Day 2: Banff & Lake Louise

  Day 2 of our Calgary trip started fairly early at 8:15am which wasn't as easy with the hour time difference then add the Daylight Saving adjustment. 





  We had an uneventful 2 hour bus ride to Banff and the weather was gray, cloudy and drizzling. The mountains and landscape along the way is really spectacular but it's hard to take pictures through a bus window. The town of Banff is really quaint with some people comparing it to Solvang because I guess that's the closest we have in SoCal to Banff. Cute little shops, cafes and motels. The weather didn't want to be very nice but Lupe & I braved the steady drizzle and walked up to the Fairmont Castle hotel across the river to check it out. It would be a nice walk normally but the drizzle and cold temps made some very icy sidewalks so it took us longer to get there. 



So while the rest of the group did their shopping, Lupe and I trudged our way on slippery ice to the castle-like hotel. On the way we saw a deer in someone's backyard and a car attempting to drive up their icy steep driveway (kind of scary).

Of course, when everyone was loaded on the bus to head to Lake Louise, the clouds gave way for some blue sky and sunshine.



Another 30-40 minute bus ride to Lake Louise where it began snowing. A majority of the bus riders were sooooo excited about the snow. It made for some fun picture taking and playing outside like kids.

The Fairmont at Lake Louise is a grand hotel nestled in the mountains right by the lake. I'm told that the lake is especially gorgeous in the summertime when the water is blue-green. The lake was frozen over solid with lots of snow on top but there was a big ice sculpture castle wall that was perfect for lots of photo ops.










  Another cool thing in Canada is that they try to protect their wildlife as much as possible so much that they created 'animal crossings" (that's the term I came up with) over the highway with fencing directing the animals to these bridges so that they can cross safely. Pretty neat.



We had a wonderful day trip and wish we could more time there but it was time to head back and watch the Kings game at the pub. I'm telling you these people were party all the time...booze on the bus at 8:30am to way beyond after the game to another bar with karaoke. They were lots of fun and that concludes Day 2 in Calgary.

Full Throttle

A brief interruption of my Calgary trip with a video of Tyler riding Full Throttle. In the last year or so, he is ready to go on every thrill ride available to him.


Meanwhile, Josh was all set to go on Revolution and Batman. Wouldn't you know that Revolution was closed and Batman was only for season pass holders to preview the ride backwards. Poor kid was so frustrated and upset that he chose X2 as the next ride. I don't know a whole lot about rollercoasters but this was a HUGE leap up on the rollercoaster scale.




Read about this crazy ride HERE.

That poor kid came off that ride practically in tears but he DID IT! I had to shower that brave kid with lots of hugs, souvenirs and treats. He won't be going on that again but he is proud of what he achieved and so am I.
Okay, I found the video of this ride and it is INSANE. You can see the ride better from the parking entrance to the park because we could hardly see the tracks while waiting for Josh & Tyler. I hope Josh isn't too traumatized by it.

Calgary: Day 1

The time finally came for the LA Kings Fan Trip to Calgary. Lupe and I were ready bright and early Saturday morning. The flight was a tad bumpy but not awful.





I managed to take a couple of pics out of our plane window. The mountain were snow topped and I assume these are the Canadian Rockies.

Our hotel, The Westin Calgary was in a great location about 2 blocks away from Chinatown so we hoofed it over there for a yummy dim sum lunch. From there we walked down Centre St toward the Calgary Tower. Lots of interesting sculptures/art work to see.












 Our hotel is about 2 blocks from the river so we had that option which we did another day. The downtown area is easy to walk and we didn't have difficulty navigating the city. The Calgary Tower was our afternoon adventure and off we went.

The tower is not the tallest structure in Calgary but it does offer good views . There is a portion of the tower that has a clear ledge or skywalk so you can see straight down to the street below. Lupe is freaked out by that sort of thing so I tried it and you definitely get that dizzying/vertigo feeling but you kind of get used to it after a bit. :)











We ended our evening with a nice reception/dinner at the Canada Sports Hall of Fame. We got to taste Alberta beef which is excellent and the drinks were flowing. We later learned that the Olympic flame was at the Calgary Tower during the 1988 Winter Olympics. Also the facilities we were at is the official training center for the Canadian winter athletes. :)

I have lots more to post but this is the first part and hopefully I can be good about posting more about our Calgary trip.

Dust Bunnies

A little cute project for leftover yarn. Originally written for sock yarn which would make these super little, I started with some bulky yarn and I liked how they came out.

I think I might knit some up (gotta start now) as little student gifts at the end of the year.




I have lots of yarn...