HOME

Had a lovely weekend away, and I'm glad to be home.

Up at 5 a.m. yesterday morning to get enough coffee in to me to make it over to the VANOC 'Fleet Compound' at 7:00 a.m. to meet up with the other trainees. We all piled on to a big charter bus with our trainer Heidi, and headed north to Whistler. Here we are heading over the Lions Gate bridge and out of Vancouver:

A quick shot of the view from the top of the bridge:

We actually had some of our training on the bus, which was kind of fun. Then we got to Whistler, and to the huge converted warehouse/garage which is now headquarters of the Whistler Fleet until after the games:

The morning consisted of a bit of an overview of the Transportation component of the Games -- it's the biggest volunteer pool of the entire operation, with a huge contingent in Vancouver as well as Whistler, and covering both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We got radio training as well:

Then, in the afternoon, we got introduced to the amazing GMC Acadian SUVs that we'll be driving:


Not too shabby, huh?

Every trainee got a chance to drive them for at least half an hour, around the Village, and out to each of the Olympic venues. Here's a 'sneak peek' at the Ski Jump:

And, as you can see, we had real live winter conditions to practice in! It snowed the whole time I was in Whistler, pretty much. Here was the view out Hailey's window this morning:

But she got me back to the 3:00 ferry -- with a lot of annoying requests from me to slow down, turn down the music, slow down, do her shoulder checks, slow down, etc. -- and I was home safe and sound by 5:30. :)

Oh, and I left her with my weekend's worth of knitting:

So I am now officially a trained Olympic 2010 volunteer driver. Funny, I don't feel any different -- just really tired!