Julie's California Blog Goes Canadian, eh?

Several months ago, my dear friends, Sheryl and Kenny invited me to join them on a trip to Canada.  Some of you may remember my mantra when asked to go someplace or do something ... "I'm in!"

Sheryl worked tirelessly putting together a fantastic itinerary.   Sheryl and KB were to fly from LA, I was flying from Aspen.  The plan was to meet in Calgary, rent a car and drive to Banff.

When the day finally arrived, I got to the airport in plenty of time, breezed through security and waited for my plane to be called.  Soon the gate attendant got on the intercom and announced that the flight was delayed because of a minor repair and should be boarding soon.  My Denver/Calgary connection was tight so I was a bit nervous about making my connection if we were late but soon, the flight was called and we boarded.  After getting everyone comfortably seated, the pilot stepped out of the cockpit and announced that the repair that he thought was minor was really major and he uttered those words we all hate to here, "This flight was been cancelled."  So I got off the pane as quickly as possible and ran to the United Ticket counter to see about re-scheduling my flight to make my Denver connection to Calgary in time to meet Kenny and Sheryl.  But alas, the only flight they could book me on would arrive in Calgary at 10:00 that night.  SO, I pulled the "Jewish Mother" card and explained the situation about meeting friends in Calgary and coordinating transportation in a foreign country, bla, bla, bla.  (Some of you may remember my son pledged a Jewish Fraternity at USC and told me to claim to be Jewish ... in case anyone asked.)   Well the whining worked.  The ticket agent double booked me on standby for a flight that departed at 9:38 a.m. and perhaps I could make my original flight connection out of Denver into Calgary.  So I rushed to the security line AGAIN, 30 minutes after breezing right through unscathed.  This time, however, both bags were pulled for additional screening.   They don't have a lot of security personnel at the Aspen airport, so I had to wait for a bag checker.  I'm doing the whole nervous toe tapping thing watching them board the flight for which I'm on standby.  The bag checker finally arrived, dressed head to toe in a hazmat suit, and dug through my bag to find a dozen menacing looking Bridgestone golf balls, and ran the explosive detector strip over them.  Silly TSA agents.  Those golf balls only explode on the fairway!  Hazmat guy finally released my bags  and to shorten this story, I was the last and only person they called for a standby seat on the plane.  I made it to Denver just in time to board my connecting flight, but since I hadn't been on the earlier flight, they had given my seat away.  But alas, the "Jewish Mother Whine" was successful again.  They were able to get me on board and I met Kenny and Sheryl in Calgary on time and the fun began!

After the rental car situation was resolved, we loaded our Volvo with the broken windshield and our trek to Banff and the adventures began.  

Sheryl arranged rooms for us at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, a beautiful castle like hotel built 125 years ago for wealthy tourists.   It's a very imposing structure nestled on a hill amongst the mountains and pines, just a short walk from the action of the main street.  Our first dinner was at The Maple Leaf, a concierge recommendation.  

Great Halibut.  Interestingly, Canada serves sweet tea everywhere from a soda dispenser.  Not good.  We must be in southern Canada, eh?  If I wanted regular unsweetened iced tea, I had to order a pot of hot tea and a large glass of ice.

After dinner, we found a Dairy Queen for KB's evening frozen dessert.

DAY TWO - Sightseeing and Horses

The rain didn't stop our activities, but it did change them somewhat.  After a four mile power walk on this cloudy rain threatening morning, we cancelled our tee time and opted instead to explore the area.  We found the beautiful Bow Falls, along with about 1000 other damn tourists and a million mosquitoes.  Sheryl and I were headed to the floats to arrange a rental trip down river, when suddenly - out of nowhere - Kenny suggested that we go ride horses for an hour.  He clearly was not interested in the float trip.  So right then and there, it was established, if an activity did not interest someone in the group, we'd just suggest a horse back ride.  

The Horseback ride was just fabulous.  We rode over the rivers, through the woods and up the mountain for an hour.  We started out single file with Sheryl riding Pilgrim, followed by me on Preston and Kenny bringing up the rear on Concho.  Concho clearly was used to being leader of the pack, and it didn't take long for him to overtake the lead.  I'm sure Concho required no encouragement from KB!

We had a great lunch back at the hotel "Pantry," followed by an incredible massage at the spa.  Then we walked to town for dinner at Bison, recommended by my massage therapist.  Bison offers a collection of very interesting concoctions such as corn chowder with grilled shrimp atop a garlic cheese grit biscuit and a strip of applewood smoked bacon, or a roasted head of cauliflower topped with toasted bread crumbs and an incredible dipping sauce.  We sat at the bar and ordered the left side of the appetizer menu.  Very tasty!  

After dinner, we accidentally found the most incredible dessert.  BeaverTails.   Likened to a funnel cake at the fair, a Beaver Tail is a piece of pastry dough stretched and pulled to a long, flat shape, (like a Beaver's tail) deep fried and then covered with a topping of your choice, such as sugar & cinnamon or Nutella and powdered sugar and various other delectable delights.  Sheryl and I split a BeaverTail and it was true love at first bite.  Best piece of tail I've had in my life!  This should be noted as the best "find" in Banff.

DAY THREE - Golf

We finally awoke to a beautiful sunny day in Banff.  Which was perfect, because we had an 11:50 tee time to play the Banff Springs Golf Course.  Rated 2nd in the country, the course was in pristine condition and totally surrounded by the rugged Canadian Rockies.  Each fairway featured a different mountain backdrop making for breathtaking views.  Our foursome was rounded out with the nicest gentleman, originally from Japan, now living in Las Vegas, Dokechi.  Dokechi, 65, retired from some kind of computer business at age 45 and is now spending his time gambling and playing complimentary golf at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, a very exclusive, very expensive course.  He must loose a lot of money at the casinos!  Anyway, back to our golf in Banff, we had a great time even though we played with rental clubs, so that had to be the reason for my score of 102.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

After golf, we rushed back to the room just in time to change for dinner.  We walked to town for another dinner at The Maple Leaf.  More good food followed by shopping and another fabulous piece of tail ... BeaverTail, that is.  We walked back to the hotel and Mr. Energy, Kenny decided we had entirely too much daylight to retire to the rooms, so we loaded up in the car and went exploring.  I failed to mention that we'd already completed a four mile power walk, played 18 holes of golf and walked to town and back.  Anyway, we drove up to check out another hotel that was recommended to Sheryl by friends Penny and Harvey, the Rimrock, which is located near the Sulfur Mountain Gondola.  The hotel was pretty, not nearly as majestic as Banff Springs, but had amazing views.  We decided we liked our location much better.  We checked out the gondola at 8:45, but decided against going to the top for sunset, as the last ride down was at 9:00.   It was getting close to dark by now, so we returned back to our hotel and called it quits.  Well most of us did.  Kenny was just a few steps short of reaching 30,000 steps for the day, so he went for another 800 step walk and then quit for the day.

Oh yeah.  I almost forgot to mention that I finally met my knight in not-so-shining armor.  Like the tin man in Wizard of OZ, he needs a little oil ... just too stiff.  But hey, he's tall and carries a bad ass weapon!

More news is coming, so tune in tomorrow.