Day 27, Final Day

And so I have come to my last blog post, i thought I'd show a few things of what I have been up to in Banff, Canada since Christmas Day.

I stayed with my brother at his apartment for a few days....this is the view he gets to see every morning from the front of his block!!!

For New Years Eve we went to a bar in Banff where it was $10 (£7) entrance fee. There were no queues at the bar and drinks were normal prices, the music wasnt too loud that you couldnt speak, and they had a pool table for me to practice my newly aquired skills .....

At midnight everybody piled out the bar to the main street to watch the fireworks. Here is a shakey picture...It was -30 oc that night, I had so many layers on and I was still cold, hence the shivering and the shakey photo!

For New Years Day we went to the Banff Springs hotel for Sunday (although it was Saturday!) brunch as recommended by my Dad.

This brunch has so many things on offer it was a bit overwhelming deciding where to start...here is a list of some of the things I can remember at the buffet...

Cereal, several different types of bread, cakes, tiramasu, salad,
omelette's and pasta made in front of you, clams, oysters, salmon, steak, prime rib, pork, veal, bison, lamb, chicken, venison, pizza!, deep fried
chicken, sweet waffles, pancakes, bacon, eggs benedict, macaronie cheese and not forgetting the several different types of soup!

and here is a picture of my first plate!

THe hotel is one of the leading hotels of the world so me an Simon went for a walk round to have a nosey at the place.

Its styled after a Scottish Baronial Castle, and the construction of the hotel in 1888 marked the birthplace of tourism in the Canadian Rockies.

HEre is a few pictures from our tour....

I also did some skiing as well as boarding..... here is a few videos of me skiing with my brother

And here is one of the view at the top f the chair lift....

That it......back to the UK, the rain, the takeover by chicken farmers of my club and back to work :-(

Day 14, Christmas Day!!!

Today I had my first boarding lesson. it's something I have wanted to do for a while but once I hired skis for 2 weeks the opportunity never arose. well my brother went and booked me a lesson, whilst I was road tripping and told me when I got back to Banff. How exciting!!

This is me just before turning up to my lesson, it could be the last time you see me without a broken arm or wrist!









I had a two hour private lesson, which doesn't sound like very long but my legs were giving way of their own accord by the end of it!!


Here is some pictures from my lesson...

Me sat on the ground after falling over..... This is what I like when boarding, you can sit for a rest anytime you like and pretend you are doing up your board! Sure you get a cold bum but your calfs aren't screaming for air like they are in ski boots...










This is when I was first learning to turn, I was holding on to his hand for dear life....his fingers must have been falling off lol



















This is right before he let me go on my own....










..... all by myself. :-D


















My brother also took a video.....




And the verdict to board or ski?? I really like boarding, the boots are comfy, you can sit to have a rest, however on the flat bits you have no poles to push with......oh well will just have to go boardig with a skier.........SIIIIIMON CAN U GIVE ME A PUSH!!! :-D

After coming back to Banff from the hill we went for Christmas dinner to a restaurant in Banff called the Maple Leaf. We also took our Christmas presents...





I had a new lens for my camera and a pair of Canadian gloves, just so I don't forget where my brother is living now!

We also had cocktails and a 3 course meal....our present from mum and dad...

Location:Lake Louise ski resort

Day 13, Banff to Calgary and back, 161 miles

Today my brother was working, so I decided to drive to Calgary for the day. This is the city I flew into and will be where I leave from in a few weeks.

To get from Banff to Calgary you drive along the trans Canada highway 1 which is a 2 lane motorway that travells 4,990 miles from west coast to east coast Canada..... I did 160 Miles of it!

It's pretty much the same as the I-90 that I went on in the states..... 2 lanes, very little traffic with a speed limit of 120km per hour.

I have no pictures from today the road is kinda boring and the weather was dull and flat!

I wanted to get to the camera store to take my lens rental back, so I entered into the sat nav 10th street and set off....when I got there the sat nav took me to a residential street, which is not what I wanted!!

Looking on the Brightside (Mr :-D xxx) I got to see my first roundabout in 3 weeks!! Albeit I had to go round it the wrong way!! Even sat on the other side of the car I still had to force myself to go the wrong way.....

The problem is I don't understand (and never will!) the Canadian/USA way of naming their roads!

Calgary is laid out in a grid system and somewhere In the centre there are 2 roads that cross...1 is called 1st avenue and the other is called 1st street. Avenues go from east to west and streets go from north to south.......or is it the other way round?!?! The numbers then increase the further out of the city that you get. Except there will be a 10th street in the north and a 10th in the south. The sat nav had let me the the wrong one!

The amount of technology these days is way more than I had last time I travelled about 10 years ago...... Firstly there is Facebook to keep in touch , the Internet was a luxury 10 years ago. I had to visit an Internet cafe to check my emails, WIFI was un heard of..I remember paying loads for an international calling card so that I could call my mum once a week to tell her I was still alive!! Now I can skype over wifi for free, and I even get to see her cause she has a webcam!...all for free. In the car in addition to sat nav I had a radar detector.....This wasn't mine but I sure used it a lot!!! I also had my iPhone hooked up to the car radio so that I could play my albums out the speakers, my brother lent me his iPad so that I could review my pictures and post theses blogs and connect to wifi.

Back at Banff for the last leg of my road trip. The car certainly looked like it had been on a road trip...note to self, must wash Dez before I leave Canada....finding a car wash here is harder than you think! Cars never get washed but Dez was so dirty you couldn't see out of the windows!

So for the final posting on my blog for the road trip I will end with some stats. I will post for the remainder of my holiday if there is something worth posting or pictures to show, but it won't be every day.

That's all for now dudes and dudettes.....Laters, over and out..... Croakez!!

Stats from my road trip......

2,020 miles driven,
1,289 photos taken,
11 days,
5 states crossed, (Alberta, British Columbia, Montana, Washington, Idaho)
4 national parked entered, (Banff national park, Glacier national park, Yellowstone national park, and Yoho national park)
2 countries visited, (Canada and Untied States of America)
1 awesome road trip......

Carlsberg don't do road trips, but if they did it would probably have been the best road trip in the world!!

Location:Banff,Canada

Day 12, Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada to Banff, Alberta, Canada, 244 miles

Today was the day that I arrived back at my brothers. I set off from Cranbrook and headed north to Lake Louise. My brother works at Lake Louise ski resort and I was going to pick him up.

Along the way the weather was again cloudy but I did get a few shots ......














There were loads of other fantastic views along the way however there were signs all along the road that said, no stopping Avalanche area!! I wasn't about to challenge that sign for a picture!

About half way I stopped at one of the few open rest areas...these are toilets and a water tap.....call this a toilet with a view!






That is all that is there, no KFC or burger king, no WHSmith or greasy spoon! Simon says that this was positively luxury....there are some rest stops that are just holes in the ground! Glad I didn't have to stop at one of them!

and so it was on to Lake Louise ski resort...I arrived about 4.30pm and my brother didn't finish until 6.30pm so I sat up in the bar drinking mulled wine.

I asked the bar waitress for a Canadian which is a type of beer here, a while later my beer still hadn't arrived and I thought she had forgotten. 5 minutes later I had a massive pizza on the table!! They don't serve Canadian beer at Lake Louise but they do serve a pizza called Canadian! Lol oh well I hope my brother was hungary!

Then off it was to Banff and my brothers diggs for the rest of my stay. My road trip was finished. But my skiing holiday has only just started.......

Location:Cougar St,Banff,Canada

Day 11, Coeur D'Alene Idaho, USA to Canbrook, British Columbia, Canada, 165 Miles

Today was the day that I crossed over the border back into the USA. But first I decided to travel 30 miles in the wrong direction to cross another border, Idaho into Washington :-)





This another state ticked off on my trip, and the only reason I wanted to visit it is because I thought Washington was on the New York side!!! I wanted to see that it actually exists. Lol. Washington is also home to Seattle, and with 2 more days on my trip I would have gone there.....again for some strange reason if you would have asked be before this trip where Seattle was, is would have guessed at the East and then maybe thought I have no idea! ah well now I do.

I have been getting pretty good at my American geography....I now know where Minnesota is and that there is a Manchester there! I also know to answer the mobile (sorry cell) with Hey, what's up? Lol, I also am slightly better at 8 ball (pool) than I was, and that the balls are stripes and solids and the brown ball is maroon!! It's not really but just go with it !!

So all in all I'll be sad to leave the states, but I'll be back to practise my pool some other day for sure!!

So after crossing into Washington and reaching the next town, Spokane, I exited the I-90 to turn round at .......wait for it........a mall!!! Well like I never knew that was there, I had to call in now I was so close, it would be rude not to A?!? Plus I also magically knew that there was a Hollister shop there that had a 40% off sale on!!!! Whoop I was there ;-)

After going in and buying a few things from Hollister, I headed North - no pictures today as I spent too long at the mall to be hanging around... :-D

So onto the border after stopping at the duty free shop to get some MORE Jack after my brother, Peter and Jon drank nearly the whole litre i painstakingly carried all the way over from Heathrow in one night!!!! Oops I forgot mum reads this :-D!!!!!!! Hehe

The Canadian customs guy was nowhere near as bad as the American woman and after a few questions waved me through. I never even got out of the car this time!

Shortly after, I arrived at Cranbrook, where I will spend the night. Tomorrow it's on to Lake Louise to meet my brother after work......Driving home for Christmas.....la la la

Oh and for those that don't have Facebook......I am having a Snowboarding lesson on Christmas Day!! A private one none the less.......Thanks Bro! :-D

Day 10, Butte Montana to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, 285 Miles

The whole of this trip today was spent on the I-90 which is short for Interstate 90, the USA equivalent of a motorway. Its the longest Interstate Highway in the USA at 3000 miles long reaching from coast to coast!! I did 285 miles of it, not even 10%!!! I crossed back over the continental divide, so now it's mums turn to play pooh sticks as she is in New Zealand!! (this will only make sense if you have read my other post when I crossed the continental divide on the way to Yellowstone!!!)

Driving on the motorways over here is sooooo different to the M6!! there is only 2 lanes for a start. In the whole 285 miles I must have only gone into the fast lane 10 or so times. There is so little traffic there is no need to and what little traffic there is they are all roughly travelling at the same speed so there is no need to overtake.

The roads were ploughed and gritted so there wasn't a bit of snow or ice on there. The speed limit is 75 mph and they don't have services, only rest stops which are unmanned warming huts that contain a toilet and a water fountain and usually posters on things to do in the area. Another thing about the motorways is the junction numbers are the number of miles to the next state line.

Speaking of state lines, I crossed one on the I-90 from Montana to Idaho.... here is the picture....





At the same time I crossed the state line, I also crossed a timezone...... In a car...... Without changing countries.........,COOL never done that before!!! I went back to Pacific time which is -8 hours from GMT.

Whilst driving there was an area that must be really cold cause all the trees and bushes has this frost stuck to them, here are a few pictures from when I got off the I -90 for a look around. It was really weird to see...





























All over Montana these funny things were sat in the fields, I think they are like automatic waterers or seed planters... From what I can gather they roll up and down the fields either spurting out water or seeds from the hoses that point towards the ground. This one was the longest one that I saw, it went on forever!!!










On another stop off the I-90 I spotted this river, sorry didn't catch it's name but it was somewhere off the I-90 in Idaho!!







Then travelling through the I-90 you travel through the Lolo national forest, it had just snowed the night before here too as there were millions of snow angels lining the I-90....











Tomorrow I will cross the border and then I'm nearly back to my brothers. Mum you can breathe again tomorrow !!!!

Day 9, West Yellowstone to Butte, 150 miles.

Last night we had about 1 1/2 feet of snow! It was a massive dump of powder! I didn't think that the one road out of West Yellowstone would be open come the morning but I guess for a place that gets a lot of snow 1 1/2 inches was nothing.

This was poor old Dez in the morning before I shovelled the snow. The picture doesn't do the depth justice ....



This is after...


Once again the snow tyres came up trumps and got me out of the town, once I was on the roads they had been ploughed so it was all ok.

It was a shame I was leaving Yellowstone behind, the weather was so overcast when I went in that I didn't get any decent pictures, the day I was leaving was blue skies. Typical! Oh well, perfect excuse to return later in the new year!

On the drive to Butte I stopped at a town where they sold cowboy hats.... Don't think I would make a very good cowgirl!!





Today was also the day of the lunar eclipse, so out I went at 12am in -20 oc to photograph the event. I was lucky I had perfect sky, not a single cloud. I had no idea it would take so long to get to the eclipse! Standing out there in -20oc is not fun! However it was all worth it, here are just some of the images I took...














Tomorrow will be a long day, I'm about a 1/3 rd of the way back to Banff, I'm driving home for Christmas!!

Day 8, West Yellowstone, 0 miles.

Today I have been into Yellowstone on an oversnow coach called Sally.....








We spent all day in the park looking at wildlife and visiting 'Old Faithful'.

Here is some of the wildlife I saw this time....

A bison jam!!!









An elk




Old Faithful is a geyser that erupts roughly every 90 minutes and shoots hot water 150 feet into the air.

Because of the sky colour it's really difficult to see the water but it was going up high believe me!!



In Yellowstone there is over half of the worlds geysers in one place - everywhere you look there is steam coming out of the ground. Some are unpredictable like one called bee hive. Bee hive is next door to old faithful and goes off roughly once a day but they never know when. Well as we were waiting for old faithful, the bee hive one decided to erupt, so we saw beehive and old faithful going at the same time - not something many get to see - nice!

Old faithful is on the right bee hive is on the left. Again the sky makes it hard to see.


Bee hive sounded like a jet engine going off the water pressure was so strong.

On the way back we stopped at another geyser that doesn't go off very often and as we were looking at some boiling mud guess what.... That went off too !! Lucky! Here is a video of the geyser going off.

also on the way back we saw these pools that are hot and therfore full of bacteria that's why they are different colours....

The temperature today is only -10 oc so it's positively boiling, almost bikini weather!



They are predicting that there will be a massive dump of snow overnight tonight so I may get snowed in.......hmmmm can there be dumps everyday so that I get snowed in all winter???? Please, pretty please!?!


Some other images I took today....

Snow angels from all the snow we have had..



Boiling mud...




Skidoo is the only mode of transport allowed in the park in winter

Location:West Yellowstone,United States