Alberta has associations for me purely from the perspective of one who was addicted to all things Canadian once the TV show Due South hit Perth television screens donkeys years ago. I wanted to go to Canada and see a real live Mountie all dressed in the red serge, I wanted to Ride Forever underneath the blue Alberta skies. Track a caribou on horseback. Have my loyal wolf husky trail beside me. Learn to speak Inuit and enjoy maple syrup and just generally be as polite and nice as possible to the point of being annoying. I haven’t done any of these things whilst in Canada. But I had done related like things!

First I went to the RCMP store in Vancouver. That was very cool…even got a couple of Mountie postcards.

   

Then there was food with maple syrup on it.

Please note these are not the actual crepes I consumed. But they do look like them and it’s not my fault they were so delicious I was halfway through them when I realised I had forgotten to take a picture.  Mmmmmm crepes.

There was no horseback riding. But we saw lots of horses and even started one of our hikes at some riding stables. But alas there was no horse riding per se. Couldn’t convince Tim about this one, not even a little bit. But we saw Deer! Not quite Caribou I know but still. They were on the road and we had to slow down for them.At one point they’d frozen for a second looking at each other. It was almost like they’d either changed their minds on the chosen course of direction or one of them had stopped to go “Wait. Which way were we going again?”

We did see wolves! I posted that recently though – in my last entry I believe. And I must admit I have been extra special polite of late. The Canadians are assimilating me quite obviously. But I don’t mind because they live here in this beautiful wild place.

This shot was taken whilst driving. Tim took it because I was doing the driving and I just love it. I messed around with it a little in photoshop to accentuate some of the contrasts and if that’s not a picture postcard look right there I don’t know what is. That mountain almost looks animated in.

These previous 3 images were taken when Tim and I decided to do Canada’s #1 Day Hike as rated by TripAdvisor. We trust trip advisor, it hasn’t steered us wrong yet and this hike was pretty damn cool. Literally and figuratively. SNOW!! Well not snowing but it was there on the ground. We could have had a snowball fight but being 8,000 feet above sea level you tend to want to conserve your energy especially when you find out there’s a 1km hike that is pretty much on a 60 degree gradient just as you get off the bus in order to get to the START of the trail.

Tim and I did the first couple kms together then Tim decided to investigate a viewpoint 1km further on and I did the 3.9km extra loop that took you round the Three Lakes trail. Felt good to use the muscles again and it was definitely good scenery to distract you from the physical exertion 🙂

In Jasper we checked out some stores on the main street and I managed to find some pretty cool vintage metal signs.

They have a special interest for me but they also have a look about them I like. I liked wandering the streets of Jasper, they had some quaint little stores and interesting architecture of the residential housing there.

This was the steak I had last night at Charcut restaurant in Calgary and what was also very good about this meal was that we were able to share it with a new friend and her husband whom I had met at the Con in Vancouver. Nicole and Jeff appeared to be on the same wavelength as us when it comes to food so this was a great place to enjoy their company and some gastronomical delights.

The dessert was superb as well – milk chocolate parfait with sea salt caramel, ovaltine crunch and dark chocolate crumb. Soooo good and also light to eat.

We also managed to catch a couple of movies whilst in Calgary and both were enjoyable.

This was indeed a good laugh AND it had cars in it that were especially good looking. Movies with car chases in them have potential but movies with beautifully made and aesthetically pleasing vehicles racing in them? Well you have the first half of the Hit part done. Beau Bridges was also in this as well as Jason Bateman – it was an excellent cast even if it probably was mostly just Dax Shepard’s self fulfilment wish story.

We also saw Joseph Gordon Levitt (always and forever Tommy from Third Rock from the Sun for me no matter how brilliant in Inception and the Dark Knight Rises films) in a flick called Premium Rush.

Ever since Quicksilver (Kevin Bacon was actually pretty good as a bike messenger in this one) my not so secret adoration for Lance Armstrong and then seeing Jensen Ackles and Jessica Alba in all their bike messenger glory in Dark Angel I’ve always had a soft spot for these guys. Their work is hardcore physicality and I have total respect for anyone with longevity in this job. This movie portrayed all that perfectly and JGL is turning into a great young actor. Entertaining from start to finish, a no brainer of course but thinking thinky thoughts was never going to be an expectation on this one or the one before. I think those kinds of movies have just as much importance as ones like The Help, Power of One and The Shawshank Redemption. They just fulfill a different kind of escapism.

So the one disappointment about Calgary was that I was booked on the 4pm Zipline at Olympic Park and they had to cancel due to weather being too windy. Which totally sucks because this is the biggest and fastest zipline in North America and it hurtles your body through space at up to 140kph. Sounds like my thing all OVER. Grrrr stupid wind. I would have been happy to take my chances but apparently there’s some sort of liability issues. Whatever. Never mind…I’ll just have to come back to Canada one day and fit the zipline in. There’s nothing else for it. Perhaps if I arrange that teacher exchange after all…..hmmmm.

We are now currently staying in a little town called Fernie which from what I can gather has a grand total of two RV parks and whose claim to fame is about 10kms before you get to the actual town they have the world’s biggest truck on display. The sign said World’s Biggest Truck 1.5km. Now Tim will mock me (and already has) but if you see those words followed by 1.5km is it so ridiculous to think that the truck might be 1.5km long? It is the world’s biggest after all. But no. That was the distance to drive to see said truck. I was wondering how a 1.5km long truck functioned but I figured it was probably a truck put on one of these ridiculously long trains we see sliding through the countryside up here. Then it could totally be 1.5km long. See? Not such a ridiculously untenable idea after all is it?

Tomorrow we drive on! Perhaps to Grand Forks or maybe even Hope. We liked Hope. They had good wifi in that RV park 😉