It's Banff time!!!

My flight arrived on schedule into Calgary. Immigration and customs were a breeze. The agent at the rental car desk convinced me to upgrade to an SUV but he wasn't able to persuade me to rent a GPS unit. I thought $20/day rental was a ridiculous price. I called up a Calgary travbuddy, Ally (allyflower) to see if she wanted to ride with me into Banff. Her original plan was to make a daily 1.5 hour drive from Calgary into Banff with the hosts, Dan and Roselle. I convinced her to come with me into Banff on Wednesday and at least spend one night in Banff. Ally lives close to the airport and I was at her house within 20 minutes. She threw together an overnight bag and we set off on our travbuddy adventure.

I'll spare you the details, but I got lost leaving Calgary. I never saw the entrance to the Trans-Canada highway. I turned around and made the 30 minute drive back to Calgary. Oh well, I took it as an opportunity to have lunch in Calgary. Ally and I had a relaxing lunch and got the correct directions for getting to the TransCanada highway. Now we were REALLY on our way to Banff. The first part of the drive was boring - not the conversation, the scenery. Flat farmland. The second half of the drive became much nicer. The Canadian Rockies appear out of nowhere. Very beautiful. We pulled up to the Banff National Park entrance and paid our entrance fees. Now we had to find the hotel. Yes, I got lost again - but not for long. Banff isn't that large of a city so it was easy to get our bearings and find the hotel. Finally I have arrived!!!!! Only 19 hours from when I left my house until I arrived at the hotel. This is the reason why I flew first class. If I hadn't, I probably would be exhausted at this point.

I checked in first and got my room. A standard room with a queen sized bed. Ally checked in and was informed that they didn't have any more standard rooms. However, they would give her a 1 bedroom suite at the standard room rate. How lucky for Ally!! We retired to our respective rooms and decided to get together in an hour to explore the town.

We met as planned and began our stroll down Banff Avenue, the main street in town. Our hotel was maybe 5-6 blocks away from the center of town. Ally and I weren't hungry yet because we ate a late lunch, so we stopped off at a coffee shop and grabbed some beverages. We sat outside and did some people watching. That's always a fun thing to do in a tourist town. We finished our drinks and continued wandering down the street, taking note of a few interesting stores and the restaurants where some of the meetup activities were to occur. Banff is a quaint resort town. Lots of souvenir shops, clothing stores and restaurants - the majority of which are overpriced. We walked across the river to the Bureau of Parks Department. There were some beautifully manicured grounds with hiking trails but we didn't go up on the trails. Okay, what should we do now? Alcohol seemed like a good option. We found a bar that had seating up on the roof. Nice views of the mountains. The waiter seemed disappointed that we weren't having any food, only drinks. Ally felt guilty, so she got a side order of sweet potato fries. We had a couple of drinks and munched on some fries. I started to get a little hungry and I ordered a Shepherd's Pie. If you don't know what a Shepherd's Pie is, it's an English meat pie that has a crust made out of mashed potato and contains minced beef, potatoes, carrots and corn. Yummy!!!!

We left the restaurant and went back to the hotel. It seemed strange that the sun was setting around 10pm. In Honolulu, the sun sets at 7:15pm in the summer and 6:15 in the winter. Not much of a variation. I think I prefer consistency in my sunrise/sunset. Instead of heading back to our rooms, we made a stop at the bar in our hotel. We struck up a conversation with some girls from Scotland and a some people from Northern Ireland. (Later I was to find out that the Irish people are relatives of a TravBuddy, silvercircle. What a coincidence!!) The bartender spoiled our fun by telling us it was last call. We headed off to our rooms and agreed to sleep in late the next day. Good idea Ally!!!