Random Rant and Rave for the week

Rant: Mr. V is gone for a few weeks. Maybe 3. Maybe 6. Maybe 2 months. Nothing drives me crazier than not knowing what's going on. He's in San Diego right now, and then he may or may not be heading to some place in the South Pacific, or maybe Japan (Is Japan considered the South Pacific?). I honestly don't know how he handles his job. It drives me crazy and I'm not the one doing the job. I can handle him being gone, even though I miss him. I just would really like to know when he's coming back, give or take a day or 2.

Rave: I love Roots. And not the 1977 movie. Roots is a Canadian clothing company, that I discovered while reading stuff about Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (ice dance Gold Medalists that I've mentioned before). Roots has a sponsorship deal with them, so I went and checked out their stuff, and ended up buying a Canada sweatshirt. Mr. V has always rambled on and on about how much he loves Canada, but I never gave it much thought. I had been to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls when I was little, but that was all I knew. Since living close to Vancouver though, and spending a good deal of time up there, and visiting the Canadian Rockies, I've come to love it there too. So I wanted a Canada sweatshirt. It arrived in the mail yesterday and it is by far the most comfortable sweatshirt I've ever worn. It seems that Canadians LOVE Roots, and I can see why. One piece of clothing has made me a fan.

Vancouver 2010

There are SOME perks to living in Washington state! I always loved watching the Olympics when I was a kid. For the summer Olympics I was fascinated with gymnastics and for the winter games I loved watching ice skating. Something about the fact that I will never in my life be able to do anything remotely close to what these athletes do seems to catch my attention. I can barely ice skate in a straight line and I've never been able to master a cartwheel, so I get my joy from watching others do the things I only wish I could do!

Since Vancouver is practically in my backyard (I live closer to Vancouver than I do to Seattle), I decided that when the Olympics arrived here I would have to find a way to go see them.

I managed to get tickets to the first round of ice dancing and I was thrilled! I wanted to go to the Olympics and I would have taken any tickets that I could get, but since ice skating was always my favorite thing to watch I was thrilled to end up with tickets to see this event live!

So on Friday, February 19, I headed off to Vancouver. Mr. V had to work, and while I know he wanted to check out the Olympics in general, I don't think he was too upset to miss ice dancing. Since he had to work, he passed his ticket along to a friend of mine and the 2 of us went off to have some fun. After a fairly easy border crossing (the easiest one I have experienced, which was odd since I would think that during the Olympics security would be tighter), we stopped at the British Columbia visitor's center to get some maps and information. This was probably the smartest move we made because Vancouver wasn't letting people drive and park downtown. We had to park in the town of Surrey and take the Skytrain into Vancouver. Since I didn't even know that the town of Surrey existed, the visitor's center was definitely a smart move.

The first thing we did was head off to the waterfront to see the Olympic torch (which is being called a cauldron for some reason). Amazingly, Vancouver has this entire thing under control. The crowds in the city were insane, but I am completely amazed at how well they have the crowds managed. I never felt like I was in a huge unruly crowd, and volunteers in blue jackets were set up everywhere to direct people around to keep traffic moving. I guess I was expecting pure bedlam, but we got the exact opposite.

After the torch, we had to head to the Pacific Coliseum to see the ice dancing. We had an amazing time! We got to meet some of the ice dancers and get their autographs and we got a big kick out of the excitement that the Canadians were radiating off of them. At one point I had to say "Wow I've never seen so many Canadians!" I know, I know. We were in Canada, so obviously there were Canadians everywhere, but what I meant was that everywhere we looked we saw red. It seemed like every single person was dressed in something red, something that had a maple leaf on it, or something that said Canada. The fact that it was all red is what I think stood out the most. We could look down a street and just see a sea of red everywhere and when the Canadian ice dancers preformed, the crowds watching went insane!

By the time the event was over we had to head back to Washington. However, we realized that there was still a lot of stuff in the city that we had wanted to see, so we made plans to come back on Sunday. So on the 21st, my friend and I collected our husbands and the 4 of us went back to check out more of the sights. We definitely had fun and for once I'm happy to be living out here because I'm not sure that I would have ever experienced this if I was living anywhere else!

I posted my pictures from the weekend on Facebook, and I'm going to try to post them here. I've never tried to use the public link to pictures on Facebook before, so I'm not completely sure this will work, but instead of creating a whole new album for the sake of this blog, I'm going to try it. If you find yourself clicking on the link and its not working, please let me know!

I just have a simple point and click camera, but my friend has an amazing professional type camera so her pictures turned out much better than mine. I didn't even bother trying to take pictures of the ice dancers because I knew they would come out small and blurry with my camera. She took tons of pictures though so I'm going to try to get the public link to her Facebook album (which she has to give me access to - I can't just get it myself) and then I'll post her pictures too. For now though, here are my pictures.

Olympics - Vancouver 2010

Random Tidbits About Canada

We've been back from Canada for a week now, and I have to admit that being back in the real world isn't much fun. Deployment is coming up fast, which upsets me. I guess I had been ignoring that fact for a while, but reality set in when we got back from Canada.

BUT...on a happy note, I decided to write about some random fun things in Canada that have nothing to do with almost losing my life.

First....I grew up in New Jersey (as you probably know by now). New Jersey is known as the "Diner Capital of the World". You can find a real, true diner in just about every single town. Many towns have diners on every street corner, and some have more than one on the same street. Diner food is hard to describe if you've never eaten it before. Its not quite home cooking, but its also not a meal that you would get at a restaurant like Applebee's. One thing I miss about Jersey is my favorite diner, the Crystal Diner in Toms River. The Crystal Diner serves something called disco fries. They are also served in many other diners around the state too. Disco fries are a plate of french fries, with brown gravy and American cheese on them. Before you say that it sounds gross, I dare you try to them if you ever have the chance and I bet you will be changing your mind quickly. Since leaving the state, I haven't come across disco fries anywhere. In fact, I really haven't come across a real diner anywhere else. The closest thing I have found to a real diner, is a typical Carolina Barbeque place (only in North Carolina though). Carolina Barbeque isn't diner food, but a lot of other things they offer is similar (i.e. grilled cheese). So needless to say that I was beyond excited that a very popular meal/snack in Canada is something called Poutine. Poutine is...you guessed it...french fries, with brown gravy and cheese!! The cheese was something similar to blue cheese (I forget what it actually was), so that part was different, but the first time we came across a restaurant with Poutine, I was able to get them to switch their cheese to 2 slices of American cheese. Then I happily ate my disco fries, at the top of Suplher Mountain, in Canada :-). Mr. V always thought disco fries sounded gross, until he tried mine in Canada. He changed his mind. We ended up finding that almost every restaurant that served fries, also served Poutine (The KFC there served fries and gravy in place of the mashed potatos that we are used to here.) Some places served french fries with a regular meal, and you can get a side of brown gravy to pour over them. Needless to say, I ate my beloved disco fries at every place that served them. I think its going to be a while before I will be able to eat them again. So yay for Canada and their own version of a favorite Jersey diner food!

Second....Another weird food/snack that I love is marzipan. Marzipan is an almond paste that is used a lot in cake decorating. At Christmas time marzipan comes in small fruit shaped pieces, usually in a nice gift box. There is nothing special about marzipan, other than the fact that I like the taste of it. However, its another thing that I like to eat, that I have a hard time finding outside of New Jersey. I worked at a candy store for 5 years, and we sold regular marzipan, along with chocolate covered marzipan. Mr. V happens to find marzipan absolutely disgusting, as do many other people who have tried it. Apparently, disliking it must be pretty common because its not an easy thing to find (although here in Oak Harbor, Safeway sells it in their baking isle). So score another point for Canada! We went into several small candy shops while we were there. If you know me, you know I get sweet cravings pretty often, so if there's a candy store around, and I have no candy in my car, then we are going inside.) I was quite happy to discover that chocolate covered marzipan is a pretty common thing sold in Canadian candy stores.

So while, I'm sure people are still going to think that I enjoy eating things that seem gross to them, I am happy to report that Canada clearly understands my taste buds. And since Poutine and marzipan is sold just about everywhere, then I'm happy to say that I can't possibly be the only person in the world who likes to eat this stuff.

Canada Adventure Part 6

Well...we made it home safely from Canada. I promised some pictures back in my first post about the trip so I decided to write just a short post with some of my favorite, amusing pictures from the trip...(and by amusing, I mean pictures of things that I am not used to seeing from my apparent sheltered upbringing...)

(the snow at the Roger's Pass Visitor Centre in Revelstoke, BC - that's a lot of snow!)

(an avalanche tunnel covered by an avalanche - guess its a good thing the tunnel is there!)

(another view of the avalanche tunnel covered by an avalanche - this may actually be a completely different tunnel but I can't remember...)

(Avalanche Area - Do Not Stop! Oh...except to put chains on your tires...)

(over turned tractor trailer on the side of the highway)

(don't feed the mountain goats! - at the top of Sulpher Mountain in Banff)

(an overpass for wildlife to walk across the road)

(Did I mention we were in avalanche country?)

(just in case you are a stupid tourist - ALL bears are dangerous)

(a card left in our hotel room in Jasper...if you click on it to blow it up, you'll see that we were kindly asked to keep the door to our room shut so wildlife won't come in...)

(a small avalanche right next to some ski tracks - apparently people in Canada love heli-skiing, which involves a helicopter dropping them off at the top of a mountain and then skiing down the mountain - not in an actual ski resort. Heli-skiing comes with warnings about avalanches - which should probably be taken seriously as this picture shows...)

(Lake Louise - note the people walking across the thin ice)

(In case there was any doubt...rescues take time...so please don't fall into a crack on the glacier [you may need to blow this picture up too])

(crevass warning - don't fall into the glacier!)

(caribou crossing)

(for some reason I can't get this picture to upload in the right direction...but just in case you weren't aware of this - icy rocks can be slippery and parents should hold their children's hand.)

(an ice climber at Maligne Canyon. I think ice climbing is crazy to begin with, but what this picture doesn't show is that this is the day it started to warm up. As this guy is climbing, you can hear water running down behind the ice and small pieces of ice across the whole canyon were melting and falling off. So...who wants to climb up a melting waterfall? With no saftey rope?)

(our poor car at the end of the trip)

(another caribou crossing sign on the highway)

(watch out for caribou, bears and wolves crossing the road)

(I just thought the cartoon thief on this sign was funny)

(just in case the other signs didn't teach you a lesson, please don't approach the glacier - you may fall into it and die before someone can rescue you.)

I'll be creating a google photo album of all of our pictures within the next few days so I'll post a link to that when I have it.

Canada Adventure Part 5

Its our last night in Canada and I have some catching up to do. Tonight we are back in Banff, staying at the Buffalo Mountain Lodge this time around. So far this is my favorite hotel. The first one in Banff was great because it was a historic resort and the history nerd in me kicked in big time while we were there. This time around I love this place because its the first hotel I've ever stayed in that has a real working fireplace. As soon as we got here we tried to start a fire, only to be interrupted by Mr. V looking out the window and getting excited. Directly behind our room were some mule deer hanging out. I grew up in the pine barrens of New Jersey so seeing deer in my backyard is nothing new to me, but there is something about staying in an old rustic hotel that resembles a mountain cabin, and looking outside to see deer right in your face, that made this place seem really neat to me :-).





Now backing up a few days...

The day after our insane hike up the mountain in Lake Louise, we went dog sledding! It was soooo much fun. Originally when Mr. V brought up the idea of dog sledding I was a little apprehensive, but he lured me in by showing me pictures of the cute puppies on the website for the dog sledding company. I wasn't really sure what to expect, other than the fact that we'd obviously be riding in a sled while a team of dogs pulled us. We got there early Friday morning and were greeted by several people and LOTS of dogs. I am not sure how many teams were there but there were lots and lots and lots of dogs. We were allowed to hang out and pet the dogs before leaving on our trip, and I've now decided that I want an Alaskan Husky dog. Each sled carried 2 or 3 people (2 adults or 2 adults and a child) and was driven by a professional "musher". Our guide wrapped us up into the sled (we had a fluffy blanket wrapped around us and then we were zipped up with velcro into the sled) and we took off. A friend of mine told me that these dogs were really happy to do what they do, and she was right. As the different mushers/guides started assembling their teams the dogs started going nuts. They were barking and jumping up and down all excited until they were finally strapped together. We took off pretty fast and the ride was pretty bumpy, but it was so much fun. Our guide talked to us the entire way. He told us about the breed of dog and its history. He told us about each dog on his team and how he trains them and how he picks out the team leaders. It was all really interesting. The ride itself was neat because first of all, we were dog sledding, and second, the route took us along the continental divide. We've been in Alberta for most of this trip and towards the end of the ride, we crossed the continental divde back into British Columbia, where we stopped to let the dogs rest and take pictures. Our guide asked us if we were interested in driving the sled, and of course Mr. V volunteered. I opted to stay nice and cozy in the sled. I have horrible balance and since good balance is key to staying on the sled when you're driving it, I decided that being a passenger was what was best for me. (this picture is small, but its the British Columbia/Alberta border right on the Great Divide)


Yesterday we left Banff and drove into Jasper National Park. We drove on the Icefields Parkway and saw tons and tons of large glaciers on the way. Our reason for going to Jasper in the first place was to see the Athabasca Glacier. Its the only glacier in the area that you can actually walk up to. In the spring and summer you are able to take a tour on a large truck/bus thing that drives you right onto the glacier. Unfortunately, the Icefields Centre tours don't open until a few days after our trip is over. So of course, Mr. V wanted to be dangerous and adventurous as usual and wanted to walk right onto the glacier. He chose to ignore all the warnings in every guidebook about how walking onto the glacier is dangerous and deadly. So we had to compromise again. He agreed to talk to a park ranger and only walk in the areas that were deemed safe. Once again, I was right and the glacier itself was not considered safe. However, the moraine (dirt and rocks carried by the glacier) in front of the glacier is safe to walk on so we decided to walk there instead, much to Mr. V's disappointment. I have to admit that this was even a little scary. There is a trail that you can walk on over the moraine that takes you to the toe of the glacier, but not any father. Because of all the snow in the area, the trail was partly covered so there were points where we were sinking into pretty deep snow. The signs all over the place warning everyone about falling into crevasses and dying weren't helping me as we hiked along. We did make it to the very top of the largest morain pile right at the toe of the glacier. Thankfully there were ropes at that point and signs warning people to not walk any further. Mr. V wasn't happy about that (I think he was going to attempt to make me walk on the glacier regardless of all the written warnings and the park ranger warnings.) This was a pretty rough hike for me too because the moraine isn't even, and between the snow and mud, there was lots of sinking and lots of panicking about falling into one of the deadly crevasses. I knew that we wouldn't actually fall into a glacier crevasse if we stayed in the moraine area, but there was also a stream running under the snow nearby that was worrying me a little bit (we never did find the actual steam so I think at one point we walked over it without realizing it).

In high school I actually did a science fair project about glaciers. I hated science in school and chose the topic half heartedly at the time. When I was all finished I realized that glaciers were actually pretty interesting things, so my nerdiness kicked in again and I thought that seeing an actual glacier (a life sized version of my science fair project) was pretty cool. The sad thing is that this particular glacier is melting fast. It is already at least 300 yards smaller than it was in 1992, which means that in a few years it may not even be something you can walk up to anymore. Knowing that fact, makes me happy that we saw it now. The first picture is Mr. V and me in front of the glacier from the middle of the moraine field. The second is us at the top of the largest pile of moraine right at the toe of the glacier. The third picture is a view of the moraine in front of the glacier. The glacier is behind it and not visible from this angle.








I'm somewhat sad to say that tomorrow morning we are leaving Banff, and driving straight back to Whidbey. I'm not so sure that I am ready to return to the reality of the real world yet....

Canada Adventure Part 4 - Animal Tracks!

I posted a picture of the grizzly bear footprint that we found on our hike up a huge mountain. This morning we went for a short hike near our hotel. We are in Jasper National Park right now and there is an old mining ghost town here, directly across the street from our hotel. We decided to check it out this morning and discovered that we were wandering around the ghost town along the same path as some other animals. So...what do you think of these tracks? We aren't sure if these are lynx tracks, bobcat tracks, cougar tracks or wolf tracks (all of which live in this area and are spotted frequently)but after looking through several books today, and also online, we think these are wolf tracks. Its hard to see the size of them in the pictures, but they were at least 4 1/2 inches. If you look closely, Mr. V put a beer bottle cap in the snow next to them to compare their size (in the first picture). I'd be inclined to say that is too big for a wolf, but after our research today, apparently a gray wolf can have footprints up to 5 inches. So yeah...apparently we were walking on the same path as a wolf...or 2... this morning.









This footprint gave us some trouble. We think it might be a bobcat or a cougar. So not only were we sharing the trail with a wolf, but also a bobcat or cougar. Nice huh? Although, in Mr. V's words "Don't worry. Its just a REALLY big kitty cat."

Canada Adventure Part 3

I think I deserve a "Wife of the Year" award after this trip is over. First, I should probably clarify that the cold weather and the snow isn't the problem up here. I'm from New Jersey. It snows in New Jersey. It also gets cold. However, apparently the snow and cold I have experienced throughout my entire life doesn't compare at all to what is up here in the Canadian Rockies. I feel like a person from Florida who can't handle a few snow flurries without freaking out! But again, the problem isn't the snow. The problem is my lack of energy and enthusiasm when it comes to doing outdoor things. I used to work at a camp so I thought I was outdoorsy. I have camped and canoed along the Delaware River and hiked the Appalachian Trail. Those adventures are NOTHING compared to the adventures out here. The Canadian Rockies make the Appalachian mountains look like tiny little hills.

Today I think I officially earned the "Wife of the Year" title, for 2 reasons. 1 - Mr. V has been trying to convince me to become more outdoorsy and today I let him drag me on an INSANE hike up a huge mountain. 2 - I need to pay more attention to what he is dragging me along to do. Lesson learned - a shorter hike, does not mean an easier hike. I should have thought about that before I set foot on the trail today.

We left the town of Banff this morning and headed off to Lake Louise, which is still in the Banff National Park. Mr. V has been dying to hike this trail that takes you around the lake to a point where you can see 6 glaciers in the same area. The trail is called something like "The Trail of 6 Glaciers" so its pretty self explanitory. However, as I mentioned in a previous post, this is avalanche country out here. The radios and parks have warnings all over them about avalanche risks throughout the area. Certain areas are more prone to them, certain areas can be guaranteed that there will be an avalanche and others are considered "safe" - meaning that there most likely won't be an avalanche. We looked at a map yesterday and saw that The 6 Glaciers trail is in an area very prone to avalanches. Since this is prime avalanche season, I promptly declared that there was no way in hell I was hiking on a mountain trail where the danger of avalanches was high. Mr. V wasn't happy about that so we compromised. We agreed that if we asked the park ranger about the danger and we were warned away from an area, we'd pick a safer hike. If the park ranger thought the trail was safe, then I'd suck it up and go with him.

Let's just say that I was ECSTATIC when the park ranger said that the 6 Glaciers Trail was almost 90% in a high warning avalanche zone and it wouldn't be a good idea to hike it. Mr. V pounted but I skipped out of that visitor center happy that I wouldn't have to hike this insane hike. The ranger did tell us about another trail that is popular and only had a small little section in an avalanche zone. The hike time was shorter and she assured us that the avalanche danger was very, very minimal because of the small area. So stupid me, I assumed that a shorter hike would be an easier hike. If I had paid attention and asked more questions I would have learned that the shorter hike was actually a more difficult hike because it was MUCH steeper. It sounded interesting though because my history nerdiness kicked in. This whole area is a historic area and back when the resorts here first opened, tea houses were built along the mountain trails. The second hike would take us to one of these tea houses and even though its closed for the winter, we'd be able to see what they were like. I thought that was pretty neat. So we set off on the hike. About 30 minutes into it, I realized that I was waaaayyy out of shape. I pushed on and felt like dying about an hour into it. At about an hour and 15 minutes we came across the avalanche zone.

This is the part where you can tell the difference between Mr. V and me. Mr. V got excited because the trail opened up to an amazing view of the mountains and glaciers around us. i got excited for about 5 seconds. The view was beautiful, but reality set in quickly when I realized that we could see the view, because avalanches had knocked down every single tree in the way. This was also a point where the trail sharply curved up and around a bend (I guess to avoid the avalanche area). First I freaked out when I saw the remnants of an avalanche. Here's a picture to show that...this is taken looking up the trail from where we were standing...

Once I convinced myself to not freak out about the avalanche that I could see right in front of me, I then proceeded to freak out because the sharp turn of the trail was completely icy and one bad step could send me sliding backwards. If I didn't catch myself in time I could have slid down the entire mountain. So of course that scared me and I had to literally crawl up the trail at that point, completely ignoring the fact that snow and jeans don't mix well. Now my hands and knees were freezing, but I was on a stable path again.

We continued hiking steeply up. By this point I just sucked it up, pushed forward and moved as quickly as I could. Everything was fine until we came across some animal tracks. Thankfully (and not thankfully) we saw a great display of all the local animal tracks a few days ago. Thanks to that display I was educated enough to know that these were grizzly bear tracks!!! When I worked up at my camp, we had black bears all around, but black bears typically eat berries and ignore humans. I know that they CAN harm humans but they usually don't. I could handle seeing a black bear in the wild, but not so much a grizzly bear. Here are those tracks. If you look closer you can see the long sharp claws at the top of the footprint...


By this point, I'm cold and achy. I can barely breathe and now there are grizzly bear tracks around. Mr. V pointed out that we were pretty close to the tea house, so between him nagging and my stubbornness (I came this far, there was no way I was turning back now), I pushed on.

We finally got to the tea house and we were treated to an amazing view of Lake Agnes frozen over, with mountains and glaciers behind it. But first, we had to hike up the steps of the tea house which were completely covered in snow and ice. I had to literally get on my hands and knees again to make it up the first few stairs before they turned into something that actually resembled stairs. The first few were so covered in snow and ice that they looked like a slippery, steep ramp). At that point I did have a slight panic attack so when we did get to the top, the view was beautiful but I was soooo ready to go back down that I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have. Looking at pictures now though, I think I look miserable but the view really is beautiful.

I think the point when I completely lost my composure was on the way back down. That slippery ramp part of the tea house steps was hard to get up, and even harder to get down. I had a quick real anxiety attack at this point. This time Mr. V had to attach some ice clamps onto my shoes to prevent me from slipping, but I still had to resort to sliding on my butt to a point where I could stand safely. So now my hands, knees and butt were snow covered and freezing. Thankfully the hike down was much shorter and I was even brave enough to pose for a quick picture by the avalanche...


Now that I am all thawed out, I've informed Mr. V that our hiking adventures better be over for the duration of the trip! Tonight we are staying at an adorable lodge in Lake Louise. This place was built in the 1920's and there are no TVs in any of the rooms. At first I thought that was strange but we wandered around, touring the hotel and the history nerd side of me kicked in again. The hotel is still set up the way it was originally. So no TVs means that people have to sit in the reading rooms playing cards, playing the piano, reading books, etc. The front desk also gives you games to take up to your room or into their game room. I thought it was odd at first, but its kind of neat to be forced to entertain yourself the way people would have done it almost 100 years ago. Mr. V and I played a board game for a while after exploring the hotel (we thought it was neat, but took the game back to our room instead of socializing in the game room like we were probably supposed to do), and now I'm writing this blog.

Tomorrow we are leaving this hotel and then going dog sledding! I have to admit that I am very excited about that, especially since I don't have to do any of the work. We get to sit in the sled while a guide takes us on a trail along the Continental Divide. Then afterwards we are leaving Lake Louise and the Banff National Park and heading to Jasper National Park for the final days of our trip. Now that I have pictures on the computer, I will work on uploading some from my previous days adventures.

Canada Adventure Part 2

Day 5 of our Canada trip and I have to admit that I really like it here. I thought about the fact that we will be back in Washington on Monday and that upset me. Its beautiful here and completely stress free. Today we are still in Banff, but tomorrow we will leave this great hotel and head off to Lake Louise and Jasper. I'm not exactly sure if the next few days will be fun or not, but I wasn't sure about this trip in general, and so far Mr. V has proven to be right about Canada. He told me I'd love it here and I do.

I've learned a few things over the past few days:

1. Canadians really say "eh" ALL the time. Honestly? I figured that they said it occasionally, but every joke I hear about Canada usually involved the fact that Canadians say "eh" all the time. I never thought that they would say it constantly though. Examples: "Are you ready to order your food eh?" "Its beautiful here eh?" "Take care of that leg eh?"

2. Its cold here. Colder than it is in Oak Harbor. However, its a dry cold, not a wet cold and its actually much more bearable than I thought it would be. I haven't lost any body parts to frostbite yet although that may change when we go hiking tomorrow.

3. People were crazy and gross years ago. There are several hot springs here. The original hot springs are what the town of Banff originated around. We went to see these yesterday and they're interesting, but disgusting. They smell like sulfur (i.e. rotten eggs) and have bacteria, algae, snails, and other unknown things growing in them. Yet people came here from all over the world to swim in them. You can still swim in the hot springs today, but thankfully, the original area is now just a tourist attraction to go look at, and at some point, someone realized it would be much nicer to filter the sulfur smell out of the water, leave the good minerals in it, add some chlorine, take the nasty rocks out and turn it into a nice looking pool. They now bring the water from the original hot springs into a new area, which is very clean and VERY relaxing. I never thought I'd be swimming outside in freezing temperatures but I did today and it felt amazing. I can totally understand why people enjoyed the heat of the springs years ago. I'm just happy that I got to swim in clean water instead of the nasty water from 80 years ago.

4. The town of Banff is a small, small town. Its a town that is inside a National Park, so you can probably imagine how tiny it is. The only people who live here are employees that work somewhere in the park. Yet...Banff has more in it than Oak Harbor. That was a slightly disturbing realization. Granted, there is no Walmart and the closest "real" town is 3 hours away (Calgary), but when you count up the tiny downtown stores, Banff is about 10 times the size of Oak Harbor. There is even a movie theatre here that plays 5 movies at a time, and its an old historical looking theatre, which is more than can be said for the movie theatre in Oak Harbor.

I'll update again in a day or 2 with pictures!

Canada Adventure Part 1

Mr. V has kidnapped me to a place filled with trees, mountains, cold weather, REALLY cold weather, crazy drivers, and did I mention REALLY cold weather? Welcome to my spring vacation!

We are here in Alberta, Canada. So far the trip has been a fun adventure. Mr. V has a little over a week of leave, so we decided to go on a vacation. Since he is the one who is about to go on deployment, I let him pick the trip. So everything we are going to do here is all his idea...with a little input from myself (i.e. I refuse to go on a gondola ride that hangs thousands of feet over the ground, so he settled for one a little less scary. I also refuse to hike in the back country of avalanche territory, along with other scary dangerous things he would love to do.)

We left Oak Harbor Saturday morning and made it to Revelstoke, British Columbia by nightfall. The ride was an adventure. I'm sure I'm just a wimp, but my sheltered east coast upbringing kicked in big time as we drove through snowy mountain passes. I have learned that Canadians are completely psychotic when it comes to driving. They drive at least 30 miles over the speed limit on wet or icy roads and around sharp twists and turns without ever hitting their brakes. If you aren't driving as psychotically fast as they are, they are quick to pass you in no passing zones, while driving around a sharp turn. Needless to say, the drive was a bit scarier than I ever imagined it to be. I'm not exactly sure WHY they insist on driving this way. I would be inclined to say that they know what they are doing, but we passed one tractor trailer shell on the side of the road (it was obvious that it flipped over, and burned to a crisp on one of those sharp turns. Did I mention that the 18 wheelers also drive insanely fast? I was amazed that they just left the shell of a truck there on the side of the road. It looked like it had been there for a while.) A few hours down the road, we passed yet ANOTHER tractor trailer that had overturned on the highway, around a sharp turn. We have pictures of that one that I will upload when I get a chance to organize the pictures. You would think that burned trucks, flipped over trucks, and bridges with guard rails that have obviously been hit, would inspire people to drive a little more carefully, but apparently not.

The crazy drivers, along with the snow and ice that we encountered in several areas made for a scary drive. But thankfully, we made it to Revelstoke unharmed. We stayed at a really nice hotel for the night, and in the morning we headed off to Banff, Alberta.

The drive to Banff was interesting in several ways. First, it was absolutely beautiful. Ever since moving to Washington, Mr. V has driven me crazy with his constant speeches of "Brooklet look! There are big snowy mountains around us!" I do think the area of Washington that we live in is beautiful, but to me it was a beauty that wore off quickly. I still think its nice, but I just can't get excited about it every day like he can. So I wasn't really expecting to be amazed at the big snowy mountains up here, but I was. This is a beautiful area. The rocky, jagged mountains (I had an epiphany when I said "Hey the Rocky Mountains are really rocky!"), are pretty spectacular looking and I have to admit that I am impressed by the beauty up here. We drove through 3 or 4 national parks on our way to Banff (Banff is one of them) and on the way I had some more scary shocking moments. We are apparently in avalanche country out here. I can't even count the number of times we saw signs that said "Avalanche area...do not stop". That was just a little shocking to me because I've never been in an area where avalanches are common. We even saw the results of several of them. The roads up here have avalanche tunnels that are strategically placed at the bottom of frequent avalanche areas. I thought that was interesting when we drove through the first one. I thought that was REALLY interesting when we drove through several of them in a row that were completely covered by snow...the result of avalanches. Thats another thing I will upload pictures of eventually.

The next interesting stop for us was on the border of British Columbia and Alberta. There is a small, quaint, little town called Field. There's nothing extremely exciting about the town, but I just found it interesting because there couldn't have been more than 50 homes, and it is hours away from any larger town. It was just so secluded and quaint that it almost seemed unreal. To me it looked like a town that is placed around a train set at Christmas time. I don't know how people can live there 365 days a year without going crazy, but I could happily live like that for a few weeks before I'd lose my mind :-).

We are staying at the Banff Springs Hotel, which is a dream for a history nerd like me. It was built in 1886 and aside from renovations and upkeep, it still looks like an old historic hotel. Mr. V definitely made a good choice in choosing a place to stay.

Today was spent on the Banff Gondola and on Sulpher Mountain. This was the least insane of the gondola rides Mr. V wanted to go on. I still freaked out a bit when I saw how steep it was, and he has a video of me on the ride up that no one will ever see (I had no idea he was filming me as I had a small panic attack.) This particular one stays fairly close to the top of the trees, wheras the other crazy one he wants to ride, is WAAAYY above the trees. I chose...well...compromised...on this one based on the fact that it stayed lower. However, I didn't know that it is one of the steepest gondolas in the world, which is what caused my panic attack when we got on, and I looked up the mountain. I am happy to say that I survived the trip and saw an amazing view of the Canadian Rockies at the top. I'm also happy to say that I survived the cold at the top of the mountain and even managed to hike one of the trails that had a sign saying "Hiking not recommended."

Tonight we're just relaxing back at the hotel, but tomorrow brings more adventures as we check out the famous hot springs here! I'm not sure about the idea of swimming outside when its 10 degrees out, so we'll see how this goes!