After a great many visits to Banff National Park, we convinced my brother, Brian, and his wife, Katherine, to join us on a trip out west. Brian had not been to the area before, and Katherine had been briefly many years ago. And like all of our previous trips, we’re going in style!
Brian and Katherine booked a hotel room at Toronto Pearson Airport, while Nadine and I decided to just make an early drive from home on the day of the flight. We were flying out shortly after 8:00 AM, so we all met up in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge for breakfast. Eventually, it was time to go! After realizing they made a late gate change for our departure, we made our way to the aircraft.
Here we are, all settled in our pods, ready for take-off!
Just before take-off, we’re leaving hazy skies in Toronto…
…and arriving in Calgary, to very thick smoke!
We were expecting this, as it is a particularly bad year for BC fires, and BC was very efficiently exporting all of their smoke to Alberta. While it didn’t stay this bad for the entire trip, we never really did have a day where the views were clear.
On arrival in Calgary, we picked up our rental van. Interestingly, our rental had Ontario plates. I guess they knew we were coming! We had a nice fully-loaded Dodge Grand Caravan, with satellite radio and lots of storage for our many bags. We made our way over to Sobeys to get some groceries and snacks, some Timbits for the road, and we were headed west.
Before checking-in to our hotel, we drove the Lake Minnewanka loop, so we could show Brian and Katherine the lake we would be taking our fishing charter on in a couple of days.
We stopped at Two Jack Lake, and saw some young sheep just off the road by the parking lot.
I had received notification that our hotel rooms were ready early, so we headed over to the hotel to check in. Nadine and I have a favourite suite here, which we stay in on all of our visits. Thanks to Don, Jason and Jessica at the Banff Springs for not only blocking our regular suite, but arranging for Brian and Katherine to be in the mirror-image suite across the hall from us.
The suite is large, with a walk-in closet, large bedroom with views up the Spray River, and a large living room with views up the Spray River and also down the Bow River. I’ve marked up the photo below, circling our suites. They’re lovely rooms, high in the centre of the “cross” section of the hotel. The red circle shows Brian’s room, and the blue circle shows the front of our room.
The photo below was taken from the living room of our suite. However, I actually took this photo on an earlier visit. The view from the current trip has a bit more smoke in the way!
After getting unpacked and settled, we headed downstairs to have a nice dinner in the Rundle Lounge. Afterwards, we walked down to the river to wander around.
