2007 December 16-18: Vacation in Banff Canada

So we dropped kitty off at Colville, and then headed to Banff Canada at 6am on Sunday. The roads in the US were terrible, but once we got past Creston, the roads were great and I could drive 120kph (70ish). It still took us like 8 hours to get there though, but the drive was beautiful. The first day we checked into our nice hotel, the Brewster's Mountain Lodge, and then looked around at all the awesome shops they had. We then went to Whyte's Museum and saw lots of cool historical stuff from this family that had traveled all over the world and collected tons of stuff, it was really neat and inspired me to want to create a house that was really a world museum full of artifacts, so that is now my goal in life.

After eating a delicious meal at Guido's, eating Veal Valdostana for me and Veal Cordon Bleu for Christelle, we headed to the Banff hot springs. It was nice, and relaxing, but we still think Radium is the best hot springs we have been too. It was a fun first day, even though we drove for 8 hours

The next morning, we woke up around 8am, and took showers and then headed down to the continental breakfast. It was really good, they had cereals, toast, pastries, fruits, yogurt, juices and coffees. We ate a whole bunch and then set out for a long day of fun. The day before we had walked around and seen the shops but we didn't go into many. We started this morning off by visiting almost ALL of the shops. We saw so many cool things, rocks, gems, souvenirs galore, and a vast amount of other awesome stuff. The funny thing about this town is that nothing opens before 10am so we were actually early to a lot of places, which is strange when you wake up at 8am. Everything was in walking distance though so that was nice. Christelle bought a kitty knit cap, and we got me a nice waterbottle and some magnets.

After shopping, we headed to the Sulphur Mountain Gondola. The ride was really fun up the mountain and once we reached the top it was really cold and windy. We took lots of pictures, and then grabbed some hot cocoas and walked along the mountain ridge to the Sanson Peak, where they have a galactic ray station. The views were beautiful, and it was cool to see the old cabin that the meteorologist Sanson had stayed in when he was doing his high altitude research back in the early 1900s.

After taking a ton of pictures on top of the mountain we took the gondola back down and visited the Cave and Basin Museum. The caves were really warmed and smelled like delicious soup. It was the site that started the first National Park in Canada, so it had a lot of history. They also have some really rare snails that they are protecting too so it was cool to see the tiny little guys.

We then headed to the Banff Museum which was full of taxidermy. They don't condone taxidermy anymore but back in the 1890-1930 era the scientists used it to classify animals, so they still preserved them even though they don't practice those methods anymore. They have a very impressive collection of so many species. I think it is the best collection I have ever seen and is an amazing piece of history. After that we drove around town and went out to visit the Hoodoos. These rock formations that native americans used to think housed demons. The view of Mount Rundle and the icy river, as well as the Hoodoos, was the best of any place I thought.

After that we headed back to the hotel and parked the car and walked to the restaurant Melissa's MisSteak, a really great steakhouse. The food there was amazing. We started off with a calamari appetizer, warm bread, and caesar salad. Then our combo meals came. I had a the sirloin and brook trout, and Christelle had the Hunter's chicken and brook trout. The fish and lemon was some of the best I have ever had. The food was great and our server, Steph, was really awesome and even packed my peppercorn steak sauce in the to-go box! After eating we went back to the hotel and relaxed in the hot tub. We then watched the Grinch, Frosty the Snowman, and some other Christmas shows before we took a last walk around town as it snowed.

The last morning we again ate a huge free breakfast and then wandered around the shops for some last minute shopping. I ended up getting a visor that says Banff on it with my last 10 dollars. We then headed back to Colville. In Radium we came across a ton of big horn sheep wandering around the roads and we were like 5 feet away from them. After that we drove to the Kingsgate border crossing. We made it across without too much hassle and that is when the bad weather started.

It began snowing so much and we saw two semi trucks flipped over in ditches. The roads around Newport and Ione were so bad that it took us 3 hours to go 80 miles. I had to drift around the uphill switchbacks of the Tiger highway, and it was really scary, good thing no head on traffic was coming. As we were going up the Tiger we saw a lady in a ditch and stopped to help, but she had already called somebody so we headed back to Colville.

After 9 hours we finally made it home to where our kitty was getting along great with Lydia and Jack. We then ate lots of spaghetti and watched Battle of the Choirs. It was a fun trip, but boy was it nice to be back in the US and done with driving. I really like Canada and want to live there. They wake up late, drive fast, eat good food, have awesome landscapes, are very environmentally aware, and are just good humored and internationally cultural people. Just the kind of life I want to live!

Christelle also made a nice blog from a different perspective and more photo descriptions that you can find at her myspace site here.

20051223 - Border Crossing and Gambling

So we ate our free breakfast buffet that came with the package, and it was amazing too, Canadians really do know how to make amazingly good food. Then we packed up the car, and then went on a walk along the beach. We met a nice little lone bird who was having a blast swimming around and stuff, it was cool. Then we got into the car and started the 8 hour trip home. At the border crossing above Oroville we were searched and they ransacked the car for like 40 minutes as we sat in the holding area bored out of our minds watching an ant on the floor, getting lost in the continuous tile work.

Then we stopped in Republic for a bathroom break, and I got a german sausage and two glass holiday bottles of coke, and Christelle, who had been driving since the border, got a eggnog double latte, and we felt much more refreshed. Then we went to the Chewelah casino for a little gambling. I had 9 quarters and a lot of 1’s that was going to spend, but on my 7th quarter in the Double Jackpot Black and White, I got a black 7, double jackpot, black 7, which is worth 200 credits, and it had been a quarter machine so I won 50 bucks. So I put 5 on a hand of blackjack, dealer had 19 so I lost, and then we left. It was great.

Then we headed on home where we returned the car and then I ordered Pizza Pipeline with the winnings I had. We got a medium white garlic sauce with mushrooms and artichokes, and a medium pesto with olives and Canadian bacon, it was so delicious and we had traveled for so long that we at it all but 2 pieces. Total driving miles from Tuesday morning to Friday night was 931.6 miles. We were exhausted and fell asleep at 11:30 pm. I had to work at 3:45 am the next day :-( 

20051222 - Harrison Resort

So we woke up and decided we didn’t want to do a day of this lame hot tub or public pool so we cancelled our last night at the Executive, but ate the good breakfast we had gotten for our package booking, it was amazingly good food too. Then we went over to the Harrison Hot Springs Resort, which owns that actual source of the hot springs and has been around for around 100 years, they have 5 REALLY nice hot spring fed pools that are private to the guests only, so it was worth the 30 more a night. Checked in at like 11am into a king bedroom, that was small because it was historic, but a LOT nicer then the other hotel.

We decided to go on a hike first to view the hot springs source and the beautiful redcedar woods. We hiked all around in the rain and had a blast looking at the ferns and waterfalls through the rocks when I found something interesting. There had been a huge, very old, water tower container thingy in the middle of the woods, and next to it down the steep hill was a 30 foot board that went down a ditch. Christelle took a picture and then went and walked down the trail way, but I saw an adventure. So I squatted down and got on the board, at first it wasn’t that slick but then I took of like a shot, it was nuts, I made it all the way to the end where it lips up and I put on foot on the lip to stop myself and then slid out into the dirt. I didn’t get hurt at all just my butt and leg got dirty. HERE IS THE VIDEO

Christelle then made it to the bottom of the trail around the bend and yelled over to see if I was allright because she heard a weird noise, like falling. I showed her my dirtiness and she new exactly what I had done. I told her to get the camera out and I will show her what I did. So I climbed back to the top and she started rolling. Well this time I knew what to expect so I got on the board and it immediately took off. I couldn’t hold it and slipped off a little to the left and then hit the lip with my ribcage and it flipped me over into the dirt… and it was all on video. At first I got up and wasn’t hurt, just shaken up by flipping over and the craziness of it all. Then as we were walking, me limping a little, over to a pool of water to wash my hands off in, I noticed I was bleeding quite a bit from my wedding ring finger. Some how I had lifted the nail and gotten a sharp stab underneath and my other two fingers on that hand felt like they had been smashed by a hammer. I don’t know how it happened, even after looking at the video over and over, but it wasn’t that bad of an injury anyways. But it is all on video.

Anyways, so we went back and got me cleaned up and then went to the hot spring pools, at this resort they had an adults only pool, so we just chilled in that one for hours that day. It was amazing, it was funny too because this young Asian couple was in there too always when we were and they would copy whatever we were doing as a couple, it was funny, I love Asians, haha. Then we went to a German restaurant called Black Forest, and I had schnitzel oscar and spaeztle, and Christelle had a creamy cheese chicken with spaetzle and potatoes. They were both amazing meals. We then headed back to the hotel, and back into the hot springs. The whole time we had been there it had been raining so it was nice to sit in the hot pools while it rained ice rain on your shoulders. We then went to our respective changing rooms and sat in the saunas. She met a nice Asian lady, and I met some guys my age from Seattle, it was pretty neat. Then a final video recording before going to bed and that was it for that day… the funnest day of the trip.

20051221 - A Picasso Solstice

So we woke up, ate really good french toast my Mom made for us, and then headed out to Vancouver at 10:30am. We made a stop in Bellingham to check it out, we were quite impressed. The stores, forests, and people were all very nice. I then saw the sign for Western Washington University, and now I think that is where I want to go to get my B.A. Then I went online and found they have an Environmental Education B.A. So I think once I get my prereqs out of the way, I will be moving over there.

The border crossing was easy, they didn’t even look at are passports and just let us drive through after 3 questions. Then we headed up to Vancouver. The traffic there makes Seattle look like a cake walk. It was absolutely nuts, the café we were going to go to was in a ghetto shady area and wasn’t what we were looking for so we went directly to the Art Gallery to see the rare Picasso paintings and artwork they had there.

It was really neat, turns out Picasso is crazy as hell and apparently spent a lot of time with a sculptor having orgies. Good times I guess for him. My favorites were “Woman Weeping” and “Minotauromachy” very crazy paintings both of them.

So after that we just checked out the shops that were in that area and then we were tired of the chaos of the town so we decided to leave… little did we know that it would take us 2 hours just to get out of Vancouver, moving like 5 car lengths at a time, it was terrible. But then we arrived at Harrison Hot Springs. We easily found our hotel the Executive Inn and we went and checked in.

The place was pretty cheesy, nothing like we had expected. The room was standard and lame, and the hot tub they had at the facility was a nasty yellowish green. So we headed across the street to the public pool, which was indoors and only slightly better then the hot tub at the hotel.

We figured we would go have some drinks and food at the nearby PUB. So we went over there, Christelle ordered a nice full course meal, and I decided to just get shrimp appetizers and then drink. We both ordered a Wish On A Star martini, and it was so good I drank it in just a few drinks. Then I ordered a Raspberry Cosmopolitan for us both to share… needless to say I drank most of it. Then I ordered shooters: a Gladiator, a Wrecked Golf Cart, Electric Banana, and a few others that I can’t remember the names, but one was a creamy blue color and smelt of bubblegum ice cream but tasted like bananas, it was my favorite one. Anyways the bill was $70, plus I had tipped the two ladies working quite a bit as well. Oh well you only get to vacation once, eh?