On the road again, on the road again… Oh hello! So, it is safe to say that I procrastinated the crap out of this blog post. I was suppose to write it months ago, but I am still pretty bad at this whole blogging thing. A few months ago I took a roadtrip to Canada and boy did we do it on a budget.
So, lets talk Canada! At the end of July my friend Selia, my dog and myself went on a road trip to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada and it was the coolest experience. We started early in the morning, stocked up on snacks and coffee and hit the road. We drove through California, Nevada, Idaho and Montana. Speaking of Montana I know people say it has a big sky, but geez the sky really does look bigger. How is that even possible?
After 1,540.4 miles and 24 hours we made it to the border. Can we talk about Km to miles for a second? (110 km is not the same as mph.) I know you read that and you are thinking, “Well duh, of course it isn’t the same thing.” I get that! But when it is nearly 3 in the morning it might not click right away. I was driving past the border and I see this sign that says, “Maximum 110.” I looked at Selia and was like, “MAX 110?!?!” and she immediately panics and yells, “IN KILOMETERS VICTORIA, IN KILOMETERS.” That’s my bad.
The first night we stayed in Strathmore, which was a cute little town. We didn’t really explore it much, we used it more as a home base. The next day we explored Calgary and we absolutely fell in love with the city. We ended up staying there a couple extra days because of how cute it was. We basically ate our way through the entire city (I plan on writing another post about all of the food we ate, I swear I will actually write it and it won’t take me three months to get it out.) We tried everything from Poutine to Tim Hortons.
Let’s talk cliches for a second:
– Canadians are so nice! I know I know, but I warned you it was about to get cliché didn’t I? For us it proved to be fairly accurate. Our first day in Calgary we stopped to eat some poutine (It is Canada after all.) We were sitting out front of a cafe eating and everyone inside was waving and smiling at my dog, Cleo. What we didn’t expect was one of the women to walk out of the cafe and come and talk to us about our day! She stopped and gave Cleo some love and then chatted with us for roughly 15 minutes before returning inside. This actually became a re-occuring theme throughout our trip. Everyone stopped to pet Cleo, or ask how our day was going. The people were just warm and welcoming in every sense. It made me realize how little I stop and talk to people in my own city. One of my main concerns on this trip was my dog, Cleo. I know that Quebec was having issues with their breed specific legislation (BSL sucks by the way.) But I did some research on Calgary and Banff and couldn’t find anything that gave me an indication on where they stood with pit-bull breeds. I called a lovely gentleman at the embassy and he assured me I wouldn’t have any issues. Boy was he right. We could bare walk five feet without someone stopping to pet her and say hi. She loved every moment. Canada was her place! It was nothing but constant love for her and for us.
– Canada is clean! Honestly, I felt a little embarrassed thinking about how dirty some places back in the states are. I ran into the same thing in Japan. There was no trash on the streets; everything just looked very nice and not trashy. I feel like we need to rip a little page out of their books and follow suit. I feel like it kind of goes hand in hand with them being so nice. I guess it boils down to being more respectful in general.
– Canadian slang (holy poo, it is a real thing.) I guess I should word that differently, because clearly every place has their own slang, but we started keeping tally on how many times we heard, “eh.” I don’t know why it was so exciting hearing it, but we got excited every damn time. Granted we are also dorks.
– How Canadian can we get? The first 30 minutes of being in Canada there was a Justin Bieber song on as we passed a hockey school. Is this important? No. Was it entertaining to us at 3 in the morning? Yes.
Okay back to the exploring, we stayed in Calgary and then traveled on to Banff National Park. On the way to Banff we stopped in Canmore, because we heard of these pastries called Beavertails. From what we read, it was an absolute must try… and they did not disappoint in the slightest. The town was a picturesque mountain town and I wish we would have had some more time to spend there, because it was really cute and peaceful.
From there we trekked to Banff. We had reserved a campsite and got really lucky to snag just one day! During peak season it is almost impossible to get a campsite. We set up our tent and headed out to explore the surrounding area head into town.
Banff is probably one of my favorite places as of right now. The town was cute, the people were friendly, the food was good and the views were hard to beat! We walked around and looked around a bit before heading back to our campsite. We talked to a couple people near our tent. One guy told us he ran into five bears while he was hiking in Jasper National Park earlier that day. I really wanted to see a bear during our trip, Selia not so much! So, we packed away all of our food in the car to make sure we didn’t get eaten in our sleep. We were heading to Lake Louise in the morning so we tried to get as much sleep as possible.
The next morning we woke up not so bright, but definitely early with all of our limbs. To beat the large amount of tourists we left at a little after 4 am, which was a really good call, because even though we got there early, it was still pretty packed.
We took in the sights which means we saw the bluest water I have ever seen in my entire life and then we accidentally ended up doing a hike to the Lake Agnes teahouse! According to their website, “The Lake Agnes Tea House was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1901 as a refuge for hikers. Climb steadily on a forested trail, past Mirror Lake and the waterfall that cascades out of Lake Agnes, before arriving at the idyllic alpine waters of Lake Agnes and enjoying speciality teas and delicious homemade baking. The family-run Tea House has no electricity or running water. Some supplies (such as flour and sugar for the baking) are flown in by helicopter at the start of the season, but all fresh food is packed up the trail by the staff.”
We rested for a while and then hiked back down the mountain back to the car. Cleo immediately passed out in the backseat! I don’t blame her, because my legs felt like jello! From Banff we wanted to drive to Vancouver, but we had no idea that it would be an additional 8 hour drive. We wouldn’t have only had half a day to explore and it just wasn’t going to be enough. So, we decided to go back to Calgary and spend another day exploring the city since we loved it so much. I am really glad we did! We found a cute little place to stay called Home Sweet Hostel. The room was comfy and they were fine with Cleo being there because they had dogs that lived there too! Check it out if you are ever in Calgary!
The day we left was super bittersweet. The entire trip had been filled with so many laughs, good food and just insane amounts of fun. The thought of getting back to the real world was pretty depressing. So, once again we stocked up on snacks and coffee and made the long drive home! Is there anything you want to know or want me to elaborate on? Let me know! You can message me here or on my instagram account: Egerertoexplore.
Egerer to Explore 