New Visits to Old Haunts

We have friends Andre and Nancy here visiting from Austin, TX.  They've both been to Calgary but Andre not for a few years and Nancy not  for quite a few years.  We love when we have people visiting because it allows us to go and visit some of the great places near Calgary that we take for granted.  Isn't it funny how you live near great places but you always are "too busy" to go there?

We decided to head out into the mountains.  First stop was Chez Francois in Canmore for breakfast.  It's a great little French restaurant that is short on pretty but long on great food.  You might remember that we went out there for breakfast on Mother's Day.

After that we headed to Banff to go horseback riding per Nancy's request.  I've been on a horse before but I'm not really a "comfortable" horseback rider.  I knew everyone else really wanted to go though, so I figured I would suck it up.  Plus we were going with a commercial outfit so I figured surely all their horses were old & slow.  Thankfully I was right and we had a great time.  I must say, though, that my butt is still sore from two hours in the saddle.  I am pretty sure that there HAS to be some way they could make saddles more comfortable!

Dewey's back in the saddle again. He grew up on a ranch so this is old hat for him.

Faking it for sure!

Having fun. That's Nancy behind me.

A quick trip up the gondola at Sulphur Mountain rounded out the day.  Unfortunately it was a short trip out since Dewey had band practice at 7.  We are hoping to take them to the Stampede on Sunday before they leave.  We have a big party on Saturday where Dewey's band is playing.  It should be a great time.  I know Dewey is VERY excited.  I'll make sure to post some pictures.

The view from the gondola basket. Did I mention that I'm a bit afraid of heights?  Yep.

The view from the top of the Sulphur Mountain gondola.  Pretty!

What are the things on your "must do" list when you have out of town visitors?  Do you ever make time to do those things when you don't have visitors?

Read more...

Snowshoeing!

Me, Lindsey & Christine at Castle Mountain Overlook.

No Monday Mingle for me today. I'm just too tired! Today is Family Day in Alberta so I had the day off. I went snowshoeing with my friend Christine & her roommate Lindsey (sp?). We had a blast even though it was a very hard snowshoe (at least for my out of shape self). We snowshoed up to Castle Mountain Overlook. It was a 7-8 km total trip with a 500 meter climb on the way in & a 500 meter downhill on the way back. It was a definite hard cardio workout for me. I kind of wasn't prepared for it either as the listing for the trip said it was "Easy". Regardless, we had a great time!

Eating lunch. We didn't stop for long but I got sooooo cold. My fingers were like ice. You get quite hot while you are going but once you stop you get cold really quick.

Castle Mountain

Read more...