Farnsniente

The Jehovah Witnesses were out in force.

Can I get a witness!

—

in
📍 Banff Spring, Alberta

Photos

Trip index

Summary

Pretty half-mile walk into town over the Bow River. “Downtown” Banff is just about three blocks long and two blocks wide so pretty easy to explore. There were tons of people out, many, we discovered, were Jehovah’s Witnesses visiting from their international convention in Calgary. Had a nice lunch on the terrace of at Coyote and then headed to the laundromat. We had planned to do our laundry ourselves but it wasn’t very expensive to have them do it so so that freed up a couple of hours. We used them to explore the beautiful Cascades of Time gardens at the Banff Park Administration building. Our dinner at Bluebird was an excellent Caesar salad and a disappointing cheese fondue.

Details

Today’s a quiet day. We’re not being dragged anywhere to see anything. We’re not checking in or out. We’re not relocating to a different city or hotel. Just enjoy Banff. 

Since we’re still ‘officially’ on our train tour (though our last train was days ago) we’re staying in a nice hotel and breakfast is included. It’s a bit over the top, with so much fruit and smoked salmon, cheeses and meats. Lots of coffee. It’s well attended and three strapping youths, apparently from Italy, catch my eye. What are they doing here alone? Another gentleman chats with them, asking about their plans for the day. The whole thing seemed odd to me. Later, in our room, we hear someone singing in Italian. Bizarre. 

Post breakfast we hang in the room until closer to lunch. We do want to get some walking in and check out the town. We’ve been on the road now for a couple of weeks and are scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to clean clothes. We load up all our dirty clothes into a couple of cloth/resuable grocery sacks and partially into Karen’s backpack. I’m pretty much cleaning everything I brought, minus what I’m wearing. Karen doesn’t want to overload the washer and so just adds a few things. Hm. 

We walk into town, it’s just over a mile. We window shop, carrying our laundry bags, and stop into a couple of shops looking for shoelaces. My dress shoelaces from my fancy Sketchers broke. Lots of stores carry shoes and hiking boots. Precious few stores carry any shoelaces. The one that we found that does carry shoelaces didn’t have the combination of length/color/style that I want. We mentioned that our next stop is Ottawa and the young men behind the counter said he used to work at a place in Ottawa that sells sporting goods and lots of shoelaces. He wrote down the name and address (and his name). If we get there his friends there will have a good laugh. 

Walking down the street we see lots and lots of people with lanyards and name tags. As each encounters the next they stop and say hello and exchange pins or some other trinket. The lanyards have buttons and pins pinned to them up one side and down the other. This is a big deal. From what I can read on the name tags, as we walk past, is something about an international gathering. I stop a couple with the lanyards and ask what this is all about. It’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses International Meeting. Say no more, say no more. (please)

We sit outside with our bags of laundry at a Mexican place for lunch. We don’t really have Mexican food, but it’s fine and healthy. Afterwards we head to the Coin Laundromat two blocks over. Karen’s concerned that given that names we’re going to need change (loonies and twonies). I politely inform her that she’s crazy, they’ll take plastic. Not only do they take plastic but they’re wash, dry and fold the laundry for you. Sold! $30 sounds like a lot but in US dollars it’s only $20 and it gives us many hours back to be tourists. 

We wander more through town and buy me a shirt at the Columbia store. 40% off and then the Canada-US currency advantage. We briefly watch a dance down in full costume by a First Nations gentleman. Dancing with him is a two year old girl, also in costume, just running around, stealing the show. We visit an old town building where they’ve planted lots of flowers over their extensive grounds. There’s lots of grounds and lots of plantings and the flowers seemingly couldn’t be happier to be there. Karen exclaims that she’s never seen French hollyhocks that tall. All the colors are brilliant in the midday sun. The temp is a lovely 74 degrees but it feels warmer. 

After more room hanging we venture out again, this time by the bus (free to us courtesy of the hotel) and are downtown in no time. We pick up our laundry, clean and expertly folded, and head to dinner. We eat at the Bluebird Steakhouse and Fondue Place, or some such name. It’s busy but we have a reservation. We’d been slated to sit at the bar (not by choice) but they said we could sit at a table if we promise not to be there any longer than two hours. (Who stays at a restaurant for more than two hours?)

The caesar salad we have is excellent, as is the wine. The fondue we have is OK, not great. The more we have alpine cheese dishes the more we find that we make the best ones at home. 

Photos

You can’t miss the garbage cans. They’re bear-proof. You have to have your paws, er, palms skyward and apparently that’s something bears aren’t able to do.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses were in town in number. 23,000 in Calgary for an International Convention with 3,000 from overseas, and many (most) were on a day trip here to Banff. They were walking down the street exchanging pins highlighting frow here they are visiting.
The green and red lights are for the cars. The pedestrians have their own turn in the light cycle. When it’s our turn we can go across either way or even diagonally.
At the grocery store Karen replenishes her supply of protein bars, jerky, and other protein things. We had fun looking around at all of the brands we didn’t recognize.
I had to read this sign a few times to understand what it was trying to tell me. If I translate to American it says “This lane is closed, loser, get out of here!”, but of course it’s in the more polite Canadian phrasiology.
The Park Service had arranged a demonstration of some First Nations dancers.
Karen was interested in the flavors of beavertails. It’s essentially sugar, sugar and more sugar.
The Cascades of Time Gardens at the Banff Park Admin building.
We tour the planted areas (of which there were lots). Karen was amazed at the height of some of the flowers.
Happy blooms.
We got a good sized refund of what we paid for the “train trip” since we only got to ride the rails one day instead of two. Our credit is usable again up here in Canada OR down in the US. Cool!
Bear spray is useful in particular situations. On others (elevators, cars, buses, planes, gondolas, etc. etc.) they’re very skiddish about bear spray. It goes off by accident more often than people would like. In many situations you’re required to have it in a sealed plastic bag or taped to the exterior of the vehicle. Apparently it is very effective, on both people and bears.