half by train. I thought it was odd that the train took longer, until I realized that they go slow (sometimes stopping) so that you can enjoy the often-spectacular scenery. More on the wonderful train ride another day.

Arriving in Whistler, our “room” at the Four Seasons Whistler was a bit more than we bargained for, having gotten bumped up to a multi-room, aptly-named “Deluxe Executive Suite”.

The room is amazing. At 800 sq. ft., it's almost as big as the two-bedroom apartment I rented in California before I got married. It is certainly the nicest hotel room I will ever step foot in.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/45 sec, f/3.5, ISO 800 — full exif & map — nearby photos
Anthony pretends to take a shower in the
Front Bath

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Master Bedroom
as Anthony waits patiently....

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...picture having been taken,
Anthony Puts the Bed to Use

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Lotsa' Trees and Mountains

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View of the Master Bath
looking past the walk-in closet

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Walk-in Closet
looks boring (unless you have a lot of luggage)

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Master-Bath Vanity

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Shower & Extra-Deep Tub

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Tuckered Out
in the livingroom

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Enjoying the Mountain Air

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Playing with Mommy

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Being Silly
( using toy sushi as extra eyeballs )

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Relaxing on the Deck

Two bathrooms, two showers, one bath, two bedrooms (the living room converting with a hide-a-bed), wonderful mountain views from all windows, tons of storage, and exquisite and impeccable styling and detail everywhere. There's nothing the least bit wrong with this room. It's amazing. It's such a contrast to the utter dump that is the Sheraton Suites Hotel in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio that we had the unfortunate experience to stay at two years ago.

I do feel a bit iffy about how we ended up with this room. As I'd mentioned, we'd come on the Whistler Mountaineer train, which arrives at noon every day. Every customer that arrives by train arrives to the hotel at about 12:30. There's just one train, at the same time. Every day. It didn't even cross my mind that hotels doing business in this little resort town wouldn't accommodate that very specific schedule, so I was shocked when the train's shuttle dropped us off at 12:30 to check in, and we were told that our room wouldn't be ready until the 3:00 check-in time.

Now, I should state here that it's my own fault for not paying attention to the check-in time, but really, it's a remarkably stupid business decision. The train arrives at the same time every day.

So, we had two and a half hours to kill, so we wandered to the restaurant to eat. While waiting for the food, I stole away to have a chat with a manager, to ask whether they knew about the really famous train that arrives at noon every day. Wouldn't it be smarter for business to accommodate that schedule? A 3pm check-in time says “don't stay here if you take the train.”

He suggested that if we'd asked for an early check-in, they would have tried to accommodate it, and indeed, it's my own fault for not even thinking about it. Still, the concierge at the Four Seasons in Vancouver helped us with our arrangements to arrive up here, and didn't warn us that the schedule would result in two and a half hours of dead time.

Anyway, I learned my lesson to be sure to check the check-in time, even when it seems like it should obviously be okay.

In looking to see when our room would be ready, he noticed that our reservation was for a room with two small twin beds, which is all Fumie could get when she booked it. He suggested that we'd be more comfortable in a room with a king, and I immediately interjected that I didn't come to talk to him because I was trying to get something. I came because a business had made a poor decision that I was affected by, and I wanted them to know. I was pleasant, but informative; if no one tells them, how would they know?

He said that the thought of moving to a bigger room was unrelated – he wanted his customers to be comfortable – so he'd look into it while we ate. I don't believe for a moment that it's unrelated, so half of me wants to pay for it to preserve some kind of standard of conduct for myself, but there's no way I could afford this amazing suite of rooms.

As Seth Godin says, good marketing is all about delight, and in this case, wow, we're delighted.