All In All, Not A Bad Day

My buddy Bill and I had decided to go to Banff today and after a good deal of milling around, having breakfast and collecting all of the necessities for a trip into the wilderness (cameras, binoculars which weren’t used, gum, sunglasses and travel mugs filled with coffee) we set off at the crack of noon. No sense getting nucking futs about it.

The drive was beautiful and you seem to drop all of your city woes along the way. Well, I imagine you would if you had any city woes. You drive from flat prairie through the foothills and finally into the mountains. Along the way you go up Scott Lake Hill which I have heard is the highest point on the Trans Canada Highway at 4626 feet above sea level. I am going to call bullshit on this fact, because I have driven to Vancouver and some of those roads are so high that your ears bleed! Sure, that could have been Louise that caused it, but I am going with the altitude.

We stopped at the Husky just outside of Canmore because you can buy a park pass at a discount and being the frugal sort, what else would I do? You know that banjo playing kid from the movie “Deliverance”, well he is still alive and he works at the Husky just outside of Canmore. Fucking idiot! That is another story for another time.

On to Banff and the drive up Mount Norquay to the lookout. It is very beautiful as the whole valley is laid out for you to see and it isn’t steep enough for you to push someone off of the retaining wall and kill them. That is another story for another time.

We then went to the townsite and went to park in the parkade. Believe it or not it took about ten minutes to get up the first ramp because some idiot was trying to back into the first parking stall and if they had ever driven before, I will eat a “bearclaw”. Worst case scenario I get to eat a bearclaw. If you can remember the Austin Powers movie where he is trying to turn the electric cart around in a tunnel you will get the idea. It was kind of funny, and would have been even funnier if I didn’t need to find a bathroom ASAP.

I knew there is a washroom at the park headquarters so that is where we headed first. Of course the bathrooms were closed due to construction. Wouldn’t it make more sense to close the bathrooms in the slow season? Nuckin’ futs! Luckily, being a man there was another option. “I think that I will never see a bathroom as lovely as a tree”!

We did the obligatory up and down Banff Avenue and stopped for lunch at a local Scottish restaurant. Did you know that there isn’t a TD/Canada Trust in Banff? I asked Bill why he would have an account at a bank that didn’t have any branches? You wouldn’t believe the foul words that can come out of that man’s mouth. We toured the Banff Springs Hotel and didn’t get kicked out! We even took all of the pictures that we could carry.

The last stop was the Bow Falls. It was and is a lovely place, even with all of the people. Oh, on the way back to Calgary we stopped in Canmore and wandered like the tourists that we were today.

All in all, not a bad day...