Days 8-10: Banff - How many's f's are in Banfffff to you?

We left Galleon’s Lap of luxury (aka Tim’s place in Glacier) to head to the great outdoors of Canada. However, Tim first washed the bug infested car windows and hooked us up with bagel sandwiches – seriously, why did we leave Glacier again? Super thank you shout out again Tim!

The first stop on our long drive to Banff was a super tame border crossing near Eureka, MT. I’m happy to report that yes, all three passports were remembered and we successfully crossed to the land of Shania Twain and denim tuxedos. At the border we dutifully reported our single bottle of wine and Katie let the guard know we’d recently quit our jobs to vagabond across the world in a Subaru. Her eyebrows raised when she asked if we had enough funds to cover our stay in Canada and then get the hell out. They have enough issues with unemployment without us. I think I’ll stick to the “software project manager” title moving forward for a bit longer.

I’m not sure if there’s a prize for the record number of times to say the word “Banff”, but if there is, oh my gosh we have won hands down. Just about every two minutes someone said Banff, which then caused the other two of us to say Banff back. And when I say “Banff”, I really mean “Banffffffff” because 2 f’s just isn’t enough for a place as amazing as Banff. Err, Banffff.

Driving into Banff is completely different than driving into Yellowstone, the Tetons or Glacier. Where the US Parks were noted with striking peaks and steep mountain sides, we were welcomed to some of the most majestic scenery driving along Highway 93 in Alberta. Majestic. There truly is not another word to capture the vast wide valleys that gently slope to tremendous mountain peaks covered in dense green forests. The pine beetle epidemic that has touched so much of the US Rocky Mountains has not yet made its way north into Banff and the denseness of the forest is immediately noticeable. I’m going to hush now and let the pictures speak for themselves:

In addition to the scenery, we were greeted by most of the animal kingdom. A quick slideshow of our new animal friends below and the numbers:

· 6 Bears

· 3 Bear cubs (including two the size of small puppies)

· 1 large Moose

· 3 Mountain Goats (variety w/horns)

· 2 Elk with fuzzy antlers (what’s up with that?)

· 1 Porcupine

· 5 chipmunks

· 12 massive ravens (eek, flashbacks to The Birds)

· 10,000 kamikaze bugs (everyday wildlife viewing)

bug view:

After considering the large number of wildlife seen less than 10 feet from the highway and the fact that the recommended campsite was closed due to the “safety of people and bears”, we decided to stay in a hotel.

Decision time at the campgrounds:

Our chosen hotel:

Just kidding, we stayed at the lovely Inns of Banffffff

Not a group to take a hint and take it easy (see Glacier fail day), we lugged our camping gear up to the hotel room and cooked dinner on our balcony with an amazing view of the mountains. Thumbs up to the Pasta Primavera Mountain (wo)Man dinner, much better than the mush known as Chicken and Rice.

After a chill night at the hotel (read: Bachelorette, wine and convincing ourselves we’re still hardcore) we woke up pumped to get the bikes off the rack and see Banff. The town of Banff is a cute ski town, similar to Vail but with more moose and maple leaf paraphernalia. We made big plans with the help of some new Aussie friends over an awesome burger at Eddie’s burger joint to bike to the hot springs and gondola at the end of town.

This is pretty much where the successes ended for a few hours. Ugh. After learning that the glacier hike tour we wanted to book was full for the week and then making no less than 12 trips to and from the car to get more layers, gloves, water bottles, extra tire tubes, snacks, etc, we finally set off on our bike adventure. We made it about 3 blocks from the hotel before it began to pour. Rain. Ugggh. We have some sweet (and semi-matching) rain jackets but this is not rain gear. As I’ve learned from my time in Portland, we were not prepared and were missing fendors and intense waterproof gear. We turned around and went back to the hotel. The bikes are now referred to as “those damn bikes” – don’t ask us about them.

We grabbed our swimsuits and headed out to catch the (free!) city bus. Emmie and I were pretty much ready to start kicking the car if forced to get back in after so many long drives that we strongly pushed public transportation. We then had a great afternoon at the public hot springs, got some great people watching in and Katie even got a massage. If you’re like Emmie and not quite familiar with what hot springs are, “I don’t get it…it’s like a pool?”, here’s a pic:

We then wrapped up the evening with seeing The Hangover 2 (consensus: hilarious and props for including Billy Joel on the soundtrack, but the first one was better) and back at the hotel as it continued to rain.

Our third day at Banff was full of much more success as we traveled up north through the park to the Columbia Icefield to check out the glaciers and see Jasper National Park. We’ve been told by many people that this was one of the most beautiful drives in the world and weren’t about to be dismayed by being excluded from the full ice walk tour. The drive truly was stunning and I’ll hush again to let you enjoy Lake Louise, Lake Moraine and the Columbia ice field:

Lake Moraine -

Yes, we don't always succeed at the jumping pics...

Lake Louise & the Fairmont hotel:

Carb loading with "Tangy Zangy's" for the glacier hike

Shout out to Kyle Bernard for his recommendation to visit Jasper – it was great and we lucked out with nice weather too. We air high-fived in your honor and said “jyessss” about 15000 times too many. We know you know exactly what we mean.

At one vista point we set off on an impromptu hike to what we thought was a better view of a waterfall we could see in the distance. After a short kilometer or so of hiking we felt the mist of water and heard a thundering sound. Coming around the bend, here’s what we saw – it’s now been termed celebrity sighting falls since it came out of nowhere like the b-list celeb Emmie’s going to see in LA.

Up in Jasper we had an amazing Korean dinner at the recommendation of our hostel owner (below - yeah, we’re getting really soft now) and found a local brewery to watch game 4 of the NHL Stanley Cup finals. Go Vancouver Canucks! We cheered with the locals and tried their brews, not bad. Unfortunately the Canucks lost the game but now we’re headed to Vancouver to celebrate with the local fans at least. Shout out to Mat, Bike and Mr. Callad for their love of hockey – Go Pens!

A few shout outs while I have the floor:

Grandma Nancy – I found a massive supply of Tilley hats like Papa Bob always wore and thought of you

Notorious DOC – we Jumanji rhino’d back to the hostel and nearly collapsed with laughter prompting the most bizarre stares from grunge-loving Canadian tweens. I also tried to include more pics at your suggestion, how’d I do?

Mrs. McGuckin – the Fairmont Lake Louise is waiting for you to visit (but no, we didn't pirate code Katie at the Fairmont, although I'm sure she would've been happy to stay) J

Karly – adorbs is our new favorite term, thank you for sharing! Here's an adorbs elk for you:

Canadian department of transportation – let’s pick up the speed limits, ok? I think the average speed limit across this massive country was a whopping 70 km/h…about 45 mph. Yeah, we picked up on that right away...J

And yes, this is too long but in case you’ve been asking yourself how we keep ourselves entertained on the long drives, the blog has provided much enjoyment and we’re glad you all are liking it too. When we’re not cracking ourselves up over our attempts at online humor, here’s a compilation of some fun moments so far: entertaining ourselves

Check your local listing for hockey because we’re on the way to Vancouver!