Banff & Jasper National Parks

Emily and I woke up at 6:00 AM, so not too early for a trip. We got loaded with 1 big suitcase, 2 carry on suitcases and 2 hiking backpacks and hit the road by 6:35 AM. We arrived at Eco 2 at Bush International Airport a little after 7:15. We checked the big suitcase, grabbed some Einstein Bagels and was at our gate with 45 minutes to spare before our 9:15 AM flight. We had a nice direct flight to Calgary on United 2393 and landed at 12:35 PM Calgary (mountain) time. We made it through customs in Calgary fine and was surprised by Enterprise with an upgrade from our standard car to a small SUV, a Kia Sportage which turned out to be huge! We talked with a nice older couple from Santa Barbra in the line at Enterprise. The wife was from Calgary and they were in town to visit her mother who was 102 or so. A nice start to the trip!

We met up with Em's brother, Scott at about 2:00 PM at an outdoors store called MEC. It was about a 20 minute walk from the hotel Scott got us so he walked there. We picked up bear spray, gloves and hand warmers (which came in handy later!). The three of us then drove to the Marriott Downtown Calgary where Scott used points to get us a room. We valeted the car and got settled into the room.

We went for a walk through downtown Calgary and decided to eat at Briggs. This was our first experience with poutine and it had lobster! The food and drinks were very good. We ate early (since none of us have had lunch), so we went to a bar called Bank & Barron for drinks after we ate. It was actually in an old bank building that was really cool! Such a neat place for a bar! We when walked around downtown and Scott showed us some of the sights he saw the day before (as Scott flew in on Wednesday). We did this until it got dark and then had dessert at the M Club in the Marriott, that Scott could access since he was a gold member at Marriott. We finished the night watching the Texans and Bengals play Thursday night football.

Safe Travels,
B&E

To Day 2