Today we woke up early in Jasper and decided that we wanted to head south and be passing banff by the lat emorning. Our only goal was to get to Calgary (about 2 hours east of Banff) in order to get a hotel, and take a shower and do laundry. We also had on our itinerary to stop in the city and do a quick exploration.
We headed south and retracted our steps back from where we started in Banff heading north. We stopped again at the Athabasca glacier and had coffee and a banana for a quicker start so we didn’t have to make breakfast or coffee in the am. we hit the road around 7 to get there on time. After enjoying the amazing views once again of the Athabasca glacier we continued south and didn’t stop with the exception of coffee and donuts in Banff, at our new found guilty pleasure….Tim Hortons. I discovered how good their french vanilla coffee was and I must say if you’re ever traveling in Canada I highly recommend checking their product out. absolutely amazing.
Once we left that location in Banff we headed eastward to Calgary. I was very surprised to find that only 30 minutes east of Banff was almost perfectly flat farmland for the entire drive to Calgary. I did hear before this trip that it was the largest rodeo event venue int he world every year so I knew that going into it. As we approached the city I remembered that act as I saw that rodeo stadiums and the farmland. We had a reservation just outside of the city center at a budget hotel for a decent price of $60. The good things about this hotel was that they had laundry included in the amenities and it saved us a few dollars to be able to clean our clothes. Once we checked in and started the laundry we headed out to the downtown area of the city. I can’t recall if the rodeo was going there at the time but what I can recall is that the city was dead. I remember walking in the downtown area and seeing only 2 cars driving the whole time. It was literal ghost town not he roads. The rodeo would explain the lack of commerce.
Me and Ashley decided to get a beer at a local brewery called…. and we loved every bit of it. I tried many beers and once again hanks to canadian hospitality and cordiality I was given a few samples of beers for free. We decided to take this night easy and eat wings there. This was our dinner and we went back to the hotel to pack our clean clothes and get ready for a new wave of adventure of travel the coming week.
EXPENSES
59.99 hotel
13.89 aw root beer dinner
10.48 beer
8.50 coffee
22.71 gas
22.16 gas
45 dinner
45 drinks
8 laundry
12 beer
Total – 247.73