Banff recap

It's been a while!

My summer has been busy but great. B and I spent the start of summer in Banff, a glorious 2 weeks of jaw-dropping jocund days, misty mountaintops, and...I don't know how I'm going to work in standing tiptoe into that one. Apologies to R&J fans for my inadequate allusion.

We landed in Calgary and hopped in our rental car, a Hyandai Accent that we affectionately called the Silver Bullet, though it resembled a bullet more in size than in speed. No matter; it was an adequate vehicle for which I have greater fondness than is rational because of the wonderful adventures we enjoyed in it. Now I see these silver (and green and blue) bullets everywhere and feel wistfulness and nostalgia for our journey.

The drive between Calgary and Banff crosses unremarkable cow country. If you're heading east, it's dull. (I can confirm this fact because we did it on our drive back to the airport at the end of the trip.) If you're heading west, the mountains peak through the far-off clouds and promise great aventures ahead.

And we did have great adventures. We visited 4 national parks (Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and Kootenay) and one provincial park (in Kananaskis Country), walked on a glacier, saw countless waterfalls, rode up a couple mountain gondolas, saw turquoise-blue lakes, were chased by bees, saw the continental divide, and waded into 40-degree water. Ok, only B did that last one.

There aren't many roads out there, and they're mostly highways, but they have a set of rules and expectations that are wildly different from what we have at home.

First of all, bikers ride in the breakdown lane of highways because, as I mentioned, it's the only road available. There was very little traffic on the highway so it wasn't a big deal.

Second of all, stopping on any road is commonplace and expected. Everyone tries to pull over and put their hazard lights on, but everyone who comes behind them stops, too, because we all are there to see wildlife. And we saw a ton of wildlife.

We saw grizzly bears, black bears, moose, elk, bighorn sheep, moutain goat, mule deer, white tail deer, hoary marmot (dressed in a scandalous pink and lace outfit - haha just kidding), regular marmot (attired much more conservatively), porcupine, big-earred rabbit, and maybe a wolf. We saw the wolf on our first afternoon there; he was running down the median of a highway, and I assumed he was a big, black, wild-looking dog. Oh, to go back in time and take a picture!

We saw so much wildlife we became complacent about it. "Oh, it's only one elk," we would say dismissively, having seen many groups of elk previously. Or, "Oh, it's just some more bighorn sheep," since we saw over a hundred of them over 2 weeks.

We have the Silver Bullet to thank for all of our wildlife spotting. People on big-bus (and even smaller-bus) tours see much less wildlife. We know that because we spoke to some such people and their wildlife counts were significantly less impressive than ours.

Not that it's a contest. But if you're interested in seeing lots of animals and being able to choose your daily adventures, consider going it alone.

We had a solid itinerary to guide us through our trip, and we mostly stuck with it. It ensured that we didn't miss the best sights and provided us with back-up options for when the weather was less than ideal.

The weather was good. Most of our days were overcast; a couple days were beautiful and sunny; and a couple days were rainy. Temps were on the chilly side most of the time, 50s and 60s, and cooler at night. Days were long enough that we always had to fall asleep in the daylight and never saw a single sunset. We did see a sunrise on the day we flew home. Early flight.

I recommend a trip to the area to anyone who wants to see beautiful vistas and wildlife. There's a peace of mind and a level of relaxation that come with a nature-oriented trip, a feeling that you can't get in a city. It was a great change of pace from our usual trips.