Tag: banff

Rocky Mountaineer Day #3 “I Made a Boo Boo” Thursday August 1, 2019

by reissmd, posted in Canada, Uncategorized

This is officially the start of my birthday month so I hope you will all forgive me because I made a mistake yesterday. It turns out we did not see a caribou yesterday but rather an elk. I have updated the post but I wanted to make sure that the 7 people who might have read the blog (okay maybe I am inflating the numbers of people who read the blog) would know the truth. We met a naturalist, Denise, on the train today and she set us straight. Okay, forgive me and let’s move on.

After our elk sighting yesterday we headed up the gondola at Banff. In about an 8 minute trip we went from about 5,100 feet to about 7,100 feet. We expected it to very cold at the top so we brought our heavy coats. When we arrived it was so warm people were wearing t-shirts and shorts. We walked around and saw some incredible views. This is my favorite:

Owen, Patrice and me posing for a picture when in reality I just needed a minute to catch my breath. At my age altitude can be tough on the body,

Today was the first day of our excursion on the Rocky Mountaineer train. We were instructed to have our bags ready at 5:45 AM and bodies downstairs and ready to board the bus to the train station at 6:45 AM. You have to remember, that we are still on California time which is one hour earlier than Alberta so they were demanding a lot of us. We did make it to the rendezvous spot as requested and when we arrived at the train station we were greeted by this:

‘

Violinist serenading waiting train passengers.

The train arrived and looked magnificent.

The Rocky Mountaineer ready for boarding? No, not yet.
First the staff had to roll out the red carpet.

We saw all sorts of wonderful sights on the 307 mile trip (or 495 km if you prefer) from Banff, Alberta to Kamloops, British Columbia. The sights included beautiful waterways, trees, mountains, trees, horses, trees, osprey, trees, cows, trees and did I mention………………. trees. But the most amazing sight we saw were people. All along the train route we saw Canadian after Canadian waving to us. It was as if we were the Canadian national hockey team having just won the Olympic gold medal and they were greeting us on our victory tour. It was an incredible sight. It is one thing for people in the hotels and various tourist attractions to be nice but mere strangers on the side of the road to stop what they were doing just to welcome us with a wave of the hand was truly inspiring. You might recall I loved Australia in part because, unlike much of the world, Australians genuinely seemed to like Americans. I think the Aussies might need to take a back seat to the Canadians.

Although I had a great time on day one of the train trip and was very happy with all the great things we saw, my favorite sight was captured by my daughter Lindsay in this picture.

Looking forward to day 2 on the train. I would love to read your comments.

Rocky Mountaineer Day #2 “What Weird Thing Will Robert Eat Now?” Wednesday July 31, 2019

by reissmd, posted in Canada, Uncategorized

Last night we had a lovely dinner at the Primrose restaurant in the Rimrock Resort Hotel. Service was excellent, as was the food. Portions were small (I guess they didn’t realize we are Americans and need massive quantities on our plates). We did see a first when, after water was poured, we were informed, “The citrus server will be along shortly”. Just moments later another server came by and offered us our choice of citrus for our water glasses.

We had a choice of citrus: Lime, Orange, Lemon, or Cucumber (wait, is that citrus?) to add to our water glasses.

Followers of this blog know I have eaten some unusual items on our trips. Amazing what I will do for my fans. I have eaten Gander, Whale, Kangaroo, Ostrich, Horse and let’s not forget everyone’s favorite, Caterpillar (absolutely disgusting). Last night I ate something not so exotic but actually very delicious when I ordered Venison,

Very tasty venison but 2 or 3 more medallions would have been welcome.

Today we had a tour arranged by Patrice. She was so smart. Instead of taking a standard tour in which we got up very early and were dragged around the town with 48 other tourists we hired our own driver (for only a trace more money) and were able to set our start time and location visits. At 10:00 AM we were picked by our driver, Matt in a beautiful Cadillac Escalade. See below

Cadillac Escalade, unbelievably comfortable.
Matt, our driver, outfitted the car with all sorts of wonderful snacks, drinks and information booklets. He was a very safe driver and had lots of great suggestions about how to structure our trip,

We traveled to Lake Moraine, Lake Louise and saw the historic Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.

Robby, Lindsay, Owen, Patrice and me in front of Lake Louise, If you think it is impossible for it to look that blue you are right. It is much bluer. We had some problems getting this photo. The person I asked to take the picture took the one below first.
Something tells me I didn’t ask Ansel Adams to take our photo. Maybe not Ansel but I think the nose shows a remarkable likeness.

On the way back our driver suggested we go a bit out of the way and take Highway 1A with hopes of seeing animals. Matt kept encouraging us to look for animals. He explained the best sign of a wild animal is a parked car by the side of the road. This method worked perfectly as it helped him identify a black bear very close to the roadside. The bear was amongst the shrubs searching for food so it was hard to get a good look or a picture. But just a short way down the road we saw this.

An elk posturing by the roadside.

Tonight we are headed to the Gondola. You know how much I hate heights so it is my dedication as a grandpa that is making me do it (or my stupidity).