Canoe on Lake Louise

Canoe on Lake Louise
September 2, 2013

When I was 15, my parents moved us to Calgary because of a job transfer.  I didn't think so at the time, but it was a great thing for me.

Calgary is so close to the mountains (only an hour to Banff).  This is pretty cool, except that I'm more of a beach girl - and I live in the prairies.  Oh well, some day!

In any case, Lake Louise is only an hour and 45 minutes away and I had never been there.  I've seen so many photos and heard so many great things about it, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to experience it for myself.

Luckily, two of my wonderful lady friends (Courtney & Tammy) were available, so we made a day of it.

When we arrived, we were blown away by the beauty of the lake.  As Courtney said, "It's sooo majestic!".  The water is the exact greenish blue color seen in all the photos.  It's absolutely gorgeous!

We were in the boat with the flag

The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise offers a tour called the Voyageur Canoe Experience, so I booked it a few weeks in advance.  We could have just rented a canoe and zipped around on the lake by ourselves, but the Experience was in a larger canoe with a few other people and a guide, which seemed like the better option.

We were told how to properly paddle, then we all got in, each row at a time. I was in the third row and the girls were directly behind me.  There were two odd girls in front of me who didn't seem to understand how to paddle in rhythm and another couple behind Courtney & Tammy.

We took the boat along the side of the lake till we reached the far end, which took much less time than I had anticipated and is approximately 3km from the dock at the hotel.  When we got to the far end, I put both of my feet in the water.  It was freezing, but so refreshing!  The water felt so clean.


Our guide got us singing, which was awkward.

We looped back around to the dock and let the odd girls out - they had a bus to catch - and then did another lap.

On our second lap around we got quite close to the front of the Chateau, which is gorgeous!  There were tons of tourists standing near the water who took photos of us.

Then back near the far end for a tranquil sit.  Sound waves reflect off the surface of water, so we could hear people chatting from all around us, but it still felt quiet and peaceful.  We sat in the boat for a couple of minutes, just taking it all in.

After that, we headed back to the dock.  It had been almost two hours!  I couldn't believe it!

When we were finished, we took our own tour of the Chateau (very much enjoying how fancy the washrooms are) and then made our way back to Banff, where we had supper.

It was a great day and it was made so much better by the company!

This is an experience that I would highly recommend!

And that's when Courtney got eaten by a bear

Gay Pride Parade

Attend a Parade
September 1, 2013



It's been a long time since I've been to a parade.  Calgary has three major parades to choose from: the Santa Claus parade, the Stampede Parade and the Gay Pride Parade.  This was an easy choice.

Though, it was made more difficult when Chris Hadfield was announced as the Stampede Parade Marshall.  I love space.  But the Stampede Parade is difficult for me to get to, what with it being held on a Friday morning during my busy season.

In any case, this picture pretty much sums up my feelings on gay rights:

Really, what I meant to say was 'human rights'

So, I was really excited for the Gay Pride Parade.  My beautiful friend, Jess, joined me and we took the train downtown (great idea, Jess).  The parade started at 12:00pm and we got there just a few minutes in advance.

We waited for David's Tea to open (a must!) and made sure to get in there right away.  While waiting inside, I made a comment to Jess about all of the great little rainbow flags that the other attendees had.  She said that the downtown Winners location was handing them out for free, which is fantastic.  I commented that it was too bad we didn't get there earlier to go down and get a couple of our own.  About 5 minutes later, one of the guys who had been in the tea store during our conversation came back in and offered me his flag.  He said that he'd heard us talking and had an extra, if we wanted it.  It was so sweet and really set the tone for the rest of the parade!

There were tons of people (around 30,000) and the energy was incredible!  People were constantly cheering, dancing and smiling.  People standing next to us were instantly our friends.  It was a very loving environment.


As for the parade itself, I guess I expected mostly colorful, fluff kind of floats, which there were, but I was surprised at the number of businesses and churches (yup, churches) that were involved.  It was really cool to see so much support, especially from unexpected places.

When the parade was over, attendees walked in the street behind the floats.  Of course, I was all over that. We walked all the way to Shaw Millennium Park, where they were holding a festival celebration.  There were a lot of exhibit stands, music and people dancing.  We didn't stay long, but really enjoyed the atmosphere.

It was an exciting and high energy experience.  I'm really glad I chose this parade!

Graffiti Knit

Graffiti Knit
August 31, 2013

My gran taught me how to knit when I was only a few years old.  I was so young that I don't remember learning, so to me, I've just always known how.   She was so talented and I'm so happy that she gave me knitting.  It's something that I do almost every day.  It's calming and makes me feel close to her.

In the spring I completed my level one knitting instructor certification, which was pretty cool.  Want to learn?  I can teach you.  :)

Pre-graffiti'd pole

I'm also an avid yogi and I love my studio, so a pole right outside of it seemed like the perfect spot to hit.  I started this project in April, finished in May and then let it sit on my knitting shelf for a few months.  Of course, it really pulled at me.  I hate the feeling of needing to get things done. 

Finally, on Saturday August 31st, I woke up with some motivation.  It was a great time to do it, because there were a lot of class cancellations that weekend (being a long weekend), so there weren't many people around to see me. 

I parked my car right next to the pole, rolled down my window, blasted the Cat Empire and got started. 

Part way through

There were a few people around, but not many walked past me.  I figured that someone would stop and ask what I was doing, or just want to chat.  I'd be all over that if I saw someone attaching yarn to anything!

About ten minutes into sewing, a car pulled up beside me.  I got excited to chat.  They asked for directions.  REALLY?  DON'T YOU SEE THAT I'M ATTACHING 5 FEET OF YARN TO A POLE?  Apparently not, because it was completely unmentioned.  Odd.

Sewing is my least favorite part of knitting, but I really enjoyed being out in the sun, doing something that would hopefully make others smile.  Attaching it took about an hour.

The finished pole

This seems like one of the more laid back, less exciting things on my list, but I got a real thrill out of it!  Afterwards, I ran a few errands.  While out in public, I felt like I had this great secret!  I had just done something really cool and I wanted to tell everyone, but isn't part of graffiti not getting caught?  Of course, it's not the same, but still... I'm feeling a little badass over here.

A few days later, the yoga studio posted a picture about it on facebook.  They loved it!  It got over 70 likes and a bunch of comments on it.  How cool!

For now, they don't know it was me.  Let's let this be our little secret, okay?




Want to see more graffiti knitting?  Check out these pictures:

http://goo.gl/xGoG7C

Attend a Wine Tasting

Attend a Wine Tasting
Saturday August 3, 2013

Nicole is one of my favorite people.  She is Australian and has lived there till recently, so it's such a treat to have her around!  Nicole is an excellent person to drink wine with, partly because she coordinated wine events in Australia, so has a lot of great wine knowledge and partly because she's so much fun!

For a few months in 2004, Nicole lived with me and every Monday night we would see if we could drink more wine than we had the previous Monday.  We once drank 4 bottles of wine between the two of us.  And the wine was usually pretty bad; typically only costing about $8/bottle. 

We like to drink nicer wine now.


Nicole married Rich, a great guy from Calgary.  So, we made it a date night.  We were able to buy groupons for the tasting, which took place at a shop on McLeod Trail called Enoteca.  The store is mostly wine, but they have a few other things as well.  In the back they have a little room for wine tastings and events. 

We got there a bit early and looked around for a little while.  Then we posed for this awesome picture:

Classic Rich

There were two people running the event.  They had 3 wines for us to taste and lots of cheese and crackers.  They spoke a lot about the wines and where they came from, which was great, but they waited for quite a while before giving us our first taste.  Once we got the samples, everyone in the room seemed to perk up a bit. 

The tasting itself was about an hour.  It was casual and fun.  When it was over Nicole, Rich and I made sure the remaining bottles were empty.

Chris (hubby) and I bought 2 bottles of wine.  One that we had tried in the tasting and one of Chris' old favorites.  Nicole & Rich bought the rest:

Afterwards, we went down the street to a pub for supper and some more drinks.  The evening was a lot of fun and I'd love to do this again!