Banff

Stop 2 on the road trip -- Banff.  It is even more fun to say than spell, because despite the n and two f's, we Canucks pronounce it more like Bamf.  But I figured the least I could do for Siobhan after she dragged my cat 2000 miles (and it was the fat one too, she had to put some shoulder into it), is drive her out to the Canadian Rockies since it really isn't that far.

Scenic Banff is right along the Trans Canada Highway within the Banff National Park boundaries.  It is just over an hour's drive from Calgary.  Bordering Banff National Park are several other parks, like Yoho on the British Columbia Side, and a few provincial parks, like the Bow Valley park.  We pulled over to take a picture with the first mountains and park sign.

We pulled over again a short while later to get some mountain backdrop photos for Siobhan

And someone was nice enough to take a photo of us in front of this shallow lake bed.  Unfortunately he didn't aim the camera in a way to avoid the ugliness of that factory behind it (anyone know what this is?).  This is a neat lake bed though....it is shallow right to the middle, you can wade on out ankle deep....which looks a little like Jesus walking on water...unnerving the first time you see it, which is usually while driving around a curve in sometimes heavy traffic.  But, there were no Jesuses out there on this day.

Just around the corner was the town of Canmore. We stopped there for fuel....for us not the car, which in Canada we call Tim Horton's coffee.  We ate a lot of Tim Horton's on this road trip in retrospect..in Swift Current, Medicine Hat, Calgary, and Canmore.  I thought it would be good to get a picture of Shibby, on the last adventure, upgraded from the back of the scooter to the passenger seat of the car, even with a cupholder!  We are moving up in the world indeed!

I knew just the spot to pull over and get a bear shot, in case we didn't see a real one on our travels.

Eeeeeek

Just past Canmore is the iconic park entry gates for the National Parks -- so we pulled over there for a photo as well.  In case you are wondering, a park entry fee can be for individual, or for a carload -- we paid $20, and that gets you in until 4pm the following day.  Weekly passes, and annual passes are still very reasonable.  If you have never been to the park, the pass is like a parking lot ticket receipt...you paste to your car window, and if rangers see a car with an expired pass, they know to either ticket you (or start search and rescue).

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Once there we checked into our hotel in Banff and took a stroll through the townsite.  We popped into some of the little shops.  Christmas is my favorite holiday, and I found a huge Christmas store with this little reminder inside.  I left with a few bags to further slow me down.  We also ruined our appetite by indulging at a sweet shop along the way (the chocolate macaroons were baseball sized).

The end point of the walk through town is to the bridge that crosses over the Bow River.  We happened to arrive there just at dusk to get a pretty photo, which was fortunate because I was still limping at a slow pace from the Bermuda bike vs dog accident.

Across the bridge and onto a path underneath there were quiet reflections on the water.

We stopped for a bite to eat at Earls on the walk home, then fell into our bunks exhausted.  We started the next morning with a Starbucks coffee at the base of the gondola to the Sulphur Mountain Lookout.

Always nice to see the home flag flying.

Years ago I hiked up to the top.  But today we could blame it on lack of time and the limp so we hopped the gondola.  It's a nice ride up with a coffee in the morning.

Once at the top, there is another short trek to the old weather lookout.

The goal

This gave Shibby a lot of mountain vistas to look at.

And it gave me the opportunity to take several hundred squirrel pictures!

It need not be said that you are not supposed to feed wildlife in the park.  These horrible children were handing out potato chips to the squirrels, despite the signs that said not to feed as junk food causes their teeth to fall out and makes them starve to death.  So it made my day when a park employee approached and told everyone to be careful as they had rabies :)

Once at the top, the view down the Bow Valley Parkway is stunning.  There had been a forest fire the preceding week, and so smoke was still hovering in the valley.  The mountains were a muted grey wherever we went, obscuring the clarity and shades of blue grey that I am used to, so I was not happy with most of my photos of mountains.  This one was probably as good as it got.

We hiked back to the old lookout, which is slated for a rebuild to a more modern facility....I have to say I like this old building, and hate to see it replaced with a shiny, sharp edged, office building like structure like they have planned, but it is indeed wearing and tearing.  I suppose in 20 years the new structure won't look so horribly modern.

The old (and still standing) gondola st!

We trekked back, took the gondola down, and got ready for the next adventure!