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Published: August 17th 2015
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Today the adventure really began. Our tour started today, after a very restful night’s sleep, with a great buffet breakfast. Omelets were the specialty of the day and we each had a custom-made breakfast with everything and anything we wanted. There was also a wide selection of other items to complete our plates, and we have a very good breakfast to start our day.
The baggage was indeed collected from our room and was brought down to the lobby, and then was placed on our bus. There are 36 of us in the tour and the bus is large enough for 54, so we have lots of extra seats to be able to spread out and be fairly comfortable during the ride, which started with a drive through Calgary. It is a fairly modern city with a lot of high rise buildings (many of which are related to the oil industry). We did drive through Stampede Park where each Fall they have a 10 day demonstration of “cowboy skills”, which relates back to their original founders.
Driving out of town we first stopped at the 1988 Winter Olympic Park. There is no snow in August,
but we saw the ski jumps, the bobsled & luge runs, and some of the alpine skiing trails. Something they are very proud of is that the city invested in a lot of facilities for the Olympics, but they have been able to recoup all of their investment and they still have the facilities to draw fresh winter tourists. For example, all the buildings which were constructed for the Olympians lodging and administration have been resold as residences with terrific views overlooking Calgary. It is an accomplishment they are proud of.
We drove out of town using the Trans Canadian Highway (route 1) which stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Peter told us it is the longest continuous asphalt road in the world (more than 7000 kilometers). We followed the highway through changes of landscape from the western edge of the Great Midwest Plains, through the Foothills, and finally into the Canadian Rockies. Our final destination today was to reach Banff, but we saw a lot of different type of landscape along the way.
We drove through the Banff National Park. It is the 3
rd oldest national park anywhere in the world (behind
Yellowstone and the Sydney National Park in Australia). It is well known around the world as a protected paradise with 6,641 square kilometers of mountains, forests, and lakes to explore. It attracts roughly 4 million visitors each year. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. By law there cannot be any exploitation of the land within the park (no mining, trapping, forestry, etc.) and that includes no commercial buildings within the park. As such is looks much like it did when the First Nation inhabitants (we would call them Indians or Native Americans) lived there.
When we reached Banff, it was about noon. We slowly drove through the heart of the main business district and several restaurants were recommended by Peter. While we all went to wherever we want to eat, Peter and our driver (Jessie) took the bus to our evening hotel and off-loaded our luggage so everything would be in the room when we checked in later in the day. So while they worked, we ate lunch in a retro style English Pub and we each had delicious orders of Fish and Chips. This was a good as we remembered from our prior experiences in
Two Jacks Lake
on the way to Banff England. After lunch we stopped at a chocolate factory and had to decide what to have to dessert (this was a difficult decision to say the least).
After lunch we all met the bus again and we were driven to the Banff Gondola site. This was a 7 minute trip up to the top of Sulphur Mountain. We had been having occasional sprinkles of rain off and on all day, and always with a fairly consistent layer of clouds. Some of our views were not a good as they could have been. Fortunately it was dry during the hour we spent on the top of the mountain but unfortunately the clouds persisted and we had spotty views of the surroundings. On a clear day it probably would have been terrific 360-degree viewing, but this time our luck did not last. But we did get a few pictures from up on top. David also was able to follow the trail to a second peak (away from the gondola point) which had a small stone cabin on the top which had been built by hand by a mountain climber many years ago (protect himself from bad weather once he’d
Banff
Part of main shopping district gotten up on the mountain). That in itself was pretty interesting but it was more walking and climbing than Janet would have been able to handle.
After the gondola, we went to a place where we were supposed to have a terrific view of this evening’s hotel – Fairmont Banff Springs. However it was raining heavily at that time so we skipped the viewing and they will try to add another attempt before we leave town in a couple of days.
We did go on down the road to Bow Falls. We have been following the Bow River ever since we were in Calgary – the road followed the same course as the river had created hundreds and thousands of years ago. The Bow eventually flows all the way to Hudson Bay and therefore the water flowing past us today will someday flow into the Atlantic Ocean – kind of remarkable when you think about it. Anyway, Bow Falls used to be a high waterfall many, many years ago, but erosion of the limestone has transformed it into more of a cascade of white water. It is the place where Marilyn Monroe and Robert
David & Janet
in Gondola going up Sulphur Mountain Mitcham made a movie – she was supposed to be replaced with a stunt double just before going down the cascades and they almost didn’t get her out of the river in time. Apparently it was quite a sensation back in its day. Anyway, the rain had stopped again and we got a good look at the “falls” though.
From there it was off to the hotel and we checked into our room. This is essentially a castle and is actually known as the “Castle of the Rockies”. Fairmont has an even more impressive hotel than last night and we were told they are still making additions and changes. Our room is about the same size as yesterday but the view (we have a corner room with windows looking two directions) is terrific – intermittent clouds permitting. And yes, our luggage was waiting in our room. By the way, David was able to get an aerial picture of the hotel while coming down from the mountain in the gondola.
This evening we had a group meal with a special guest speaker – Retired Staff Sergeant Patrick Somebody of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He
Janet
on the top of the mountain was dressed in the formal uniform with Red Coat and flat Stetson hat. He was very entertaining to listen to his presentation and responses to questions. He gave a summary of the development of the RCMP, what types of jobs he had during his 26 years of service, and how the Mounties are used today. It was not only informative but also very entertaining.
For dinner we had Canadian Salmon with various supporting dishes (salad, vegs, and dessert). We were sitting with 6 others folks and we had a lot of interesting conversations (4 were from Australia and 2 from England). They had traveled on other cruises and vacations, and we got to compare stories, including the plans for the cruise phase of this trip, and for the coming years. We have been getting to know a number of people in our tour group and will probably add more acquaintances in the following days.
Now we are back in the room and settled down for the rest of the evening, although it is already after 9:30. Tomorrow is a “free day” where we can do whatever we want in Banff so we will make
it up as we feel like doing things tomorrow. Check in tomorrow and see what we created for ourselves. Good night for now.
Banff Weather:
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/weather_in_CA-AB.aspx?forecastid=CAXX0023
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