On My Way Home

My holiday is coming to an end & I'm a little sad to report that I'll be home late tonight. Banff is absolutely beautiful. I would love to stay for another week & keep hiking, swimming in the (cold!) lakes & harvesting freckles. My shoulders are covered with freckles! Much more becoming than the red mosquito bites on my legs.

As far as family vacations go, this has been the best one yet. No fights at all even with all the stress of a big wedding, lots of very different people with very different agendas to accommodate & a screaming 2 year old (my nephew). I ended up staying a few days longer than I had planned & shared a condo with my sister's family. I don't get to see her very often & when I do, it's usually with the entire family around which makes any real conversations rather limited - just too much noise & general activity when everyone gets together.

My thought process went like this: I know I really can't afford to take a holiday right now & it's the worst possible time with the amount of things I should've gotten done weeks ago, BUT I'm already here & I have no idea when I'll be back to Banff or get to see my sister again. I'll still be broke & way behind 3 days from now, but at least I'll have had 3 days of really exploring the mountains & spending time with my family. It has been wonderful! We drove up to Lake Louise & did the glacier hike. I took Piggy & Kiero out to the Lake Minnewankwa area & actually swam in the glacier fed lake. We even did a geocache hike into Sundance Canyon. So much fun! The first few days of the vacation were all family stuff so we ended up doing things like hanging around the condo & visiting, shopping & eating at really boring places (like Boston Pizza, twice) because that was what was easiest when you're dealing with so many people plus little kids. But my idea of a holiday is not shopping at stores I have back home or eating at chain restaurants that I have back home. *yawn* Being in a place with such incredible natural beauty & having the only physical activity be shopping or sitting in a hot tub? Lame. My sister & her family have a 14 hour drive & then are back to work on Monday morning, but she felt the same way as I did & so we agreed to stay a couple of extra days. It was well worth it.

I didn't take too many pictures, but I did get some cute ones when I snuck off to the lake with the dogs while everybody else was golfing. I like to golf, but for $189, I'd rather do twilight & the driving range a bunch of times at some of the local courses back home versus a single round up here. I'll be back soon & will post photos!