I have a confession to make. Until a couple years ago I had no idea where Banff and Lake Louise were. I had a general idea that they were in the western part of Canada, but could probably not pinpoint exactly where on a map. It wasn’t until I had a layover in Calgary, Alberta that I saw how close of a distance these two places where and decided to make the drive up.
My co-worker and I decided to make a jumping start to our trip. We arrived at the airport, freshened up in the washroom (glam, right?) and immediately picked up a rental car. My travel partner fell asleep as soon I turned on the ignition, so I was left alone to watch as the scenery turned from downtown Calgary to beautiful Banff. I was loving my life the whole route there.
We arrived at Lake Louise with no help from the GPS by the way. It led me from Calgary Airport to Calgary McDonald’s where I had to ask a HUMAN how to get there. I will try and refrain from being passive aggressive towards the GPS again until at least the end of this post. Back to the natural beauty that was around me. Lake Louise looked like a backdrop. Like something someone had painted out of a dream. Grande mountains in the background, and a lake with the most turquoise waters you could imagine. Of course at this point my friend and I felt like we were obligated to take the mandatory pictures. Pretending to look off into the distance. Smiling. Arms up high with excitement. You know, the standard tourist stuff.
Once our photo shoot was done, my friend suggested canoeing on the lake. Great idea right? It was, until half way in. See I’m not NOT sporty. I just don’t work out often enough for it to not be torture. The scene around us was epic, but it soon became a scene of disaster as we had only 5 minutes to return our canoe in time, and stay friends. We were rowing and rowing and I guess from a mixture of inexperience, and zero synchronization we were going nowhere. The worst had to have been when a pair of ten-year-olds canoed right by us, like they were practicing for the oxford rowing team. It wasn’t our proudest moment that’s for sure. We did make it out alive, and had a hilarious story to reminisce the whole drive back home.
We spent the rest of the day exploring the small area of Banff that we had time to. There are so many things to see and do there, that I would love to go back. We tried to cram as much as possible in. Strolled along the high street, saw the falls, ate some Alberta beef. It was lovely and I saw some wildlife that I have never seen before in my life. Well I may have. I secretly don’t know some of the things I saw. I thought one animal was a moose, and was embarrassingly told it wasn’t. You can’t win them all.