HOLIDAY IN BANFF

much to be thankful for!

Thursday morning Ted and I loaded up the car and drove to Banff, AB. The drive takes about 5 hours and is beautiful. It's only about an hour to the Canadian border (Port of Roosville) and then most of the drive goes through British Columbia. It's a lovely drive and very beautiful. We met up with our friends Erik and Krista, pictured below.
En route, we experienced some of the finer things Canada has to offer, like Tim Hortons:

and coffee crisps and dill pickle potato chips:

When we first arrived, I headed straight for the spa. The spa at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel is incredible. Mineral pools, hot tubs, waterfall hottubs, sauna, smelly sauna, steam room, tea, fruit etc. I had a nice massage too -- although I don't think I have enough stress in my life to justify the luxury. We had cheese fondue for our Thanksgiving meal and went bowling. I'll leave the bowling pictures out.

Our room was very nice, and below is the view outside our window when we woke up Friday morning:

One of the best parts of our trip to Banff was that Banfassador extraordinaire, Leslie, took me on a running tour of this amazin area. She is in the picture below. First, a word about Leslie. She is awesome. She is such a neat person and I hope to return and spend more time with her. And meet her husband. I really just can't get over what a warm, funny, cool chica she is, and how nice it was of her to take me on the Banfftrailtrash tour in 3 hours or less. Anyhow, I think she's just swell.

I took a lot of pictures but they didn't all turn out as awesome as it looked. Leslie above is looking at the frozen falls.

Above is our hotel, seen from the other side of the river which I believe is the Bow River. The Valley is the Bow Valley.

Isn't Banff beautious?

Here I am, happy as a clam. I think I was in heaven.

Leslie looks towards Banff in the valley below (above).

Blurry shot of us post-run in the lobby of the hotel. My hair froze solid into pippy-longstocking like chunks. Pretty funny.

That night we went to the German restaurant and I enjoyed braised cabbage, sauerkraut and spaetzle. Mmmmmm. And beer.

Those beers were big!

I was just looking for an earring, I swear.

Anyhow, it was an awesome trip. The rest of my pictures are here

We definitely have much to be thankful for. Life here is just wonderful. It's our 2 year anniversary basically of our new life and it just gets better and better. I'm thankful for new friends and even newer friends. I miss and love my old friends and family too and am thankful for their support in our lives. Life is good!

BE VERY AFRAID!!!

Another photo lifted from the Crossfit blog (http://crossfitflathead.blogspot.com) Coach Buf took the photo. This was tougher than it probably looks. We had to flip these darn tires as part of our workout on Saturday. In other news, we've had such warmish and lovely weather. The group ran this morning and we had no fewer than 7 dogs in the mix. Tom took a picture and I will post it if he sends it to me. I think I need to show him how to upload photos to a computer :-)

WE'RE GOING TO CANADA EH?

I'm very excited to report that we're going to Banff for Thanksgiving. Erik and Krista were planning to go and they invited us to join them (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) The best part is that we're going to stay in Leslie and Keith's cottage while we're there (pictured below). Their servants will give Krista and me massages and serve us cheese fondue and bartend all the while. I'm so excited. I'd be interested in any suggestions for short-ish adventures that can be had before the rest of my gang awakens. And I'd be interested in a run-in with the local (trail) trash eh. I love vacations! Yay us!

Oh, do I need bear spray in Banff? I wonder if I can even bring it across the border??? I wonder how much snow there will be? I could bring my snowshoes. Oh joy I'm so excited.

CROSSFIT

(photo by Buf, shamelessly lifted from crossfit blog)

Normally, when the workout for the next morning is something along the lines of "row 5k" I skip the workout and run instead. Last night I forgot to check the crossfitflathead blog and failed to see that "row 5k" was on the menu. Ugh. Can you see how much I was not loving it in this picture? I sucked at it too. I was the last to finish and finally floated to the dock in 24:xx -- even now I could run faster than that. Despite all this whining, the truth is the workout was excellent crosstraining and I secretly enjoy it. . . in hindsight. Crossfit is really good for me I think, both physically and mentally. There are things in life other than running. It makes me stronger. It reminds me that I have to work hard at athletic stuff to avoid embarassing myself.

And maybe when tricked into doing stuff that isn't running I might not mind it all that much.

SUNDAYS
are the best, wouldn't you agree?

LATE FALL UPDATE

Today Leanne, Callie, Sonal and I braved the rainy cold and enjoyed a late season trail run in Jewel Basin. We ran on the Alpine #7 trail and enjoyed the dense fog and faint noise of gunshots in the air. I have been kind of "meh" about running the past couple of weeks, but trail running had me feeling much more "yeah" about it. It was just so nice to get out, even if we all had frozen wet fingers by the end of it.
Our neighborhood is the premiere trick-or-treating neighborhood in Kalispell, so this year we made sure we wouldn't run out of candy and we dressed for the occassion. Below is Ted, who seemed to truly disturb the parents when he went to the door to hand out candy.
And below is me, in my outfit that doesn't quite qualify as a costume but isn't what I normally wear around the house (complete with Moeben sleeves to keep warm):
I am waiting for snow. I am very ready to get out on my XC skis and snowshoes and even my new/old alpine skis. I'm also enjoying learning to box in Crossfit. I've learnd 1,2,3 and 4. Oh, jab, something else, left hook and right hook. Who knew it was so fun to wear big gloves and punch stuff!!! I'm thinking maybe I need a bag of my own :-)