Working Man

I guess the peaceful hanging out in one's pad in the mountains can only last so long. Up to this point I have had two shifts, one closing and one opening, both at the 3rd store (Evelyn's Again). Day one I have to say did not go great. It was fine at first but for some reason I started having really bad pains in my stomach that, by the last two hours became pretty debilitating. I managed to get to know some aspects of the job beforehand though, but my memory from the day is not very clear. I worked at first with Jimmy, who is the eldest son of the owners- nice guy, and he's a ski instructor in Lake Louise in the winter, so I might be able to get a free lesson from him if I'm still around then. He says he's been reading specialty coffee books lately and wants to try and bring up the standards of those drinks at Evelyn's, and it seems my experience at Matter of Taste can help with that. Afterwards I closed with their daughter Sarah, but by the time she got there I was not as talkative as I like to be. She's younger though, I think she said 17? In high school still at any rate, but she's been working there since she was 11 so she knew what she was doing. After work finished at 8 I pretty much went right home, had a light meal and went to bed- partially because of not feeling well, but in any case I had to be back at 6:30 the next day, so sleep was a good idea anyways.

Other than the fact that I had to get up at 5:20, opening was pretty okay! It's a very odd procedure though. For stores 2 and 3, you have to go to the primary store first, which has the kitchen and bakery in the basement, and load up a pushcart with all the things you need for the day (the list of those things is filled out during the previous close). You then push that cart over to the other store and unload it, with runs to the kitchen for things that are low throughout the day. It's not overly efficient, but I suppose if you have 3 stores within a short walk of each other you save a lot more money by only have one kitchen and not really adding much in the way of transport costs.

There is a lot of work to be done at these stores, that's for sure. It gets very busy around lunch already, and summer is only going to get busier according to those who have worked here previously. The general skills are pretty much all things I've done before, but the trick is adjusting to the particular practices of the store, various procedures and unique things to do. Somehow I've managed to work with the only other native Canadians at the store, as everyone else is from all over, Australia, the Phillipenes, England, Germany, Austria, Holland... a very multicultural crew, that's for sure. I think there will be a few more added for the summer, and I know that one of the Canadian girls is leaving in June, so we'll see how it works out in the end.

Anyways turns out getting up that early makes you want to go to bed early too. More updates to come!

Trevor

On the Road

When I finished working at Lake Louise, I definitely felt like I was done there, ready to come home. So why come to Banff for, to at least the plan being, a year? I suppose I think that there's a lot more to do here, which is true. And it seems like things are off to a good start, but I will get to that.

So Dad and I managed to get up at the planned time and were gone by 6:30 Friday morning. At the time, our plan was to go through the states, down to Chicago and then angle up to North Dakota. This was the route that was suggested by pretty much all the mapping software/sites, so we figured it was obviously the best way. But we realized the previous night that the Triptik that Dad got from CAA didn't use this route- it instead had us going up through Michigan, then along the top of Lake Superior. As we got into Michigan and were heading towards Flint we had planned to just ignore the triptik, but as we got closer we started to reconsider. The reasoning was that they might have actually put a bit of thought into this one, as opposed to just plugging it into software- especially of worry was the traffic around Chicago and Minneapolis, which the route they planned avoided.

The scenery on this trip was certainly varied. The first day was a lot of forest and lake-filled country, with mostly one-laned highway so the speed limit was lower. We still made pretty good time, and finished up the day in Duluth, Minn. Definitely an industrial town, so not the most visually spectacular, but it was fine. Unfortunately, at the hotel we stayed in our neighbours showed up at 2 AM or so and were quite the rowdy bunch. So that interrupted our sleep a bit, but we still managed to be on our way by 6 the next morning. At this point the terrain took a turn for the flat, which allowed the highways to expand and speed up. We covered a lot of groud (very flat ground) and made it all the way to Swift Current Saskatchewan. And from there it was only a few hours to Banff- we got in by 1:30 in the afternoon or so.

We parked near Evelyn's and I went in- it was really busy though, so it took some time for me to be able to talk to the girls behind the counter. One of them had been told about me coming, and she called Marini to tell her. We were earlier than expected, of course, so we went and grabbed lunch and then waited for her to show up. She eventually did, I got my uniform and she and Wout met us at the parking lot and then showed us to the apartment, which was just down Banff Ave, nice and close to all the stores.

I was definitely impressed by the apartment- it's huge! Nice big common area, kitchen with pretty much everything one needs, a nice TV, balcony with BBQ, even a fireplace! After she showed us around, Marini said that the other apartment she has still has a couple spots open so for now, I will be alone in this apartment. We were a little concerned about this though- because it looks like Szonja isn't going to be coming down until September, I wasn't sure I would be able to pay the rent for the whole place 4 months- it would eat up a large part of my wages each month. Dad asked if it would be okay if, for example, I found someone else to live here to help pay part of the rent, and much to our surprise, she said that I would only be paying for half the rent! So I get the whole place to myself for the foreseeable future (though she said that there is still hiring to be done, so it's not guarunteed) for 450 a month! Pretty sweet.

So after unpacking, Dad and I did some shopping and had our celebratory arrival dinner. We went to the Elk and Oarsman, which I had gone to last time I was here and really liked, but it took some Googling to find out what the name was. There's lots of interesting food to be had here, for sure! Can't wait to try some of it out. I had a chicken and peach korma curry dish while Dad had an elk burger.

Tomorrow will be some administrative things, mostly to do with the car, and my training will begin 12-8 on Tuesday. I will edit this post later with pictures that we've taken, but right now I'm tired and I need to get to bed! It will be nice getting up after 7am again. Expect more updates soon.

Trevor

It had to end at some point

Seeing as this is my last day off before departure, I suppose this is a good opportunity to do some sober reflection on my time here. And really, odds are against high levels of sobriety over the next few days.

I always looked at this summer as something of an experiment. I did the residence thing, which obviously prepared me for living on my own pretty well. But there was always the safety net of having home not being far away if I ever needed, plus the fact that pretty much all my friends were in town and I knew my way around. All of that was gone for my 4 months here. I was in a completely new place, with completely new people, and basically I don't think I really appreciated what it was I was getting myself into before I came out here. Not that I'm saying it was a bad decision, just that I never really thought about what being out here meant.

But what I found out is that, all it takes to put yourself into a situation like this is a bit of self-persuasion. Putting yourself "out of your comfort zone", in a physical sense, is easy when you get down to it. The hard part is getting "out of your comfort zone" mentally. It's clear that I succeeded at the former (durr) but it's questionable that I had any success with the latter. And it's strange to think about- because, really, why not? There was essentially 4 months of a clean slate. No one knew who I was, or what I was like. It's not like anyone would have seen any inconsistency in my behaviour if I acted completely different. But I'm pretty sure that, overall, I acted like me, despite the free license to be someone else.

I think that, when you are in a stange situation, it's a lot harder to hide who you are, at least at first. You're so busy trying to adjust to the new surroundings that you don't have the mental energy needed to run on anything but autopersonality. Or maybe that's just me.

Of course, the question arises as to whether this is really a bad thing. I made some good friends this summer, and there are several that I hope to keep in touch with when I go home. They really made it fun to be here. Would I have made such good friends if I wasn't acting like me? Probably not. I might have, say, had more (read:any) success with the ladies, but now that it's all over, I would take the friends over the girls any day. Such a cliche, but I suppose they become cliche for a reason.

Anyways, some other Important Life Lessons From Lake Louise (tm)
-Hiking in the mountains cures all ailments not caused by dehydration. And even those a bit.
-Don't underestimate your ability to drink, nor your ability to not drink.
-Sleep is a luxury in every sense of the word. Not needed, but great when you have it.
-Roommates can be pretty cool guys (a lesson needed after university res)
-Always have something to look forward to in the near future.

And that's it for now. I expect this may very well be my last post here. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again, and hopefully soon. Thanks for reading!

Trevor

Vancouver

For more or less as long as I've been out here, I've been planning to take some time off to visit Vancouver. Reasons being both just to experience the place, as well as visit my friend Alexandra who lives there. The fact that I've been working so much lately just made me want to go that much more, simply to have some days to relax.

I was, however, pretty uncertain about whether I would get the time off. Since we ARE working 6 day weeks that implies that giving time off is not something that can be done easily. But, luckily, they managed to make it work. So booked my room in the Hotel Vancouver (yay company perks! $70 a night? Yeah I can swing that) checked the bus schedules, and e-mailed Alex. In order to maximize my time there, I decided to catch the bus that arrived at the village at 1:50 AM, having finished work at 10:30 that same night. I show up at about 1:40, willing to conceed a short wait in order to make sure I catch the bus. 1:50 rolls around, no bus. Of course, to be expected- having taken the greyhound from Banff a couple times, I know it can be late. 2:15 arrives, and I remind myself that sometimes, it's REALLY late- I distinctly remember showing up at 2:30 one night on this bus. So I sit back and decide that at 2:30 I'll start worrying.

2:30 arrives, and I start worrying.

It's really a frustrating experience, because I would keep hearing trucks and such on the highway, which would sound like a bus, get my hopes up, and then keep going. To make matters worse, cab service stops at 2:30, so I have to wait and hope it eventually shows up, or just catch a cab ride back. Seeing as my reservation is not cancellable at this point in time, I decide I might as well sit and hope.

Finally, at 3:15am the bus shows up. I had a bunch of things I wanted to say, but I was just so happy to see it that I just sardonically mentioned "You're late" to the driver and climbed on.

It was a relatively uneventful trip, which, like with an airplane, is probably a good thing. There was some traffic getting into the Vancouver city limits, and coupled with the bus being so late, I didn't get into the terminal until about 5:30PM, Pacific time. But I slung my bag over my shoulder and headed out, getting directions from people as best I could until I found the street my hotel was on. To get there, I had to walk along something of a highway (but not really) and got to see the big buildings of the city- the GM centre, science centre balla nd all that. But eventually it just turned into a normal street and from that point it was just a matter of walking down the street until I eventually found it. Pretty posh place, that's for sure. I didn't spend too much time in the room, but it was nice when I was there- nice bed, comfy pillows and all that stuff.

So after I got my key and made my way up, I dropped off my bag, changed into shorts ('bout time!) and went back into the street. But I was not just whimsically traipsing about- no, I had some objectives first. I had to find an internet cafe, because I had to check my e-mail for news from Alex. And I had to get dinner, because I was starving.

Now, the former was more difficult than it probably should have been. First, I checked if the hotel had one. It did, but it was $10 per use. No thanks. So I went out looking for another one- the concierge said there was one underneath a big "London Drugs" store that I had passed on my way in. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that they literally meant it was on the lower floor of the store, and I ended up walking around the block and looking in all sorts of places until I actually checked the store itself. And by the time I did, the internet cafe was closed- about 10 minutes too late.

So my quest continued. Eventually I found it, and it was actually the cheapest option yet, so it all worked out. I wasn't in the mood for anything fancy, so for dinner I went just down the street to a little pizza place, which was actually fantastic pizza, especially since it was super cheap (cost me less than a meal at the bean would!). And so for the rest of the night I wandered around, checking out shops, buying some books in Chapters (For someone who's been in Lake Louise all summer, being in Chapters counts as being on vacation!). But nothing else particularly exciting happened that night, and I retired pretty early in order to get an early start the next day.

For breakfast, I went to Starbucks for a quick bite. It honestly boggles the mind how many Starbucks are in the city. I think I went into 4 different ones over the course of the 2 days I was there, though two of them were not for the usual reason of buying coffee. But I will go over that later. Point is: a whole lot of Starbucks in Vancouver.

So after finding out where I would be meeting Alex, I find out its pretty far away. But, since it wasn't for a while, I figured I could walk there with plenty of time to spare. But, in typical me fashion, I realize halfway there that I didn't bring my camera. So back I go, and catch the bus down as initially planned. Luckily, Alex and I both recognized one another when we saw each other, or things could have been strange. Anyways, we went out for lunch at a sushi restaurant, with Alex insisting that Vancouver has the best sushi (makes sense, when you think about it) and I was pretty curious myself. And you know, it was pretty good, even though I still suck with chopsticks. It was fun. Afterwards we just sort of walked around and talked, which was nice.

Unfortunately Alex couldn't really spare a lot of time, due to my rather short notice arrival and general busy-ness. But I was happy that we got to meet up, so good times all around. After we parted ways, I decided to check out Stanley Park, since it wasn't too far down the street from the hotel. Not what I expected, really. It's much less manicured than I thought it would be- it's quite forest-y at parts. I walked up to the Lion's Gate Bridge and back. Then on my way back down to the hotel, I decided to visit the mall across the street (see explanation about Chapters, replace Chapters with mall). But by this time it was getting a bit later, so I went back to my room, took a quick swim, and ordered room service. Ahh, perks again- 50% off! Totally worth it.

And so on Sunday I did a few more touristy things, like the Art Gallery right next to the hotel, and Gastown. I skipped over Chinatown though- well, I passed through it. But it gave off a distinct impression of sketchiness. So I walked down to the park by the science centre, and sat on the grass and read for a while. At this time, it was about 5:30. Now, I had originally planned to talk the bus at midnight back to Lake Louise, but decided that killing time for another 7 hours was not something I really wanted to do. So I checked in to the terminal, and there was another bus leaving at 6:30. So I decided, I think I've done what I wanted to do here, and hopped on.

And so that brings me back here. I definitely had fun, and I'm very happy I took the trip. Even just having three days off work was pretty great. A very pleasant treat.

In other news, Drew leaves on Thursday, so for a bit over a week I guess I'll have the room to myself. It's too bad, he was a good roommate. I hope we'll be able to hang out during the school year, since he'll only be in Guelph. Of course, this underlines that I don't have much time left here myself. But expect at least one more post before I leave. Until that point:

Stay Frosty
Trevor

Working at the Fairview

For the first time since I've been here, I was assigned for function help that WASN'T worse than the deli. For one night, I got to be a junior server in the Fairview restaurant. For a review (or in case I never said before) the Fairview is the high-class, fine dining room in the restaurant. Due to a combination of several juniors leaving at once and other people calling in sick, there were several people called in that night to help, 2 of which were also from the deli.

The duties of a junior server are as follows: basically assissting the full servers with things like keeping people's water glasses full, breading the table, clearing the dishes, etc. It's really not that demanding, or at least my job wasn't, because I never had more than 5 tables at a time to watch (I'm guessing they were going easy on us due to our fresh pine green-ness). But the main work was outside of the actual dinner service- polishing glasses and cutlery, moving tables around and setting them up again for the next night. Things like that. But there is one story I have to share from the night.

During the dinner service, if all the tables are currently taken care of, you can stop for a bit by the bar and have some pop provided by the bartender, Richard. Now since the fairview is right behind us, I was already on good terms with the guy (almost nothing greases wheels with people better than a sandwich!) so he and I were talking while I had my drink. We were talking about certain mixed drinks when he dashed some agnostura bitters over a drink he was preparing. Since I'd heard about them, but never seen them, I asked where you got them as I examined the bottle. He said either a liquor store or a grocery store, but wasn't sure. I then noted that, since the bottle said it was 45% alcohol, it seemed more likely to be a liquor store.

Now, I guess he had never really read the bottle that closely, because this was news to him. He took the bottle, and read the label. Then, glancing around, he poured a decent amount (not a ton, but certainly more than you would put into any drink) of it into a lowball glass, put in an equal amount of what I think was Sprite, and quickly downed the whole thing.

I have to say, his face afterwards was just priceless. His cheeks moved in the manner that denotes the tongue moving around, then his eyes widened and started watering, he bent over, opening his mouth and trying to get SOME of the flavour out of his mouth. After a fit of laughing and a quick glass of water, he choked out "It feels like I just swallowed a mouthful of liquid cloves." Definitely worth the price of admission, that sight.

But otherwise the night was pretty uneventful. I didn't spill water on anyone or make any major misakes, and things wrapped up smoothly. And I got tips too! 40 bucks, but hey, I'll take it.

So there you go- my night at the Fairview. It seems to be a pretty okay gig... but of course, you can't screw up there. Mistakes count in the Fairview in a way they just couldn't in the deli. So you need to know what you're doing. But I guess once you get there, you've got a sweet setup, cause tips there are pretty stratospheric for main servers. The server I was helping, Jean-Francois, has been here for three years- you know SOMETHING is making it worth it to stay. But I don't think I'm cut out for serving anyways- I lack the requisite balance and fine control of hands that it takes to handle all those dishes at once. Oh well.

Anyways, its getting late and I should get to sleep. The countdown is on- not much time left at all here! See you all soon.

Stay Frosty
Trevor

Update? What's that?

For those who still check this, thank you. If it's any consolation you haven't really missed much by my not posting.

But there are a couple interesting stories I've been accumulating. Owen had his friends from Toronto arrive- they've been driving across Canada in an old truck, doing odd jobs to get gas money and food, and now they're trying to get a job here. They're still living in the truck, though they hang out at Owen's place most of the time. It's a pretty good place to look for work though- if they don't get in at the Chateau, there are still tons of places hiring in Banff. Of course this is a place for my stories, but it's pretty incredible that they drove all the way out here... especially after having driven in that thing!

The last couple days have been quite fun for yours truly, it so happens. A while ago, one of the supervisors, Andrew, started organizing a beach party for the deli and IRD. Pretty much everyone signed up- that is, other than the new girls, who weren't there yet (as an update, we've hired 5 new girls so we're not completely understaffed, though most of us are still working 6 days a week). The plan thus was to have them all work the afternoon shifts on this particular wednesday and the rest of us got morning shifts, thus enabling us to attend the beach party.

Really, I was a bit sceptical as the day approached- even though its just the beginning of August, summer is pretty much over here. But we were lucky enough to actually get the warmest day in a while- I think it got up to about 23 or so, so it was pretty pleasant. Andrew brought his barbeque so we had early dinner and such. Of course, the weather here never plays nice all the time, and a sudden onset of rain made our decision of when to leave for us. But the night was not over yet- oh no.

As I may have mentioned before, the standard pub nights are monday, thursday, and saturday. But this wednesday there was a big advertisement for a retro night. Lots of people were talking about dressing up for it, which I thought about as well- but there was the slight problem that I owned absolutely nothing that even entertained the idea of looking like it was from the 80's, or 70's for that matter. I had one option- wear a particular thin, collared black sweater/jacket I have, jeans, and grease my hair to the point of unrecognizeability. Personally I think it worked pretty well, though I didn't really look like I had dressed retro, unless you know how I usually dress. But, you know, details details.

But but the time I was changed it was only about 10- far too early to go to the bar. Luckily Andrew had invited us all there to finish the hotdogs and have a few drinks before the bar. It's a special kind of intoxication you get from when someone else, especially someone you work for, lets you have more or less free reign with his bar. It's a wonderful thing.

I have to say, that night was some of the most fun I've had there. People were so tickled with their trashy outfits the atmosphere was a lot more friendly and open. And as it just so happened I met a couple people who were down that worked up at the teahouse and started talking with them. It's really refreshing to be able to talk to people who don't work at the Fairmont- plus, I think the teahouse demands being able to be friendly with people a lot more than this place, since you're in such close quarters with your coworkers all the time. As it so happens, one of them, a girl named Andy, used to live in Waterloo. I've met one or two other people from the area here but it's still funny when it happens. She also seems to have almost exactly the same taste in music as I do, which is always a great icebreaker. She and her friend had to leave early to hike back up to the teahouse, but I said I'd hike up after it closed to meet them, as they said they were planning to come back down for thursday night.

The rest of the night went well, especially when they played Fight for Your Right. Hell yes. Second best party song ever, after Bohemian Rhapsody of course.

Anyways, I had a long sleep-in the next day, seeing as I had it off. It was rather restless though, and I kept having those strange semi-dreams where I am somewhat awake, but keep thinking in mindsets like I'm somewhere else- work, school, or something like that. When I got up I saw that the rain from the night before had returned, which made hiking up to the teahouse a much less pleasant proposition, and I was considering bailing. But, as 6 o'clock rolled around, things slowed down and the rain abated. Now I really should have taken into account the fact that, as I said before, the weather is incredibly erratic here, but it honestly seemed to be clearing up.

As you can probably guess by the sandbagging there, after I got a bit more than halfway up to Lake Agnes, it started to rain. Nothing bad, and I did have my coat on, so I pressed on. Then just as I came out into the open beside Mirror Lake, which is about 10 minutes from the teahouse, it started getting heavier. And it started increasing. So for my last bit of trail, it was basically a torrential downpour, which I scurried through to get to the shelter of the house. It wasn't all bad though, as it gave me a chance to sit and chat for a while while my coat and sweater were dried over the oven. Andy and her friend had changed their minds about going down to the pub again, but Andy said she'd walk back down with me, since the rain had stopped again. Oddly enough that was the first time I've done any hiking with someone other than when my parents were here. It was nice to have someone to talk to.

But once I got down, the hike (which I did all the way to the top without stopping, I should note) plus the restless sleep caught up with me and I wasn't in the mood to go out either. So I went to bed early and got a much better sleep. That brings me to today, when I did approximatly nothing. You see, Thursday is the last day of each schedule (that was my day off) and my day off for the next schedule was the first day, thus giving me two days off in exchange for most likely having a 10 day or more stretch afterwards. We'll see if it's worth it, I guess.

One month left in Lake Louise- and I can say quite safely I'm ready to go home. Miss you all.

Stay Frosty,
Trevor

Rafting

What's this- a post on time? Amazing. Don't expect this to form a trend though.

To segue from my last post, I did end up hiking up to the Plain of Six Glaciers teahouse, on a very pleasant, though quite hot, day off. It's a different kind of experience compared to the other one at Lake Agnes, really. First of all, while the hike is longer, it's much less vertical distance to travel, with several long stretches that are relatively flat. The surroundings are also quite different- while the Lake Agnes hike is through the mountains and forest, making it decidely boreal in ambience, the P6G is much more rugged and rocky, especially for the last half or so. A good part of the trail goes along the side of a moutain looking over what I can only assume is the plain referred to in the title. The best part of this is that the wind was blowing across the plain, and since there were still glaciers on it, it was a very cool and refresing breeze indeed. And there is a lot more snow. We only saw a patch at the very top of the Lake Agnes trail, but on P6G there are two major encounters with the white stuff.

The first such encounter, I didn't even realize it was snow at first. As the trail bends at one point, there appeared to be a small cave leading into the cliff face, with a small waterfall overtop of it. Instead it was actually a large pile of snow that had melted in a very unique way, effectively producing a tunnel through it, I would assume from the influence of the waterfall behind it, reaching all the way back to the cliff face. I only actually noticed this because it seemed like a good place to rest, as two other hikers and their dog were taking a breather at the mouth of what I thought was just an odd cave. As one can imagine the snow tunnel created a very cool current of air, which is why these two girls chose the spot. After a brief chat, I pushed on, and encountered even more snow- what I'm told is a permanent sheet of snow across the path and well up to the mountain. Navigating it was not that difficult as the portion covering the path was mostly melted, and there was only a dozen metres or so to cross.

But finally I arrived at the teahouse, which was quite busy, likely due to the advantageous weather. I had to wait a few minutes to get a table, and unfortunately had to buy a bottle of water with my tea as I had already exhausted the supply I brought with me- A note to myself to fill the thing all the way next time. The two girls I met at the snow tunnel arrived a short while after my tea (which, I should note, was just a teabag, not loose leaf, which I was a bit disappointed by), so I sat down after and talked a bit more, since we were not so winded from hiking. Turns out they were actually from South Africa- one of them had moved to Calgary, and the second was visiting her for a couple weeks, and they were just touring around the various sights Alberta has to offer. It was an interesting conversation- I always like talking to people from far away places. The hike back down was, like the Agnes hike, quicker but harder on the knees. Still, definitely a fun hike and I will continue to try making such excursions a regular thing.


The way the schedules work at the deli is like this- they display from Friday-Thursday, so that is how a work week goes. This work week I had Monday and Tuesday, and for some reason, Thursday as well. On next week's schedule, I have the first two days off- AKA Friday and Saturday- combining to give me a lengthy 3 days off in a row. Now, even though my DS does still provide a valuable way to waste time (still only up to 340 lines in Tetris) keeping me occupied for three days is a lot to ask of it. So I set about looking for things that could keep my attention diverted. Drew happened to also have Thursday off, and suggested going whitewater rafting. Since the opportunity for that fell through when the parents were here, I was quite enthused with the idea. It was good timing when we bought the tickets as well, as they asked me at work yesterday if I could come in today, but unfortunately since the trip is non-refundable within 24 hours, I had to say no (darn, eh?)

There was one possible snag though. The forecast for the day was rain, and the morning dawned cloudy and pretty cold. Of course the trip goes rain or shine, but one would always like to have some sun for an activity like this. But much to my delight, by the time we got to the river base (which is 45 minutes away anyways) the clouds had disappeared and the sky could not have been clearer. Of course one learns quickly that weather is impossible to predict in the mountains, and even a short distance away can have very different skies, but it was a fortunate turn anyways.

We were signed up for the half-day excursion, which means a bit more than an hour on the water. The recommendations I had heard were very accurate- it was a lot of fun. I took the front paddle position for the first half of the trip, which included the longest and wettest stretch of rapids. And yes, you definitely get wet on these trips. Right before we switched there was one rapid we did that, I suppose by virtue of the way we hit it and the specific conditions of the day, we hit harder than any of the big ones we had already navigated. On that one we went from white water to green water for a bit. But no one fell out, and we got to the end of the run without incident.

One funny story to relate about the end of the trip though- the rafters help the guides to load up the rafts onto the truck to be transported back to the start of the run. You see, there is a metal frame in the raft that the guide uses to sit and steer, and they warned us to watch for the sections where the oars hook on. While we were loading up the last raft, somehow my lifejacket strap got caught in part of the large oar used to steer, specifically the part that hooks on to the part we were told to watch out for- which, I should note, I was. As there were 10 or so people lifing this raft, the result was that I was rather ungraciously hoisted into the air along with the raft by the chest, with some protestations that were not immediately heard or, it would seem, exactly understood. I actually undid the strap before they had figured out that they should LOWER the raft so I could extricate myself, but it was all a good laugh after. Overall a very enjoyable experience, and I may try to get out once more before I leave.

And that brings us to the present. Tomorrow I think I'll be heading into Banff to do some errands, and Saturday will likely be another hike. And until my next post,

Stay Frosty
Trevor