Well this is my first update in quite a while, and it's certainly been an interesting few weeks.
The Christmas/ New Year period was a rather messy affair, as I presume most peoples were. Following this I tried to start the new year by doing something charitable. So when an ad came up on one of the local facebook groups to puppy sit, I thought, BOOM! This is my kind of charity giving.
As you can see from the picture I think I enjoyed it more than the pup, but we had a lovely day going for a walk up one of the local hills and to the dog park. I suppose this was a great test to see how much I want a dog, it's been one of those things that has been playing on my mind. Worryingly close to the thought around the whole "settling down"thing.. not yet though! But yes, the dream once I'm back, get myself sorted career-wise, get a house, get a pooch/ a paddock with a mini horse. If there's a girl in the mix then great but at the moment I can't see that happening haha.
I should also point out that my birthday was great. Ski'd in the morning, got drunk at Apres and then went for a lovely meal in the evening. So yeah, I'm feeling my age now.
A few days back I managed to squeeze in wee break to Calgary and it was great to get out of the Banff bubble. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but it can get a bit much. So meeting up with Chris and having the afternoon chilling and catching up on his travels around India was brilliant. The picture below was from a walk along the river.
So what adventurous things have I been up to?? Well, more skiing obviously, and it's really coming along which I'm pleased about. Still being shown up by children, but I can now say the black runs are no trouble, and even some of the black diamonds were a breeze. So I can't be that bad.
(Insert picture of me on a mountain.. )
Other than that, we headed out to Abraham Lake, a vast frozen lake that has some pretty cool bubbles frozen in it. But the most hilarious thing was trying to get the car we had up and out from the lake where people who had 4x4s were cruising up, well the rear heavy Dodge grand caravan just wouldn't make it. After 10 attempts we started to think whether we would actually be able to get out. It was getting darker and we had no phone signal to call anyone. Don't get me wrong there were people there, 4 chinese tourists, but they were content in watching us from a far. So Army Al came out and I decided to chop down most of the nearby forest. I should probably mention my thought was the fern branches would improve the friction. Well it worked a dream and was enough with the help of us removing the entire contents of the car, including wooden bed frame, and one of the chinese tourists helping us push the car up whilst Anthony drove. So yeah, that was fun.
After this we hit Johnston Canyon. Absolutely stunning winter wonderland with frozen waterfalls and an awesome raised boardwalk around the canyon. You could actually see where people had been ice climbing the water falls. Definitely need to give this a go.
Back in Banff, I've started to become a pretty big deal on the local ice rink. Having mastered the art of not dying, i.e. I didn't fall over, it was pretty fun. Skating up and down, hitting the pucks and scoring was great. And I totally beat the 4 year old goalkeeper hands down. She also taught me how to play so that was a low point in my life.
Then there's more ski ski stuff. Being able to ski at 3 resorts nearby is great. The runs though at Lake Louise are my favourite. Long and fast, I'm still finding areas that I haven't ski'd before. Ever pushing my skiing ability.
I should probably mention the good bunch of chums I've made out here. I'm very lucky they put up with me, most of the time. Picture of Steph, Ryan (Jerry) and I half way up the slope. Just before we met up with more friends and hit the black Diamond where Ryan would bail halfway down.
Below is the picture from the top of the Black Diamond run. Such a nice view!!
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