BANFF, Canada - Day One (Patty and Lisa)

I got up at 4:45 a.m. and took a shower.  Dave got up and made me an egg sandwich.  He's awesome.  He took me to the airport and I arrived at about 5:45 a.m. for a 7:00 a.m. flight.  There were two people in front of me in line.  (I love small airports.)  I went through security and showed my passport.  I'm not as well traveled as my family - so that was new for me.  I've only shown it on cruise ships prior to this trip.  My flights were on time and smooth.  I had a two hour layover in Salt Lake City, Utah so I went to eat again as I knew we wouldn't eat until about 6:00 p.m.  I walked in to the restaurant expecting a lunch menu - HOWEVER, it was only 8:00 a.m.  I'm so weird.  I ordered an egg white omelet and coffee.  My flight from SLC to Calgary I tried to watch Beautiful Mind.  I got to see about an hour and a half of it and need to finish it - maybe on the trip home.

I arrived Calgary and proceeded to Customs where you are not allowed to pull your cell phone out.  I don't think he stamped my passport.  I'll have to check on that.  Then I proceeded to Baggage Claim where this gentleman was.

Really nice guy.  He directed me to Baggage Claim where I found Lisa.

We gathered our bags and headed towards the Tour Bus with a stop at Starbucks.  The prices are Canadian prices.

It was about an hour to an hour and a half drive.  I can't quite remember as we were enjoying being with one another.  Here is some of the scenery.

Our Hotel through the Trees.

Once we arrived at the Hotel we were greeted by Hunter Douglas Staff and the United Incentives Staff.

Getting our Hotel Key

Meeting the Hotel Manager

Arriving at our Room - very nice!

Enjoying supper together.  No matter how hard I try I can't get this photo to go down below.

We found out at registration that we had been upgraded to a Mountain View room with two queens.  I had done some research on Trip Advisor before arriving and I had read that the rooms with two beds were quite small.  When we arrived to our room it was quite large with two windows with a beautiful view.  There was also a big bathroom with a giant tub.  We didn't find out until much later in the week that some of our new friends were in rather small rooms (really small).  We are very blessed to have been upgraded.  The front desk said they had to pick some rooms to upgrade and we must have been picked.  Pretty cool.

We needed to find someplace to eat.  It appeared that the Rundle Lounge at the Hotel was the best place as we weren't really to into figuring out town at this point.  We sat in this nice lounge and ordered a drink.  Lisa asked for his suggestions as she was into trying what Canada was known for as she was here.  Funny I never even thought of that - you'll see later in the week, she ate Caribou.  The waiter brought her a drink; I just had vodka, juice and 7-up (whatever you call that.)  There was this item on the menu that said Poutine (cheese curds with gravy.)  Lisa said Canada was known for their Poutine.  So we ordered it as an appetizer.  I'm such a dork.  I had no idea that Poutine was

It's FRENCH FRIES with gravy and cheese curds!
Who knew?

 I took photos of our food because Sierra likes to post photos of food and I thought it might bless her.  I would send them to her via text and Instagram.

Lisa's Supper

Patty's Supper

Our Drinks

Drinks

After supper we felt like we needed to walk off our food.  Everyone was raving about "Bow Falls."  I'll have to say at this point, Lisa and I were a bit cynical about the "beauty" that was promised.  I mean after all we had seen Yosemite.  Bow Falls was a short walk down a path.  We asked directions a couple of times and were on our way.  While Bow Falls was quite pretty, it wasn't quite the Falls we were expecting.  But nevertheless here are our photos.  We saw a deer on our walk.  We also racked lots of steps on this trip.

The deer we saw on our walk.

Bow Falls

Trying out my panoramic view.

Trying out a selfie.  Bow Falls in the background there.

The Sign about the falls.

Sign about the Falls

Sister selfie

The view.

One of the men we had asked for directions was a bus/van driver.  He showed up down at the Falls and asked us if we would like a ride back up.  He did this on purpose since he thought we would want a ride - we did!  That was so nice.  We headed back to our room.  I was trying to take a photo of "art" or something Alison would like.  All I came up with was this.

Alison, what do you think?

I swear it was like 10:00 p.m. when we got back to our room, yet it was still light outside.  For Lisa this was midnight and she had been up since 4:00 a.m.  I had brought her a bunch of clothes that Jessica was getting rid of so I made her look at those before I let her sleep.  Poor Lisa.  We had so much fun together but the real test would be - could she handle my snoring.  We finally climbed into our beds and I think I was asleep in two seconds.