Vacation

Today is my last day of vacation. I took 6 days off and it feels like it was too short. I think the problem I have is I fill my vacations with so many activities that I’m never actually rested afterwards. I’m hoping for my next vacation that I go away somewhere warm and just vegetate at the beach for a week.

With that being said, I did have a fun vacation. On my first day we went to Jasper for the night. We did a 6km round trip walk up Mount Edith Cavell. I actually surprised myself that I never got tired from walking and we almost made it to the top. We would have went all the way except that my boyfriend’s knees started to bother him so we turned around. While walking back down we saw a marmot! That was my first time ever seeing one of those animals.

The next day it was kind of cold and rainy (we actually saw snow at one point!) so most of the day was spent driving towards Banff. We did a short 2-3 km walk in the morning but my boyfriend’s legs were still bothering him a bit so we didn’t do any of the other hikes we had planned for that day. While driving to Lake Louise I got to see my first wild bear on the side of the road! It was a little baby black bear. I kept saying how I really wanted to see a wild bear so it was perfect. In Lake Louise we were thinking about going on the Gondola because they say you can see bears from there. But it was still cold and rainy, and we had already saw a bear, so we decided to save that for another trip.

We continued on our way to Banff and the weather finally cleared up a bit. We walked around the town a little and took a dip in the hot tub at the hotel before going to sleep for the night.

Sunday I had another big hike planned for us which we knew we wouldn’t be able to do so we decided to drive to Calgary and go to the Stampede that we had planned to do the following day. It was a excellent decision because the weather was beautiful on Sunday and it rained again on Monday. We mostly just walked around at Stampede because apparently my boyfriend doesn’t like carnival rides. That night there was a birthday celebration at his cousins house where we were staying for the night so we enjoyed the company and yummy food.

On Monday we drove to Drumheller which we didn’t think we would have a chance to do during this vacation. I was able to show my boyfriend around and I got to eat at the Last Chance Saloon that I wanted to eat at last summer but didn’t get a chance. It was rainy all day Monday so we didn’t get to really explore like we would have liked. Drumheller is a very muddy place when it’s raining. We went down into one of the canyons and I almost couldn’t get back up the hill because it was so slippery! When we were done exploring we drove back home.

Today and yesterday I have basically just been taking it easy trying to relax and savor what’s left of my vacation. I think next year I’m going to try and plan my vacations better so that they are longer and more relaxing.