O Canada, Steph's home and native land....

I can't believe it's been a week since I left. And then when I look back at everything we have already done, I can't believe it has only been a week. Time is getting back to playing its usual tricks on me.

It seems as though we have been on the move pretty much since I arrived at the Seattle airport on Monday afternoon. Since then, we have driven from Seattle up to Chilliwack (3 hours), from Chilliwack over to Banff in Alberta (9 hours), back to Chilliwack (8.5 hours) and then down to Vancouver (1.5 hours). We also spent a good chunk of Saturday on ferries to Victoria and Salt Spring, one of the smaller Gulf Islands, which totaled just over 4 hours.

But all of that time in transit was well worth it. Up in Banff we saw Lake Louise, surrounded by mountains and fed by glaciers, it's an amazingly blue-green-turquoise color. We did a short hike up to a lookout point and really got to take in all of its beauty. Unfortunately, it began to snow. At first it was just flurries but after we had gone in to get some hot tea it was coming down pretty hard and the tops of the mountains were no longer visible, so we headed back into the town of Banff. We went on a hike searching for some Hoodoos but there were no markings on the trail and after trying a few different options with no luck, it began to get pretty chilly out so we went back to the hostel.

                                                    The Banff Hoodoos, which evaded us.

The hostel we were staying in was advertising that the pub downstairs was having a Full Moon Party. Since Steph and I are kind of pros at these, we figured we had to make an appearance. Of course it was nothing like Koh Phangan, though they did have body paint, but we still had a nice time meeting people there.

I had forgotten that one of the best parts about staying in hostels is how easy it becomes to meet other travelers. This time was a little different because most of the people we met were actually in Banff  for a job fair that one of the ski resorts was holding. So while they weren't exactly other travelers, they were still interesting to chat with. Most of them were from Australia and New Zealand and one Kiwi in particular was drilling Steph about Canada, specifically its wildlife. It was hard to take his questions seriously, and a large part of that conversation was actually Stephanie teaching him the Canadian national anthem and her learning the New Zealand one, which is apparently partially in another language. (I just did a quick Google search to ensure that this was not fiction.)

On another note, after spending so much time with Steph in Thailand and talking to her since she has come back home, I arrived here already feeling like I knew most of the people in her life. It's been nice to actually get to meet some of them while at the same time seeing parts of Chilliwack and for the most part, I was surprised that most of them were exactly as I thought they would be.

***Have not yet uploaded photos. Will add those later rather than supplementing with ones stolen from the internets.***