Banff, British Columbia and Calgary

Being sick on vacation really stinks! I picked up a stomach bug on Monday and spent the day in bed in our time share. Tuesday was much better and we headed north to Banff. It is a beautiful town tucked in a valley beneath the mountains. Unfortunately they are renovating their downtown area so the quaintness of the town was a little lost, but the outskirts did not disappoint. We went up to L'Hotel Banff Springs (or Banff Springs Hotel to us Americans). This hotel is spectacular. Our friends John and Jill honeymooned there and it is so romantic. The views from the hotel are amazing and the setting definitely says you are someplace special.

From there we hiked down to Bow Falls, which looked more like Bow Rapids to us. The water here has the most brilliant colors. I wish the pictures did it justice.




We then decided to drive over to British Columbia to say I had been there (Kirk visited years ago). No pictures though, just a road trip.

Today, we headed to Calgary for the day. We went searching for the Calgary Stampede, which was definitely on Kirk's list of things to see. He has watched the stampede for years, so it was fun to be there and see where it is actually held. From there we drove around the city of Calgary.


I was so impressed with this city. They have done a great job of incorporating city living with the downtown area. We saw Calgary's Chinatown and very cute neighborhood areas (think 5 Points in Denver or Central West End in St. Louis). And one of the things that impressed me the most is how CLEAN the city and surrounding neighborhoods were. In the three hours we were there we never came upon an area that was dirty!

We took a different highway back to Canmore, which took us through some beautiful ranch land and alongside some rivers and lakes we would not have seen from the main highway. There are signs everywhere to watch for wildlife (think bears and moose), but we haven't come across any yet!