Last Sunday, Paul taught me how to play Othello, which is this really simple but strategical board game, then we met Peggy and did a hike to Boom Lake. Dipped my feet in...
I had a great buffet lunch at Peggy's on Monday, after a short hike up Tunnel. We met again for a BBQ that evening...which was actually two BBQs in the same time and place. It turns out that Jade is a pretty good cook.
The Living Room organised a photo scavenger hunt around Banff on Tuesday evening - so we got a group together and turned up, finding that there was only this one other guy there. So we merged him into our group and competed against ourselves. Turns out we won...yay. A voucher for a large pizza from Aardvarks, which we enjoyed, sitting out on the bench in the dark.
Guess what we're doing here (above). I'm not going to give you any clues.
I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Paul's into off roading and stuff like that, and he wanted company/photos on this quad biking tour he was interested in, so I went with him. It was a LOT of fun. Not surprisingly, we had to drive out of the National Park to get to the place. The route went up one side of the mountain to an ancient cabin and mining area, then over the top and down to another valley, which was completely uninhabited. All the tracks were made of this lovely red dust, seeing as there was so much iron in the hills. Here I am looking as if I have a sore arm. I didn't though. I'm just very dusty.
On the way back, we stopped off at this place called Radium, because Tonya had recommended the ice-cream place there. Very rightfully. I had a very generous helping of peanut butter rolo flavour. Happy me.
We dropped in to pasta night and met Laura, Peggy, and Peggy's sister, then everyone piled into the car Paul had rented and we went up Sulphur Mountain to watch the sunset.
I met Paul and Laura, as well as a couple of her colleagues, again the next morning. Then we went up a mountain. Cascade is the one you always see at the end of Banff Avenue (apart from when it's cloudy) so it seems very familiar, but only from one angle. We met at 9am and finally finished the hike at 9:30pm. It was a long day, but I actually enjoyed nearly every bit of it. You don't really see the mountain for the first half of the way there because it's just hiking to the base of it through a forest, but when you actually get out onto the ridge and past the treeline, the views are amazing. You also have to scramble, because there's no earth. Just rock, scree, and a sharp drop for three hours.
So towards the end of the hike, it was our incentive to get some pizza and go to the hot springs. Which only Paul and I ended up actually doing. The hot springs are 40 degrees but I think the steam was actually coming from my smelly feet. When I got home, I discovered that Andrew had a portrait in Lake Louise the next morning and he'd like me to meet him at 7:30. I resigned myself to not getting much sleep. Why sleep when you've got a job like mine?
The portrait did go well, and it was worth the early morning. The light at Lake Louise was hazy and slightly red because of forest fires somewhere far away. Then after putting in some work at the studio I went home and woke up at 7:30pm.
This morning was a sad day...well, not really. My last wedding with Andrew. Probably not my last wedding, though, because John said I might be able to come with him and Toni on one. It was in Lake Louise again, outside in the sun. The bride's daughter fainted just before the end of the family portraits, because it was so hot. Then as soon as we were wanting to start the more creative stuff with the bride and groom, there was a thunderstorm. It rained buckets, and only stopped by the time we were on the road back home.
And here I am. Stay tuned for adventures in Jasper next week...
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