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!