Mission: Fire Swag!

I didn't want to post this until I'd had a chance to give away all the swag I accumulated on this particular mission; hence the delay in posting.

One of my side goals on this trip was to trade my fire department patches in the small towns we visited. Our first successful visit was to the Lake Louise Fire Department. It was probably my favourite as it resembled my own fire department the most. It was fairly small and made up primarily of volunteers. I spoke with the deputy fire chief for some time and we really seemed to have similar challenges and populations.

We stopped in Golden, BC but their fire hall was closed up and didn't appear to be manned. Next was Revelstoke, but we were all tired and cranky so we didn't stay long.  Much thanks to my lovely sister for her photo of me and my Revelstoke patch.

We also stopped in Banff but after stopping there three times and finding the front door open but no one around, we gave up for the day and headed back to try Canmore Fire Rescue.

The FPO we found working late seemed a little hesitant at first but once he got talking, we got a spectacular tour along with a pretty impassioned speech about the importance of volunteer fire departments.

Finally, I managed to get some pretty cool stuff in Banff, including a challenge coin that I'm pretty reluctant to even let anyone else touch, but unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures and have given almost all of it away.

Acrophobia

On our last day in the Rockies, we undertook our shortest day trip yet, to Banff. It is far and away the largest tourist-trap I've ever seen. And I've seen Niagara Falls. We took a wrong turn and wound up in a construction zone where a friendly flagger was kind enough to point us in the right direction and recommend a scenic drive. Although I didn't find anything in Banff that wasn't scenic.

Much to our surprise, the gondola at Sulpher Mountain was still operating (take that, shoulder season!) so Deborah and Neil grabbed a coffee...

and rode to the top while Veronica and I sat in the car and tried not to look as their cable car swayed in the breeze. 

It's a twenty-minute ride (round trip) and there's a scenic lookout at the top with a gift shop and a restaurant. There was also a wooden boardwalk that led to another peak but since it was snowing and windy, they opted not to attempt the hike. Also, Deborah is a doofus and wore her sandals. 

Outside the mountaintop gift shop there was a very lonely dog who looked eerily like Fera.

Next our excursion took us past a scenic waterfall, where we stopped to marvel at the breathtaking views and tourist stupidity. 

On our way out, Veronica spotted what we thought was a deer standing grazing right on the shoulder of the road. We stopped, rolled down the windows and took tons of pictures. It paid no attention to us whatsoever; just continued eating the grass. Later, Bryan informed us it was an elk. Although, when we got home there was much debate over whether it is an elk or caribou. Feel free to weigh in.

We, in fact, found a whole herd and took a million pictures. Smart tourists that we are.

After a quick stop for some Beaver Tails, we headed back to the condo for the night. 

Stupid Jasper

The next day, our plan was to hit the Columbia Glacier on our way to Jasper. At the entrance to the Glacier National Park, we were told that the glacier was closed for the season (?) and that they had snow on the road. We decided not to risk getting slushy and headed instead for the tip of British Columbia (Kootenay region).

After some fairly endless driving and some pretty spectacular mountainous roller coastering, we arrived in Golden, where learned the term 'shoulder season'. We tried to learn the origins of this term but can only assume it refers to the shrugging that occurs when they tell us that everything is closed. From Golden we headed through more mountains toward Revelstoke stopping at Kicking Horse Pass.

By this point it was raining and quite cold and as it was still 'shoulder season' very little was open. Neil and Deborah visited the local fire department and museum and we proceeding on a very long drive back to Canmore. Everyone was a little punchy as we passed back through Golden, so we tried to feed various members of our mormon family to the vast quantity of roadside bears statues.

Beautiful! Gorgeous! Wish you were here...

This was our view on the first morning in Canmore and to say our reaction was stunned is an understatement. Rachel has never been west of Sarnia and while I've been in the Rockies before, it was on the western side and not quite so surrounded!

We spent most of the first day exploring Lake Louise which has vistas that are barfingly breathtaking. 

While the husbands were shopping for booze and tacky souvenirs, Rachel and Veronica stayed in the car. They were laughing at a particularly fat crow that was aggressively following pedestrians in pursuit of food but the crow obviously heard them because he then decided to perch on the passenger side mirror and tap on the window. Which Rachel found hilarious but Veronica did not.

Rachel rolled up the window but Veronica wanted to drive away. Rachel wanted to wait until the husbands came back from shopping to see how they handled a menacing crow but Veronica chickened out and drove around to a different spot. The crow, however, was not to be so easily dissuaded. He followed the car from spot to spot tormenting Veronica at every turn, much to Rachel's delight. It was quite the afternoon's entertainment.

Enough with the prairies, already!

South of Calgary we plummeted into the Alberta badlands. The earth fell away suddenly, leaving Deborah feeling like she was sitting in the front car of a roller coaster. Layers of sedimentary rock rose on both sides of a long, narrow canyon. It was a breathtaking place to run out of gas.

Just shy of Drumheller, AB is the ye olde mining town of East Coulee, which the residents informed us is now mostly a filming location for western movies. Jim, the kindly proprietor of an antique store, rustled us up a gallon of gasoline and we were back on our way.

We skirted around the outer edge of Calgary just as the sun was going down and made it to Canmore eight hours after leaving Saskatoon. When we checked into our hotel, we were stunned by the swank factor of our 2-bedroom, 2 bathroom luxury condo, which features a full kitchen with a dishwasher and even laundry facilities. After a long day in the car, we picked up burgers from a local brew pub, played a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity and collapsed into our respective beds. All the while unaware of what lay right outside our bedroom windows...

The Mormon Honeymoon

We arrived in Saskatoon finally! Around 11 last night we were finally reunited with the remainder of our Mormon family.

We should probably explain... 

It's really just that Neil and Rachel have been friends for a long time and talked about doing a quickie Vegas wedding so they could use their spousal work leave. When he began dating Veronica, it was often a joke that Rae was his first wife.

Neil and Veronica got married two years ago and this trip was intended as their honeymoon. Since Neil is bringing three women with him on his honeymoon, it became known as The Mormon Honeymoon. That makes Rae wife #1 and Veronica is wife #2.

The exciting news for today is that I've been promoted from Wife #3 to Husband #2. My helpfulness in carrying luggage and packing the car apparently resulted in this slight bump in status. I'm excited because it means I get to sit in the front seat.

We are about halfway between Saskatoon and Calgary. The great big skies are blowing my mind!

A few words about the food...

Mmmm. This is delicious.

So here is the way that meals work on the train; breakfast is served between 6:30-8:30 first come first serve while lunch and dinner you need a reservation for one of two time slots. 

Each meal contains four options for the main course. At breakfast there was a different specialty ommelette and pancake each day as well as a continental and trans-continental option. Tea, coffee and juice were provided at all meals. Breakfast came out in record time and was well worth getting up that early.

At lunch there was generally a sammich, a salad, a vegetarian option and a seafood option. It also came with a soup and dessert.

Rachel's lunch (below) is turkey and bacon open faced sandwich with spinach, Brie and apple on ciabatta.

Dinner seemed to be a much more formal affair with a starter (soup or salad), four coices between lamb, beef, fish and a pasta. They served alcohol at dinner (at a reasonable price with a decent selection) and included a dessert as well.

I tried to get a picture of Rachel's dinner (above) but it was too delicious and she couldn't wait and began eating!

I had a delicious four cheese pasta with zucchini and red peppers.

Also, as a side note, the inbound train from Vancouver hit a herd of cattle so the running joke all night was that dinner was catch of the day, beef au jus.

Rachel would like it pointed out that there is a vast difference between economy and sleeper class, even when it comes to the coffee.

Generally we were very pleased with the meals, however, it was very interesting how they put you at a table with strangers to make polite chitty-chat during the meals. We met lots of terribly interesting people, one loud jackass and one bitchcake.