Oh Canada! Part Three

Well we are home now, but this is how the rest of the trip turned out.

On Tuesday (March 4), Beth slept in as her cold was not getting any better. Bill scheduled most of the day for a massage (without the "happy ending"). So Pam and I headed out on a hike up to the Chateau Lake Louise. I am guessing it was a good 3 miles to hike up there, and it was uphill all the way. At least the trail had a gradual incline. Once we arrived at the Chateau, we called Buffy to come pick us up in the rental car.

In the afternoon on a couple of occasions, we went to the hotel's piano bar. It is complete with a fireplace and mounted moose head over the mantle place. The drinks are bit expensive, but a good atmosphere. We'll find someplace to eat, but many times went back to Pam and Bill's room where they have a fireplace. We purchased our own beer and/or wine and drank there several nights.

On Wednesday (March 5), we left the Post Hotel, Lake Louise and the Banff National Park for Calgary. Since our flights leave very early on Thursday, we've scheduled lodging at the airport hotel this night. On the way to Calgary, we decided to take the Province Highway 1A and visit Johnston Canyon between Lake Louise and Banff. It was a good hike for about 2.5 km (approximately 1.5 miles) to see the upper falls. The lower falls was cool to see too as you got to walk through a short tunnel to get there. Most of the falls were frozen. The hike there could get a bit dangerous and tricky as the trail is not maintained in the winter and many sections are very icy. Tim would of had a field day with his camera here.

On early Thursday (March 6) , we began our trek back home. Getting through Customs and security was not bad at all. By 6:30am, we were sitting eating a couple of donuts and waiting for our departure at 8am. While waiting, I got out my iPod to listen to some music. It starts up just fine, but moments later, it shuts down. The battery is completely dead! Shit! Shit!! Pam did bring a battery charger for iPods and I meant to power it up earlier in the week. I just kept forgetting to do it. Now I've got no music for the way home. Shit!!!

We got into Minneapolis early so it made our layover 4+ hours. I was careful when using the rest rooms there so I wouldn't get caught up in some gay solicitation operation or get hit on by Sen. Larry Craig.

I hope to have some photos up on my regular Internet site and/or my MySpace page.

Other Canada trip tidbits:

• I'm still trying to find the black diamond run I took on Sunday on the map. It doesn't appear to be there.
• Buffy never freaked out when I would say the temperature is minus 0 (she knew Canada used the metric/Celsius measurement).
• We never saw any moose... or much wildlife for that matter.
• There were no crowds when skiing during the week. Many of my lift rides were solo.
• The Banff channel is on 17 and is nothing but documentaries about Banff and surrounding areas.
• We lost the ice scraper for the rental car we had and forgot to replace it. I don't know what the charge for that is.
• We didn't get any stamps in our passports when entering Canada.
• The iPod is a indispensable piece of equipment for skiing.

Sample of songs on the iPod when skiing:

• All American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret
• Buck Cherry - Crazy Bitch
• B-52's - Roam
• Elvis Presley - Burning Love
• The Killers - Somebody Told Me
• Tom Petty & Heartbreakers - Runnin' Down A Dream
• Matchbox Twenty - How Far We've Come
• Loverboy - The Kid is Hot Tonight
• Jimmy Eat World - The Middle
• Weezer - Hash Pipe
• INXS - Pretty Vegas
• Sheryl Crow - Superstar
• Nick Lowe - Cruel to be Kind
• Brian Ray - I Liked You Better
• Modest Mouse - Dashboard

Oh Canada! Part Two

Things have been great in Lake Louise Canada.

On Sunday, I was the only one who went downhill skiing. Beth, Pam and Bill headed into Banff to see what was there. They came back and reported that there was not much there. They did drive by the infamous Grizzly's restaurant. This was an establishment that I had visited 12 years ago. A fondue joint that took us nearly 4 hours to finish dinner.

They also checked into cross country skiing lessons. I stressed that we didn't need them; simply rent the equipment and go! However, all the lessons had been booked by large groups so they decided cross country skiing was out for this trip. And that was one of the reasons we came out here.

Meanwhile, I spent the entire day downhill skiing. The only place for breakfast we could find was at the Lake Louise Ski Area. After breakfast, Buffy, Pam and Bill saw me off as went to get my lift ticket. That was around 10am. I took the Glacier Springs lift first just for a warm up. The sun was shining and ski conditions were near-perfect (could have used a little more snow). Then I later took the Top of the World Lift which takes you close to the top of the mountain. It is also nicknamed the "6-pack" as it is a 6-man lift.

It was pretty windy on top, but the view of the mountains is much better than seeing it from a car. I eventually headed on the Grizzly Gondola and wondered over to the Lange area, where there was less wind.

I spent most of the time on the blue runs. But the Wolverine run, which was labeled as blue, turned out to be false advertising. This should have been a black diamond. I ran into another skier who admitted the same thing. Like me who stated "I didn't sign up for this," this gentleman stated "I'm getting too old for this much work." We were able to ski off to the side and avoid the steep moguls. I did do a couple of black diamonds, but just not into that much anymore.

And the lift lines in this area were almost not existent during lunch time. But by 3pm, I had enough and headed into the Powederkeg Saloon to meet up with the others. It was about 3:30pm by the time I arrived. Over 5 hours skiing. I was wiped.

However, Pam and Bill decided to give downhill skiing a try for Monday. They signed up for lessons starting at 9:15am. On Monday, Beth stayed in as she has not been feeling good this week. Pam, Bill and I had breakfast at the ski area again. After breakfast, I headed out to the lifts; Pam and Bill went to "get learned."

I came back around 11am to see how they were doing. Pam was having problems breathing and I knew this was going to be short lived. Bill was doing pretty good as a student and actually stuck with it until 3:30pm. Pam quit at lunch time. I came back around 2:00pm to see how he was doing and skied a bit with him on the bunny hill. I was hoping I could get him on the real lift and try a green run down but no dice. By this time Beth and Pam were in the Powederkeg.

Today we are taking it easy. Tomorrow we plan to leave Lake Lousie and spend the night in Calgary since our planes leave early Thursday.

Later

Oh Canada!!

Coming to you live from the Post Hotel in Lake Louise, AB, Canada today, from the complementary computer of the hotel.

We left very early yesterday from Peoria, with our flight leaving for Minneapolis at 6:15am. After the routine strip search and cavity check from the TSA, we were on our way. After a couple hour layover in Minneapolis, we headed for Calgary. There we met up with Beth's sister Pam and brother in law Bill at an airport pub. Beth had some difficulty reading military time. She thought their plane was delayed a couple of hours. It was due to land at 2:41pm and the airport used military time. Comfortably seated in the bar, she began to question herself. Beth told me the arrival time stated 14:41. And I said, "Yea, that's 2:41."

"No it's not, that's 4 o'clock."

"No, 12 noon is 12 hundred hours. Add two hours. Fourteen hundred hours is 2 o'clock. Sixteen hundred hours, now that's 4 o'clock."

All's well that ends well as Beth headed out to Customs to meet them.

Then it was ground transportation from Calgary to Lake Louise... a short 113 mile jaunt. We finally settled into the Post Hotel, just right across the interstate from the Lake Louise Ski Area.

This morning we had breakfast and looked around the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and the lake itself. We later got into the car and headed out north on 93 and check out some other frozen lakes, glaciers and mountains.

Tomorrow I plan on heading out to do some downhill skiing. It's been snowing on and off today. I'm hoping we get a good amount of snowfall tonight and sunny skies for tomorrow. I don't have a clue what the others will be doing.

Neither Bill nor myself have our laptops this week, so travelogue-blogging will be light.

Later