baaaack

[images: jane; circa august 20007, banff roadtrip]

The roadtrip to Banff was gorgeous. Although the actual car ride was extremely trying on patience, it all fell through. I've never gone past Hope to see the Canadian Rockies and my goodness, it's wonderful. The glacial lakes in the area like Lake Louise are beautiful as the waters are this emerald blue. What I didn't expect was the temperature to drop just below 0 C at night... Mark was sooooo unprepared. He pretty much came in shorts and flip flops with a blanket as a sleeping bag. His comments on general geography and knowledge about anything were to say the least... astoundingly unintelligible. He is really his own category of his own. If it weren't for his car, Simon and I would have never had him come along. I will seriously shoot someone in the face if I hear another "your mother is so fat" joke. But anyways, the weather warmed up during the day and since we were so high up in altitude, the weather would change so quickly. Given the inhumane quantities of meat and eggs in our diet throughout the week, all we could do was fart and sit on the latrine with great constipation with little luck in fancy hotels. Since river rafting was out of the question for one of the days due to time constraints, we all decided to go to Calgary for a day. Sooooo much dang flatness. The flies were numerous and the Calgary district was very business-like. Albertans are the craziest aggressive drivers and their meat and gas are not cheap. Downtown Calgary is really well planned out for its weather conditions... skywalks connect all the main buildings. The 4th floor of the Bay building features a huge indoor garden which I guess would be pleasant during the freezing cold winters. Overall, I think Calgary city would be more enjoyable during the winter when hockey season is in full bloom, otherwise the city would just be another business-y vancouver-like city. After 3 nights in Banff, we spent a single night in Kelowna and had 2 FULL dinners... the pinnacle of gluttony I know. Given what we ate, it didn't help with alleviating constipation. The Okanagan valley is actually really pleasant with its comfortable summer temperatures of 30 C at night. By the next morning, we all bought a bunch of fresh fruit and headed for home... but first, a stop at the Home Restaurant at Hope for a Mountain Man Breakfast (which I recommend). Gas is the cheapest in Hope by far of all the places at 99.9 per Litre. On the way home via the transcanada hwy. a chicken truck of all things flipped over.... this literally caused a 5 hour halt of all traffic. You can imagine the nutso-ness of terrified chickens, motorists and emergency crew at the scene. Of course, Mark just went beserk behind the wheel... he was so damn impatient. He deserves a bazillion more traffic tickets for his insane driving skills. We didn't get home any sooner with his driving or his complaining. Oi :S. Anyways, that pretty much sums up the trip.