All aboard the Whistler Mountaineer!
Written by: Julie Ovenell-CarterPlease tell me I am not alone in this: I really do look forward to spending time with my mom–just not too much time.
In our particular mother-daughter dynamic, quality time definitely trumps quantity time. A Mother’s Day brunch, for example, is much too brief, but a week-long Alaska cruise–well, that just might be asking for trouble.
What to do? How to bond with mom–or for that matter your teenage son or your aging gran–without having to book extra vacation time (or extra sessions with your therapist)?
Easy: take a short trip to anywhere–by train.
There’s something about that slow steady rhythm. About not having to remove your shoes, watch, belt and earrings before you board. About leg room and decent food and an ever-changing landscape outside the window. Spend a day on a train and you’ll feel like you’ve been away for a long weekend.
Depending on where you live in Canada, there are a couple of short, scenic day-trips worthy of the woman who raised you:
Win a return trip for two on the Whistler Mountaineer!
Leave a comment here about who you’d like to spend some quality time with on board the Whistler Mountaineer. I’ll do a random draw for a return trip for two between Vancouver and Whistler at noon on Friday, May 8–just in time for Mother’s Day (but you can take the trip anytime that works for you).
And if you’re on Twitter and you tweet this contest (use @theseboots in your post), you’ll get a second entry!
Update May 7: Congrats to draw winner Fiona Beaty of Bowen Island, BC who is looking forward to taking her nine-year-old godson on the train!
Jaeyson
on May 4th, 2009I would love to take my wife and daughter- we are all working so hard and don’t spend enough time together. It would be so much fun to go on a train ride which Sachie has never been on!
Fiona
on May 4th, 2009I’d love to go with my husband (sorry Mom, you’re a close second!). On Wednesday, May 6 we will be marking a special day in our lives: it was 20 years ago that day that we went on our first date and yes, I kissed him on the first date too! We’ve survived growing up through our 20’s together and we’re well on our way to kissing away our 30’s too. I’m extremely proud of this personal accomplishment. Our careers have grown by leaps and bounds, mostly notably for both of us in the past two years, and our crazy busy lifestyles would be so well suited to take this romantic train journey to spend some great time with each other and enjoy the amazing scenery that beautiful BC has to offer.
April
on May 5th, 2009I’d take my mom. Yeah. I like her.
Christa
on May 6th, 2009I’d take mom just to be the good daughter.
Carson
on May 6th, 2009I can’t imagine anything more exquisite than hurtling through the mountains in the springtime, buffeted by the cold steel rails, with my lifelong companion Kevin. And I will tweet this anon.
John Dumbrille
on May 7th, 2009My daughter. She’s almost more than halfway out of the nest, nice opportunity for review.
Fiona Beaty
on June 1st, 2009OK, I can now no longer whine that “I never win anything”. I am so excited to have won this draw!
My young godson will LOVE an adventure on a real train, and I will love our time together. I am sooooo looking forward to it. (Although I haven’t told him yet; I’m not quite ready to begin counting ’sleeps’.)
A huge thank you to Julie for creating theseboots.travel, and to the Whistler Mountaineer. You could not have a happier, more grateful winner.
I’ll be back to this site often. Because “I almost never win anything ……”