Sept. 19th (part 2) – Banff
After we last update, we also strolled along Banff Avenue and finally found a Canada sweater that’s big enough for me (and I thought they’d have a lot of big sizes here, like in the States!), we finally found a copy of the “Parkways Of The Canadian Rockies” book we borrowed from friends (it had been our major guide on our whole route!), we ate something at McDonalds, crossed the Bow River and made some standard pics of Banff Avenue with the immense Cascade Mountain in the back and then followed the Bow River trail almost to the Bow Falls. It had been a long day, our feet hurt and we were tired, so we decided to leave the Falls and the Banff Springs Hotel for a next time. When we walked all the way back to the motorhome, we decided to drive to the nearby Vermillion Lakes, where it’s beautiful around sunset. We parked near the water and I walked down the road for a while, thinking I’d get to another lake, but it took me more and more into bushes and forest, so I wasn’t too comfortable. I started to sing somewhat and a bit later a coyote crossed the street, that was my key to turn around, sing louder and rush back to the motorhome 😉 By the time I realized it wasn’t a dog but a coyote that I saw, it was too late in catching him in a picture.
Back on the campground I had a great shower in the washrooms building. In general it’s amazing how many washrooms (bathrooms, toilets) you’ll find (sometimes flush, sometimes dry toilets like at points of interest in the park), how clean they usually are, how well stocked with toilet paper and… all for free! Europe can learn from that, here in Canada it’s a common service to the people!
Sept. 20th – Lake Minnewanka, Banff
Our eighth wedding anniversary! We took our time for breakfast and packing part of our stuff, then drove out to Lake Minnewanka. It had been raining a lot but we were again lucky, once we got out of our RV it was dry! The sun came out and it was really beautiful there. Lots of picnic tables and benches along the shore and apparently a popular place for boating and fishing as well. Also scuba diving, the village of Minnewanka Landing lies under water since the last dam (1941) raised the water level with 25 m. We also stopped at Two Jack Lake, which has a picnic area that looks just as beautiful as Spirit Lake. Ever since I’ve seen pics of it, I wanted to have a picnic there.. well, we were there without the picnic, but it was as gorgeous as it could ever be 🙂 I’m sure that spending a nice summer day here would be great, the views are wonderful and the clear water is very inviting. We went back to Banff to get some dinner at Safeway. Instead of eating out we decided to get the ready-to-eat BBQ chicken there with some extras and a coffee-to-go from the gas station and since we got back to the campground fairly early, we could still (finally!) have our festive meal outside at the picnic table! Happy wedding anniversary! 🙂 After that we relaxed a bit and continued packing and cleaning the motorhome… we don’t want to give it back 🙁
Sept. 21st – back to Calgary
My birthday! We were still awake at midnight, and Nico gave me my present 🙂 A DVD of one of my favorite movies that I couldn’t find in Europe: “The Clan Of The Cave Bear” with a.o. Daryl Hannah. He bought it in Calgary, when I wasn’t paying attention 😉 In the morning we got up pretty early, packed our stuff, cleaned the interior of the motorhome and drove back to Calgary. Bye bye Rockies… 🙁 Officially we were supposed to be at Cruise Canada at 11am but they had told us we could be a bit later. We got to Derek’s at noon, went to clean the outside of the vehicle in a truck car wash, then we drove to Cruise Canada for the big goodbye. From there we went to Chinook Mall, at the end of the afternoon back home to Derek’s and out for dinner at the nearby Boston Pizza. My dad and his gf had called before we got to Derek’s, so we missed it, but thanks for calling anyway! 🙂 After dinner Derek gave me his birthday present for me: the (handmade) Metal Mental Meltdown Trivia Board Game! Cooool!!! Thanks bro! \m/
Tomorrow we fly back to Regina…