This year has been interesting. It is one of those years, I’m ready to risk it all but going to try to be as calculated about it as I can (what does this even mean)?
Well, I’ve recently had job shifts, relationship changes and I just moved to a new city (still in Orange County, CA).
I haven’t traveled in a bit and I’m also not in the mood to plan any traveling but I have that itch to get out. At the beginning of this year, I set 33 goals for my 33 years of being alive (my age). One of them is to step outside of this country. No specific place in mind.
I was invited by Sarah to assist her at Wanderlust (a traveling yoga festival) for SUP yoga. I’ve attended a previous festival before in Tahoe and had so much fun being surrounded by nature, fitness and yoga that I was excited to be offered the chance to go hang with her for almost a week in the French speaking mountain resort called Mont-Tremblant.
We land in Montreal, Canada which is the east side of Canada. This area is mostly French speaking but most of them understood and spoke some English. I think I could see myself living here (I always say this when I travel). I actually thought this was the furthest East you could get in Canada but was corrected when I met volunteers who came from smaller towns further east. Amazing who you meet when you travel.
Amazing fact about Montreal – among, I’m sure the other bunches is that this is where the headquarters of Cirque du Soleil is located. I’ve seen a few of their shows on TV and live and they are amazing and I’m amazed every time with the talent & creativity that goes into their shows.
Sarah and I are flying out of LAX on Air Canada and I’m staying overnight at a nearby hotel because LA airport is quite far and our plane leaves early.
So I don’t know why but just with yoga clothes alone I’m very close to the 50 lb. weight limit. How is this possible?
The plane ride was only about 5 hours so definitely tolerable to Montreal. Once we arrived, we hopped on our shuttle and headed to Mont-Tremblant. This is the resort where the Wanderlust Festival is held. We didn’t have this problem but some others rode Delta Airlines and because of some power outage the night before, many folks had bags misplaced and sent to wrong places and didn’t have their luggage for most or all of the festival.
It was about a 2 hour drive to the resort, most of us slept. The day was nice and as I was looking out the window, honestly to me it felt like rural parts of Oregon. Lots of trees, not much traffic (it was late morning) and I believe a two lane highway type deal.
After getting to our room, we walked around a bit, went to the store. Checked everything out. Since we came early Wanderlust was not set up yet so it was hard to imagine what this town was going to be turned into for a yoga festival. We would have to get up early to set up all the SUP boards and some other things but for tonight, it will be mellow and I love it!~
Day two. So today is when the real work begins. See me below, yup… working real hard!
Kidding, we really had to get each one loaded and unloaded the large truck (seen in back) and blow them up. The team was great, the volunteers are amazing. I loved getting to know each one of them and where they are from and their stories they shared with me. Also, I probably saw .01% of what goes on behind the scenes of Wanderlust, the team and people who do the work they do… AMAZING. I cannot even imagine how they put it together and get it to run so smoothly but amazing job~
But SERIOUSLY, let’s talk about this resort some more. I can’t even begin to imagine this place covered with snow. And the people here are so nice.
The beautiful lake. This place is gorgeous. Really all nature is. Photo doesn’t do service for this place.
Thai Food from O’Wok in the village. Oh, and wine! It hit the spot!
Beautiful lake photos
Even T-Rex does yoga. T-Rex & I still keep in touch!
Can you tell that the above photos that they were all taken in amazing weather. Well unfortunately there was quite a bit of rain. I’m not sure if that was unfortunate but it was cold (for me). Living in California, like the southern part, I had forgotten what COLD felt like. Cold and damp that is.
All I can say is DRENCHED!
The weather wasn’t great everyday. The photo below shows a lot of clouds/fog and it made the lake look mysterious and kinda scary. I loved it! We would be shivering and bundled up in layers and locals seemed fine. They (with concern) asked where we were from. When we said LA, they were like… “ahhhh, okay”. I kind of felt like a wuss.
Still the cold weather did not stop us from posing and taking pics.
We went back to the Thai place again because we didn’t feel like sushi. I had Beef Curry and it was really good and again hit the spot. It was spicy and really I could eat Asian food all the time so I was as happy as could be.
I don’t remember if it was the very last night (I think it might have been), but we had sushi and I planned to go to bed early but had to walk past the stage. As I was walking (it was raining), I decided to listen for a bit and enjoy the music. I don’t remember the name of the band or the song but it is a group of ladies!
This photo was taken on the final night out. Literally the staff was in the middle of taking down the festival and they let us pose on these crates.
Heading Home: After a few rainy days, the sun finally showed itself once again. The day I was leaving. When I realized the weather was good, I decided to go for my last walk through the village.
Goodbye Wanderlust Mont-Tremblant 2016
I bought this book at the airport. I was so into the book I think I read like 200 pages during the plane ride.
Rode Air Canada back. Had the entire row to myself.
Back home to LA
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