Trip to Alberta in August 2006 – November 10, 2006

As you can no doubt tell, this is a very belated entry about our trip to Calgary in August. I wanted to post about it because I had already started writing something and because it helps when looking at the pictures and trying figure out what they might be of! So keep in mind that this is just rough sketch of what we did because my memory is already failing. That won't stop me from being long-winded though!

So Greg and I took a trip out west in August to see Dan and Andrea and some of boomtown Calgary and surrounding regions. The change in theme for my page is in honour of that trip. We got to Calgary on a Friday night and there was instant drama as D&A had rescued an injured baby hawk on the way to the airport. They came to pick us up at the airport and the hawk was in a box in the car. We went to a wildlife rescue centre on the edge of town right away, which is where Greg took a couple of pics. All in all, a fairly eventful start to the week!

Over the next couple of days we toured around Calgary a bit, went to the Farmer’s Market and a Fringe Festival one-man show “Iraq and back” and then went to the Badlands and Drumheller to see prairies, canyons, dinosaurs and the Hoo Doos.

Next was a 3-day trip up the highway to Jasper for Greg and I. We meandered a fair bit on the way up there, stopping at Lake Louise for a picnic, taking a walk on the ice at the Columbia Icefields and eventually making our way into the town of Jasper. Because I waited until we got to C-dot to make a hotel reservation, there wasn’t too much available. However ended up finding a neat place that only cost an arm per night – the Tekarra Lodge. The next day we went on a long hike on some mountain (they all started to run together after a while J) and then for a dip in the Miette Hot Springs. The hike was pretty cool (we ran into a couple whose camera equipment blew down the hill from the one of the “summits” – thank god it wasn’t ours), but the hot springs was huge disappointment. Basically it was a crowded, over-chlorinated, hot version of an icky public pool. Clearly we didn’t see the online pictures before we went there! One of the interesting things for us during the hike was the need to be very aware of bears and know how to deal with the situation if we came across them. Growing up in urban Toronto and Ottawa doesn’t really prepare you for these situations, so we paid close attention to Andrea’s advice. We didn’t see any bears in the end, which didn’t really upset me, but we definitely saw many other interesting animals we don’t come across every day!

Day 3 of the roadtrip was basically spent driving back to Calgary – this time we stopped in Banff and didn’t love it, but that could have been because of the torrential rain and the fact that it was way more crowded than Jasper. We did find a cool little bakery that actually had baked goods with no gluten, so Greg got to have a sweet treat for a change. We ended the night by having dinner with D&A, and A’s brother Matt and his girlfriend Tara at Spicy Hut, a pan-asian restaurant. It’s somewhat of a fancy description for a restaurant that is basically one step up in décor from the Thai Shan Inn, but the food was very good.

On Thursday, Dan drove Greg and I southwest to the town of Fort Macleod to see the one and only Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. It is essentially a museum carved into a hill where natives used to herd buffalo over the edge of a cliff for a mass kill. Kinda gory, but the museum and the way it is laid out is really cool. That night we headed over to Andrea’s parents’ house for a lovely dinner and nice relaxing time. Friday was mainly spent brunching, walking around downtown, camera shopping (so that I could save about $40 in PST) and then flying home. All in all, a great week of vacation! I hope we left some stuff to do next time we go visit D&A though. J

One interesting note…when we came back from the airport in Ottawa, we noticed that a house across the street from us had a sold sign on the lawn. Since the house hadn’t even been up for sale when we left, that it means it sold in under a week. Hopefully that bodes well for when it’s time to sell ours!!