Weekend in Banff National Park

One of the couples in our circle here in Calgary was suddenly transferred back to Houston a couple of months ago. It got me to thinking about all the things I'd better hurry up and do in case the same thing happens to us. This weekend we crossed two things off the list.

1. We spent the night at The Banff Springs Hotel. It was originally built for wealthy people who traveled from all over the world to "take the waters" in the Banff hot springs. It still usually costs mucho dinero to secure a room but we were able to take advantage of an off-season special rate. woo-hoo! 

From their official website:

THE CASTLE IN THE ROCKIES

Located in the heart of Banff National Park and styled after a Scottish Baronial Castle, The Fairmont Banff Springs hotel, a National Historical Site of Canada, has been turning moments into memories for our guests for over 125 years. The opening of the hotel in 1888 marked the birthplace of tourism in the Canadian Rockies. 

(Not my photo! It's from wikipedia. All other photos are mine.)

2. Being in the mountains at certain times of the year gives people magical powers which enables them to cross over any body of water without a flotation device. Number 2 on the list of "Things to Do Before We Move" involved  employing those powers. In other words, we walked across the ice on Lake Louise. Yes! It's late April and the ice is still thick enough to walk on.

We headed straight for Lake Louise from Calgary on Saturday morning along a scenic route. We were rewarded with a few animal sightings!

*TIP* If you want to see any of the photos larger, just click on them.

Rocky Mountain Sheep:

Lake Louise

Then off to the hotel in Banff! We checked in and then walked around the golf course behind the hotel:

Elk:

"Hey! No pictures!!"

Deer:

The view from our room. Or it might be a mural they taped up outside our window. Even in person, it didn't look real:

We had a fantastic meal at an Italian restaurant that evening and got up in the morning to walk along the golf course again:

Lunch in town and then we headed for home. More sheep!

"You looking at me?" Most of the sheep are looking at me!

Is he sticking his tongue out at me?

It was a really nice weekend. So glad we went.

Oh, by the way, did you know you can easily share any of my blog posts using those handy-dandy buttons down there? Cool, right?

Learning to Use my Digital SLR Camera

When we first moved to Alberta, I took pictures with a plain ole point and shoot camera or my iPhone.  But the more my husband and I explored the mountains, the more obvious it became that we needed something better suited for the job. We did a little research and decided on a Nikon D5100.

Photography has always been a hobby of mine but I never ventured beyond those automatic settings. Here's what I've learned after making an effort to understand my new camera's manual: I don't want to know. Ha! Yes, I am that lame. I just want to aim the camera and press the button. 

Luckily for me, the camera takes great photos when set in automatic. To test the results when the camera is left to it's own devices, I spent most of the day on Tuesday in Banff National Park, taking photos ranging from grand vistas to small shards of ice. 

JOHNSTON CANYON

CASTLE MOUNTAIN

LAKE LOUISE

The camera does a beautiful job even though I'm not patient enough to learn the manual settings. I'll play around with them in the future, but I"m glad the automatic settings will cover for me so nicely in the meantime. 

So what about you? Have you upgraded to a DSLR camera? How are you doing with those instructions? 

Come on, Get Happy!

According to this article- linking happiness with good health- here are 6 ways to feel happier:

1. Get a pet
2. Listen to music
3. Enjoy the outdoors
4. Laugh
5. Volunteer
6. Try Tai Chi

These six suggestions seem easy enough to accomplish, except perhaps trying Tai Chi. You have to find a class, figure out what to wear, get in your car and actually GO. Eesh, I'm feeling pretty unhappy just thinking about it. Tai Chi was suggested because you learn to move in a slow, deliberate way. Can't we just walk around the house or do chores reeeeaaaallly slowly? I'm thinking the sight of me doing this will make my family laugh (suggestion #4) which means the activity will serve double duty. Yay!

So, yeah, give this list a try. Now go! (but go reaaaallly sloowly.)

Fear and Writing

It's ironic that the mere decision to take writing more seriously gave me so much anxiety that I couldn't write at all. I couldn't work on my book, write an article or dash off a simple blog post. I was STUCK.

I tried to use my time wisely and continued to read about writing online and worked my way through a few memoirs, hoping it would help me write my own. I organized my memoir notes as well. I organized the hell out of my notes!

I became so sick of being disappointed in myself that something snapped (just write, dammit!). Today I wrote an article for Yahoo Voices and this blog post. Yay, me! I plan to continue the trend tomorrow and the next day and the next....

Gail's House

We have an amazing friend named Gail who seems to do everything well. Last year she designed the landscaping for her backyard. It's so beautiful, it looks like it should be in a magazine. I already reserved it for my son's wedding reception, even though he doesn't have a girlfriend at the moment.

Enjoy the photos. Cry at the beauty. Yearn to be so clever. Got that? Enjoy. Cry. Yearn:

Building Evacuation Part 2

Someone left this in our lobby.

I stood facing 3 firemen outside my condo door and asked if I had time to get my purse. "Ma'am, we're trying to clear the building as quickly as possible," one of them replied. I needed my shoes and coat, so I grabbed my purse as well and ran out my door carrying everything in my arms.

"You can put on your shoes," I was instructed by a baby-faced fireman.

I felt a little foolish, standing in the hallway in my socks, but heck- I was still half asleep. And something was bothering me. I felt like I was forgetting something. "Can I go back and lock my door?" I asked, remembering.

I ran back, grabbed my keys, locked the door and finally headed down the 15 flights of stairs.

In the lobby, it looked as though I was the first resident down. I was told to sign a sheet, so they could keep track of every resident. A woman appeared in the hallway in her pajamas and asked what was going on. I told her we had to evacuate. "I have to get ready for work!" she said in a panic, before running back to her condo.

I put my name on the list, walked out into the darkness and joined a few other people on one of the buses. Not much to do, so I tweeted:

"Just gets better and better! Building being evacuated at 6am due to elevated levels of CO."

Our bus driver was quite the character. People kept asking him questions but he was just there to keep the bus warm and move it if necessary. One woman asked when we could go back in and he answered, "Never!" Lucky for him, we all got the joke and he wasn't beaten to death.

I tried to sleep a little on the bus, but it wasn't comfortable and every time someone new got on there was that loud, "whoooosh" sound of the door opening. A paramedic mounted the bus stairs ("whoooosh!") and asked if anyone was experiencing any symptoms. We all shook our heads. He explained that the device he was holding would measure the amount of CO in our systems if anyone wanted it checked.

Scattered hands were raised, so he attached the clip to the nearest finger and worked his way down the aisle in my direction. He called out the results. "Zero!" "Zero!" No traces of CO. It was my turn, so I casually stuck out my index finger, fully expecting my number to be zero as well. "Four," he announced.

Say what, now? I was told that the number wasn't high enough to worry about but he was curious to know how close my apartment is to the elevator. "Right next door," I told him. "In fact, I can hear the elevator from my bed." "That's why," he said.

Well, that sucks, I thought. If we weren't evacuated, I could have...no- I decided not to go there. Instead, I noticed a rumbling in my stomach and wondered where I could get breakfast. There was no reason to stay on the bus and I'm sure the people around me didn't appreciate my hacking cough. I exited into the cold and dark morning, made sure it was OK for me to leave and headed down the circular driveway.

I could NOT believe the number of emergency vehicles parked in the street! A row of trees had blocked them from my view on the bus. Police cars, ambulances and fire trucks, all with lights flashing, made sort of a fortress in front of my building.



And across the street, I spotted our local news crew. I stopped in at the nearest eatery, saw that they had a TV on and tweeted:

"Wow- I found a cafe and they're talking about the situation on the news. The whole street is blocked off. I had no idea."



I became obsessed with tweeting, in fact. It calmed me somehow. Here's what I tweeted:

"I didn't even brush my hair this morning."

"Now I'm wandering aimlessly downtown. I feel like a homeless person. Wait. I guess I am."

"City and Red Cross have stepped in. We're sheltered at a senior center on the next block. Lunch."

"You know what I find frustrating? I have no tv or Internet access but there are 3 diff news crews outside. Wish I knew what they're saying."

"It's very pleasant. It's a senior center with a cafeteria, library, lounge... No sleeping facilities. I'd sure like to curl up on the floor and sleep! But I won't. I'm a frigging lady."

"They're going to give us an update in an hour and a half concerning whether or not we can sleep at home tonight."

"I'm gonna look for a chair in a corner where I can doze off (& hope I don't drool) I should be in bed with this cold."

"I have to hang out to hear the 2:00 update and then I'll split this scene. (homelessness has done something to my speech)"

"Oh wow- maybe it's fatigue but thinking about this morning w/ firemen pounding on the door and me running out just made me cry."

"Yeah, it's sleep deprivation. Everything's fine"

"Now I'm watching a group of seniors do seated exercises to WW2 music. #weirdday"

"In a few minutes I'll know where I can go to get some rest."

"I'm tweet babbling. Twabbling? Update presented by building management, fire dep't and the city about to start"

"You can tell the difference between the update people and the residents. The updaters have had showers."

"CO levels fine. Heat back on (?). No elevators. Water still rising in basement. If that can be reversed by 6:00-we can go in."

"Husband called (he's out of town). His boss said I could sleep at their house tonight if I need to."

"I turned off my phone and tried to sleep in the empty lounge in a chair. Other ppl found this oasis, tho and woke me up."

"Had to buy a phone charger and find a place to plug it in."

"We're not allowed back into the bldg except to get essentials. Must be escorted in by fireman"

"I just walked to my car w/ a friend from the condo to make sure it would start. It did! We were concerned coz it's been sitting outside for 2 days & temps have been brutal"

"Still waiting for my date with a fireman."

"I'm afraid I'll show up at my friend’s house and just collapse in her arms, sobbing. So tired"

"Tonight's parting gift:"

"Finally my turn to climb 15 flights to get my toothbrush"

"Actually, the red cross gave me a toothbrush. I was kidding.  I needed my migraine meds, which I take daily. (preventive)"

"Finally-I'm in a nice warm bed and I told my friend I may sleep til noon. :)"

Next morning:

"I really did sleep til noon! I slept for 12 hours."

"I just found out we can go back into our apartments!! Yay- hope they know what they're doing!! Hope I don't get woken up again!!"

"Firefighter told me during our 15 flight climb last night that the CO levels were at 200 parts per million the morning they evacuated. They evacuate at 30!!"

"Nothing like starting the new year alive."

A bizarre week.

Building Evacuation Part 1

BANG, BANG, BANG!!!

6:00 in the morning and someone was pounding on the door of my condo, waking me up.

BANG, BANG, BANG!!! “Fire Department!!”

I threw on yesterday's outfit and opened the door. Three firefighters stood in the hall.

“We need to evacuate the building due to high levels of CO2,” one of them told me. “You need to dress warmly and take the stairs down to the waiting buses in front of the building.”

I smiled. Of course I do. Perfect.

The night before we had all been woken up at 1:00am by an announcement that the parking garage was flooding and all vehicles had to be moved to a parking lot across the street.

I had been in bed suffering with a cold for three days. My husband was out of town. Alone in the apartment, tissues littering the floor around my bed, I considered the situation and wondered what would happened if I didn’t move our vehicles. It was the middle of a brutality cold night (-20F) and I was sick. Sighing, I knew I had to get up and just do it.

I was the only one in the hall and the only on the elevator. Odd. But then the car stopped on the next floor and just about every floor after that. We were packed in tight. The elevator lurched slightly, made a couple of strange sounds and someone said, “Too many people!!” When the doors opened again, a few people jumped off.

I moved my car, joining the parade of residents driving across the street, then walked back in the bitter cold, moved the truck and returned to the building. Someone in the lobby asked our apartment manager if we’d get help with the cost of parking.

The cost?? It never crossed my mind that we’d have to pay.

“Unfortunately, that’s your responsibility,” he answered.

Crap. That meant I had to ride the elevator back up the 15^th floor to get my wallet so I could walk back to the lot for the third time.

I was dressed warmly, but noticed the fingers on my gloved hands were starting to hurt as I crunched through the snow towards the automated parking payment machine. I decided to get in my car and run the heater for about ten minutes. I sat there, waiting for some warmth and took in the grey scene outside the windshield.

Huh. Should I be scared? I thought. Tall, silent buildings surrounded the parking lot. All of the other residents were gone. It was 2am on a dangerously cold night and I still had to pay for my parking and walk back.

God, I was tired. And pissed. If someone wanted to mess with me, they'd get my keys jabbed into their eyeball! And I think I would have enjoyed it a little. I paid for parking and made it back safely to the comfort of my own warm bed. Story over. Or so I thought.

to be continued....