Gearing up to leave town

Time to catch up on some overdue updates.....

(Based on actual events from April 2010)

Our final days in Fernie began with me getting laid off from my job at the hotel due to lack of guests meaning management had to cut staffing costs. Funny time to ask for a payrise, but I did, and got one (still waiting to receive my final paycheck though). The hotel gave me one week’s notice, 3 weeks before we were planning to leave town. This was frustrating as we had based our departure date on the fact work had told me a week earlier that I could work right up until the end.

Having been fired for the first time in my life, it was a strange feeling.

By this stage, both Claire and I were of the feeling that we had done a lot of awesome skiing and snowboarding this season, on excellent snow, so we didn’t feel the need to do a lot more on terrible snow / grass. This left me with a lot of time on my hands, enough to get my entrepreneurial juices flowing...

Within a week, "WesHound" was up and running as an unlicensed shuttle bus service between Fernie and Calgary Airport – an 8 hour round trip. Over the next 3 weeks, I ferried 11 people to the airport for a total of $495, which was a nice profit of about $300 after fuel costs. This was much more fun than taking reservations and check-ins at Lizard Creek, and allowed me to introduce Hamish and Andy to my mostly Scandanavian passengers (via podcast). The downside was that I got lost 3 times, which was highly embarrassing. Fortunately no one was ever in a rush, especially the group who were hoping to depart the day the volcano erupted in Iceland. 
We had a friend move in with us for a week after she broke up with her fiancé, that was nice to have a new face in the house.

(picture: an overturned beer truck I saw on one of my airport runs)
Our other main activity for the final weeks was selling the car. We started advertising about 3 weeks out, with a clever marketing strategy which had the final buyer pay $2500. This was $900 less than our initial asking price – what a bargain, but still $150 more than our purchase price of $2350. The best part was that we sold it the day before we left town, which meant we have full use of it right till the end.
Did you know in North America, to “luck out” is to catch a lucky break? We were confused by that one more than once, but we can now say that we “lucked out” with the weather in our final days, getting a glimpse of what summer would be like ie. Beautiful. 20 degrees, green grass, and sunshine. It was definitely perfect weather for mountain biking, hiking, golf, Frisbee golf, camping and going down the river in a tube.
Signing off until next time,

Wes