Sunday, September 13, 2015

More Adventures in Jasper - Start of Week 3

Moving into week 3 of our trip, we are currently all on our devices in a laundromat/public shower/coffee shop. Every day I feel blessed and grateful for this opportunity, but each day I also have a bit of frustration around the lack of space (or possibly the overload of stuff) and the challenge of doing normal things - like checking email on public internet services, something that seems so easy normally, can make me so frustrated. But again, as my husband points out to me each time, relax - its a little thing. Yes, he is correct, the internet can wait. I think I get the most frustrated because when I am away from it for so long, when I go back to it, if its not immediate I am annoyed. Another activity that I need to remember to breathe through in our "new normal" is grocery shopping. We haven't quite figured out how to make this a relaxing event. Not sure it ever will be when shopping with 4 people all wanting different things, in small packed stores (especially in a tourist town like Jasper), not to mention the unfamiliar environment on top of it all, the combination of all this makes me a little crazy, but again, we are figuring it out and maybe for future trips we will split up - two of us to the grocery, two to the liquor store - because in Canada - no wine or beer in the grocery store. 

Outside of these little quirks, we have been enjoying our time in Jasper, we found a nice campground at Whistlers area that we stayed at for about 4 days and today we will be moving on to our reserved spot for another 4 days and then we will head South the Banff and Lake Louise. We have had some amazing hikes and adventures while we have been here. We took the tram up to the top of Whistler Peak and then hiked all the way back down to the parking lot. My Garmin said the trip was a little over 10 miles, but my legs thought it felt more like 20! The next day we did an easier hike around Maligne Canyon, which in my opinion was absolutely gorgeous! The waterfalls and small pools all along the trail were beautiful to look at and I took more photos I know what to do with. 

  



After 2 days of hiking we took a little break and spent the next day at the Fairmont Jasper Lodge. I had been wanting to get some yoga in and I found a flyer that mentioned the Fairmont had classes throughout the week. Saturday morning we all made our way over to the lodge, while I took my yoga class and enjoyed the steam room, sauna and an amazing shower, the girls and Andrew had some coffee, hot cocoa and took a walk around the lake. After lunch on the deck of the Fairmont, Andrew stayed in the lobby and got some work done (using more public wifi), while the girls and I went horseback riding at the near by Jasper Park Stables. After our ride, we still weren’t ready to call it a day and hadn’t felt like we did EVERYTHING possible at the resort, so we rented a canoe and paddled around the lake for an hour. It was a lovely day and we really felt like we were spoiling ourselves at the luxury hotel. Next stop was the grocery store, as I described above and then back to the campsite for some school work, dinner and evening fire. The girls had some visitors (aka, elk in the campground) during our school work, which makes things a little more exciting. Although, Nadia gets a little freaked out when the male or buck comes around. There are tons of signs and advertisements around town about staying away from the buck and never coming between the buck and the females, so after a run in with the elk at the playground the girls are more aware of their surroundings and make sure that they need to stay far away. 





5 comments:

  1. More sunshine=more smiles😘 looks absolutely beautiful. Miss you all.

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  2. Love reading about all your adventures!

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  3. This is a memory- making treat for your family! such fun and beautiful countries! Seina and Nadia will cherish these experiences! Our friends Ginny and Darden are in Banff today and Lake Louise tomorrow!!!

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  4. Yay!!! You will settle in.... I will say that somewhere around the 3 - 4 week mark of our months away it hit that we weren't going home for a long time. We all found it challenging I think to come to terms with that and it took a bit to reset ourselves at that point. I had some crazy moments of trying to regain control and wish that I had a routine again, the kids were a bit bonkers, we all started to grate on each other a little, and I started to notice all the annoying things about being away from home. It definitely took some time to adjust and just soak it all in as a fascinating experiment. It definitely helped to fill every 4th day or so with a whole lot of NOTHING. Like seriously, we went no where and just chilled- all day- at a park or over legos with no agenda. Miles seemed to need this the most. Those days became really important to make sure the adventuring days were appreciated and more fun. Hang loose and soak it in-- love reading these!!!!!

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  5. Do I detect an airstream in your near future? ;) Wondering where you are now, started the daytime series today and it was a bummer not to have my lunch pal with me! More later..

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