Calgary/Banff Trip: Days 1 and 2

Hello from Canada! I decided to write these posts during the trip to make it easier to keep track of everything we did!

Day 1: Sunday in Calgary

I landed in Calgary in the early afternoon and my friend graciously picked me up at the airport. As an aside, I had the easiest customs experience of all of my trips to Canada (I’ve been here 3 times I think?). I didn’t talk to a customs agent - I just had to fill out a form at a terminal. That means I did not get a passport stamp! If you travel outside the US and your passport doesn’t get stamped, did the trip even happen? ;) I am childishly obsessed with passport stamps so this was a bit disappointing but so it goes! I will say that past encounters with Canadian customs agents have been the most intense I have experienced in all of my travels! They ask sooo many questions that by the end you might think - am I doing something illegal? Ha. 

Leigh had asked what all I wanted to see in Calgary and the answer was truly - her and her family. I had not seen her for 9 years, had never met her husband (our previous meets ups were girls running trips) and she had 2 kids since I last saw her. So this leg of the trip was truly about connection. I loved getting to know her husband after reading all about him when she was blogging and it was fun to spend time with her kids, ages 6 and 8. We basically talked non-stop from the time she picked me up until I went down to bed at 8:30! We did go to a cool indoor market where I got some yummy ice cream and went for a beautiful walk along a river in an area called Bowness Park, but I failed to take any pictures!

Day 2: Hiking in Canmore

Our friend Amber flew in from NW BC and landed around 8:30 that morning. It was a Monday and Mondays are busy at work so figured I better check in and make sure things were going ok with the weekly newsletter that I usually review. It turns out there was an issue with the data I pulled on Saturday. Ugh. I didn’t even have to tell Leigh I was dealing with a work issue. She could tell from my posture and look on my face as I was emailing that it was not good. I felt just sick because I had no laptop and my colleague who sort of knows the data process was in Germany on vacation without a laptop (we are not allowed to work outside the country unless we get permission/approval - which is fine! I don’t want to work on vacation anyways. We are limited to checking email). I got the issue pretty much resolved over email but this whole situation exemplifies how little back-up I have at work and the extent of what we call ‘key person risk,’ meaning - can things go on if someone were to get hit by a bus? Granted the work I am doing is not saving lives. But it’s still important to my company. Thank goodnesss my new hire starts next month. We will NEVER HAVE OVERLAPPING VACATIONS!! And hopefully this is the only time I will have to mention work in these blog posts!! It took me quite some time to shake off the events of the morning, though. I care so much about my job and what I do so can’t shake it off when something comes up. 

Moving on! When Amber got to Leigh’s in our car rental from Turo (which is very slick I must say!) we headed to the Canmore area to do a 10k hike called Cloudline. It was a gorgeous sunny day and I had the best time catching up with these 2! I hadn’t seen Amber since my wedding in May 2017. I love that I have the kind of friendships with these 2 ladies where you can pick up where you left off and it’s like no time has passed! Amber is one of my best friends (I was in her wedding 11 years ago!) so we keep in touch over WhatsApp but it’s not the same as spending time together. Here are some pics from the gorgeous hike! 

Me, Leigh and Amber 

By the time we were done hiking it was almost 2 and we were famished so we hit up a brewery that had some GF options for me. Then it was time to say goodbye to Leigh who was heading out on a family vacation the next day! 

One last group pic with the brewery bear. Hopefully this is the only bear I see on this trip (we do have bear spray!). 

Amber and I got groceries, reserved bikes for our bike ride too Banff the following day and headed to our Airbnb. We splurged and got a 2 bedroom Airbnb. We are both tired moms so having our own bedrooms/beds is so very nice! We walked to dinner in the area and turned in early as we were both so tired!

Today we will bike a dedicated bike trail from Canmore to Banff and bop around Banff for a bit and then we might go a later day hike when the sun is starting to set. It is oh so gorgeous here so I am loving all the views of the mountains!