Richmond

I have booked my flight. I was lucky that West Jet was having a seat sale so I booked it even though I don't have my schedule yet. I knew they wanted me out there on the 9th so I leave early in the morning on the 7th with a stop in Calgary and get into Vancouver at 10:57 their time. Apparently all the nonstop flights are gone, but this one isn't too bad. I am coming back on Feb. 26th because I heard that there are 391,000 people scheduled to leave the Vancouver airport on Mar. 1 and I didn't want to be one of them! Besides I am supposed to be flying to Florida on March 1st so this way I will be home for a couple of days before I have to head out again.

Most of us are learning this "blog" stuff together and every day I seem to learn a few more secrets. If any of you are seasoned "bloggers" feel free to let me in on any secrets you know that could make this blog better. Did you know that you can email me directly from the blog? If you go to my profile (which isn't very good yet!) and go to "contact" you will see that you can click on email and it will allow you to email directly from there.

The Richmond Speed Skating Oval which is just down the street from where I will be is one of the most spectacular venues of the games. The ceiling is all wooden trusses that have been planed to look like long feathers. The most interesting part is that all the wood they have used has come from the pine trees that were devastated by the pine beetle over the last little while, so no healthy trees had to be cut to build the building. If you go to http://www.richmondoval.ca you will see pictures of it.
The city of Richmond is apparently the cranberry capital of the world and the Richmond oval is located on the Fraser River so the Olympic organizing committee has combined the 2 to create a spectacular display. If you go to http://www.richmond.ca click on news and then on the cranberry article you will see what I mean. That is all for now. We will talk soon.