pretty pictures

this post is going to be mostly pictorial. i stayed over at Dan's Calgary house and then went and picked up a rental car and headed toward the Canadian Rockies. it is about an hour and a half to Banff from Calgary. this here is where you enter Banff National Park. you have to pay per day you are going to be there.

before Banff township is Canmore where i stopped briefly for a coffee. here are some pics from there.

 

there was quite a bit of low cloud and it was drizzly in the area. i booked into the HI hostel in Banff where the first night I shared a 6 bed dorm with 2 others, a young Japanese girl and a young English girl who went out that night and I didn't see her again till the next day wandering through the common area with a coffee and looking rather seedy. it snowed a little that night which was neat for someone who comes from somewhere where it never snows. the following are pics from my afternoon and following morning in Banff.

 

pretty much all of the streets in Banff are named after animals. there's also Wolf, Moose, Otter.... every second store is a souvenir shop or one selling outdoor gear and i heard many different accents including NZ ones. a girl who served me in Starbucks was from Te Puke. after pretty thoroughly exploring Banff town I drove about 45 minutes north to Lake Louise. it's very beautiful and very touristy. you go, you walk to the other end of it and back, you take loads of pictures and you tick it off your list.

i love this bird. i've no idea what it is but it's pretty

drove back to Banff, went to see The Town, had a bison burger for dinner then went to bed. got woken up really early by some woman's alarm which was under her pillow, right above my head. did she wake up? no. it went off a few more times. she still didn't wake up. eventually i got up and got out of there as soon as i could. i hate sharing. 

back in Calgary, Dan was there. we went driving and dropped a friend of his home then went back to the house. a bit later we went out again to an English pub where some other friends of his were playing in a band. went to Tubby Dogs. went back to the house. Janice arrived. we then went out for dinner and then back downtown to the Palomino to see some surf rock band. went home. slept. woke up. drove 3 hours to Edmonton airport. flight was delayed by an hour. met a fabulous Irish/Canadian woman called Teresa in the check-in line. she bought me lunch and a couple of Coronas. then we flew to San Francisco. San Francisco!