Eaty well, sleepy well, worky... no

Jethro and I have been meaning to experience the gut busting food extravaganza known as the Lizard Creek Lodge buffet all season, and today was the day. I managed to wangle a Sunday off work, and we had a voucher for $50 that our friend Peta had bough J for his birthday back in December.

Lizard Creek is one of the poshest hotels on the mountain - it's truly beautiful, made like a massive log cabin with lots of stone fireplaces and large windows overlooking the mountain. You get the idea...

We walked through to the dining room, to be presented with about five trestle tables crammed to capacity with all manner of yummy things - seafood (crab claws, huge mussels, fresh prawns, alaskan salmon), carvery (roast rib of beef, roast pork), breakfast (eggs benedict, sausage, bacon, potatoes, pasta, BBQ chicken, Bread and cheese (croissants, bree, cheddar, salami, ham, cold cuts) and desserts (carrot cake, cheese cake, chocolate cake, a chocolate FOUNTAIN!!! with fruits for dipping, waffles, cream)... do you feel hungry yet?

We approached it with military strategy, starting with hot breakfast things and trying not to cram our plates too high. Needless to say I was pretty full by the first round... rubbish! After a lot of iced water and a ten minute break, we went back for more, this time some seafood. Then another break, then some carvery - the beef was sensational. I could have eaten that ALL DAY. Then we went to the deserts tray and crammed our plates with four different types of cake in the hope that they'd give us a doggy bag. Needless to say, our waitress was lovely, and although she wasn't supposed to, she gave us a big box to put all the food in and we snuck off trying not to look too sheepish.

(I had promised to take some treats back to Ben at Fernie Sports as it is his last day today and he's working the graveyard shift all alone with a hangover - it's not exactly busy in Fernie these days!)

So now it's 3pm on a Sunday afternoon, I don't have to go to work and my belt buckle has been loosened somewhat. Time for some DVD watching and a snooze on the sofa...

The pants tree...

I've been meaning to take a photo of this Fernie phemonenon for months and I finally got around to it today... Ladies and gents, I give you... THE PANTS TREE!



No, your eyes are not decieving you. This is a fir tree covered in underwear.

A four seater lift known as the Elk chairlift goes past this tree and for some unknown reason, people drop all manner of wierd and wonderful bits of underwear on it - mostly undies of a comical variety and it always makes us giggle. It tends to look a little healthier when it hasn't been windy or snowed for a while as some of the scantier articles tend to get blown away in a storm!

(The first panty tree of the season was cut down and there is speculation that a religious freak hiked up the mountain in the dead of night to finish it off with an axe.)

But you can't keep a good panty tree down, as they say.

Shenanigans

Road trip, schmoad trip I say... enough of Jethro posting all about the fun times he's had - YAWN!

(just kidding)

We had our Fernie Sports Christmas Party the other night. Yes, you read right... that would be "Christmas Party" as in Jingle Bells, Santa and December. But as we've been so busy serving the good people and tourists of Fernie with skis and boards over the winter, we didn't have time for one, so the end of March seemed as good a time as any... plus we are a fast depleting bunch with Chris having left us at the weekend (he's one of the ski tech boys) and there are pretty much no tourists here any more - it's bliss, if a little quiet at work!

So off we toddled to Rip N Richards eatery in Fernie - it's a family orientated diner style place with ribs, burgers, pizza etc... there's even a pizza called the Fernie Sports... it's very cheesy... fnar fnar!

The Fernie Sports gang, plus friends/better halves etc...


Ben and Jethro prove that real men hug...


Everyone wimped out at 9.30pm apart from me, Ben, Becky, Stevo and Jethro so we went onto the Central Bar where a few of our other friends were having a leaving do of sorts. I've been to so many leaving parties in the last two weeks that my liver is taking a severe beating, but it's all in the name of fun and I'm making up for lost time as the season is all but over soon. (Big waves to Len and Steve whose leaving shindig it was - we miss you guys!)

The boys and me in the Central bar (I promise I am not the only girl in Fernie, even if it looks that way sometimes)


So with all this partying going on, it's a little hard on the head first thing in the morning when you have to be at work at 8am. Hence I have discovered these wonderful things called Powerade Slurpies... they're big, blue and slushy and they give you a brain freeze and lots of energy to get you through the day. Think of it like a slush puppy, but waaaaay better and you get the idea:

Me and my new best friend, Mr Slurpy:


Chris celebrated his last day at Fernie Sports on Saturday with style. When we weren't helping customers - because that's our MAIN priority and we would NEVER mess around at work without making sure that customer satisfaction was kept at the highest level. You may think I am jesting, but we kick ass when it comes to making our customers feel loved and wanted... we really do. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, we did partake in a little bit of tomfoolering around...

Chris got dressed up in Dan's 1980s one piece ski suit and posed outside the shop:


Ben decided not to be outdone so figured out that he could zip himself up into a ski bag and hop around a bit:


And to end the era of the winter 2006 staff, we took a group photo to show off our goggle tans - except me and Chris don't have a goggle tan and Ben has been cultivating his for months, so it wasn't really a fair competition: