Our Spring Sight-Seeing Trip

After keeping our noses to the grindstone pretty much 24/7 since last October, the unseasonably cold winter weather finally started to fade and we decided to take a Saturday P-day and drive up to Banff National Park for the day.

It was bright and sunny when we got up, so we put on a burn and left Calgary early that morning. We headed north through the mountains and once again they were impressive with their jagged, snow topped peaks.  One of our favorite mountains looks like the ruffle on the back of a giant triceratops; we took a picture to remember it. We stopped for a quick lunch at an A&W just off the expressway in Canmore before heading on to Banff because our plan was to hit the Sulphur Mountain Gondola first thing while the weather was clear so we’d have a great view of the entire area from the top.

We drove straight through the village and up the mountainside to the place where we could park and buy our tickets for the ride to the summit. Each gondola held 4 people – two facing forward and two backwards.

The couple sharing our gondola was about our age visiting Canada from Denmark. We had a pleasant conversation as we rode to the top, which took about 10 minutes; Grandpa took a few pictures out the window. 

There is a large restaurant and gift shop completely surrounded by an observation deck at the summit. We spent time walking all around the deck looking at the beautiful vistas from every angle and taking pictures. You could see the Bow River winding through the valley below, the Village of Banff and the historic Banff Hotel, and a whole range of snow-capped-mountains standing like sentinels in every direction.  Grandpa reached through the railing and picked up a handful of snow to throw at a little chipmunk scurrying around below us. 



 

We saw hikers at various points walking up and down mountain trails; you could ride the gondola up and hike back down or vice versa.  We were able to ride in the gondola back down to the bottom by ourselves so we could face outward and take some pictures.

We really enjoyed the view. We had someone take a picture of us next to the big ice explorer bus they use to take tourists to the Columbia Ice Fields to see glaciers up close and personal.

When we got back down to the Village of Banff [similar to Park City] we parked the car and walked over to the Banff Park Historic Museum located beside the Bow River. It’s a log/wood structure and the oldest surviving federal building in a Canadian National Park. 



 The museum had displays of all the different kinds of animals, birds, and flowers native to Canada; it was quite interesting. Grandpa took pictures of some of the large, stuffed animals.

After that, we spent several hours walking around the Village, poking around in the shops and scoping out a place to have dinner. We stopped in several places all of you would like: I loved the long Johns with the bear cheeks flap; Dan would have loved Duck, Duck Moose; the Grands would have made a bee-line for COWS ice cream emporium;  the littles would have loved the children’s playground; John Overbaugh would have noticed all the people riding to and fro up and down very high mountains on bicycles wearing backpacks; everyone would have wanted to have their picture taken with the giant stuffed Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Moose;  and the dogs would have appreciated the Beware Labrador/Weinermeister Dogs on Duty signs; etc etc.

We decided to eat dinner at Melissa’s steak house on a tip from a local resident. It’s an older building with flags from all around the world suspended from the exposed log ceiling, which unfortunately ended up being the highlight of the meal.  To compensate for that, we headed straight over to Cows for some ice cream before heading back home.