This past week, I’ve done a mini tour of Alberta with my friend from Ontario.

We hit up Banff on Wednesday. The weather had been unusually wet for the first part of September, and Wednesday was the first bright and sunny day for a week or so, she must have brought great weather with her. Banff was actually pretty quiet. We left two hours later than we expected, but that’s not unusual at all. We did some shopping in Banff and got some deals. We didn’t go up the gondola to the summit of Sulphur Mountain, the ride costs $100 which is a bit insane, the views are great though.

We drove to Drumheller with the dogs and we left early as it was expected to get quite warm (for Alberta standards anyway) in Drumheller. The scenery is unique with the rock formations. We didn’t go to the Royal Tyrell Museum, which was ok as I’ve been a number of times over the last couple of years. We stopped at a great fenced in dog park and there were a number of canine friends for Apollo and Achilles. We had an inexpensive lunch at DQ, Carrie had never had the chicken strips and she agreed that they were good.

We stopped at Cross Iron Mills and Carrie was able to get Alberta themed souvenirs for friends and family back in Ontario.

We toured around Calgary as well and saw some of the sights. We still need to visit Canada Olympic Park, the views from the top are spectacular. She wanted to see the Saddledome before they rip it to the ground sometime in the near future.

We ate a lot of great food, Carrie is definitely a great cook. She made the best minestrone soup I’ve ever had, I have enough to last a while, same with chicken and rice soup and two huge lasagnas. We also hit up some great restaurants – we had an amazing lunch in Banff at a burger place after the Mexican restaurant was closed due to having no hot water. We may go to the Calgary Tower today and have lunch in the revolving restaurant, it offers amazing 360° views of the city as it rotates once every 45 minutes.

Today will be a more relaxed day for sure, summer-like weather has returned and it’ll be in the upper 20s today, too hot for my tastes really but Carrie will at least be warm for a change. She hasn’t taken well to the typical September weather, dry and cool.

All in all a great visit. She leaves on the red eye tonight back to Ontario and it’s warm and humid weather. Until next time, safe travels.