Apparently, seeing Canada once wasn’t enough.
Or twice, technically.
My first trip to Canada was way back in eighth grade when I went to Toronto with roughly $100 to my name and considerably less life experience. Decades later, I finally returned with a trip to Calgary and Banff, which I covered in Oh Canada, Part One.
That trip gave me Canadian beer, poutine, hockey in a Canadian sports bar, the Calgary Tower, downtown murals, the Banff Gondola, snow-covered mountains, and frozen lakes.
It was fantastic.
There was just one problem.
Banff was still frozen.
Don’t get me wrong. The Canadian Rockies covered in snow were absolutely incredible. Lake Louise frozen solid and surrounded by snow-covered mountains looked like something straight off a postcard.
But while standing there staring across all that ice, another thought entered my head:
I need to see what this place looks like when it’s actually a lake.
And because I’m apparently incapable of wondering about something and then simply moving on with my life, less than two months later I was headed back to Canada.
Welcome to Oh Canada, Part Two.
Wait… Didn’t You Just Go to Canada?
Yes.
Yes, I did.
There are thousands of places in the world I haven’t visited once, yet somehow Banff convinced me to visit twice within the span of a couple of months.
That should tell you something about Banff.
Or something about my ability to make responsible travel decisions.
Probably both.
This trip was going to be a little different, though.
For starters, I wasn’t traveling solo.
I brought my then-girlfriend along, who had sat at home during my previous Canadian adventure while I wandered around Calgary and Banff drinking beer, eating poutine, taking way too many pictures, and generally doing whatever I wanted.
I’m usually single, so this was one of those rare moments in history when a woman had actually put up with me for longer than a few months.
But I digress.
Nobody came to Maybe A Weekend for updates on my dating life.
You’re here for mountains, questionable travel decisions, food, drinks, and pictures of ridiculously blue water.
So, back to Canada.
Calgary: A Little Familiar, A Little New
Returning to Calgary so soon created an unusual travel experience for me.
I actually knew where some things were.
Normally, arriving in a city means staring at Google Maps, figuring out public transportation, walking confidently in the wrong direction for several blocks, and eventually pretending that was where I intended to go anyway.
This time, Calgary already felt a little familiar.
We returned to several of the restaurants and bars I’d discovered on my previous trip. Part of that was because I already knew they were good, and part of it was getting to introduce someone else to places I’d found while wandering around on my own.
There’s something satisfying about walking into a restaurant in another country and being able to say:
“I’ve been here before. Trust me.”
Of course, repeating my entire previous trip would have defeated the purpose.
There were still plenty of restaurants, bars, breweries, and other places I’d walked past the first time and thought:
“I’ll have to check that out next time.”
Apparently, “next time” meant about six weeks later.
So we mixed the familiar with the new.
Go back to the place where you already know the beer is good.
Try the restaurant you skipped last time.
Order something you’ve never had.
Walk down a street you didn’t explore before.
And because this was Canada, there was always another Canadian beer somewhere that required additional research.
Strictly for the blog, obviously.
A Botanical Garden… in a Mall?
Not every adventure involved mountains, turquoise lakes, beer, and poutine.
We also spent some time exploring one of Calgary’s local malls.
Now, I realize that saying, “I traveled internationally and went to a mall,” isn’t exactly the type of sentence that inspires people to book a plane ticket.
I’ve been to malls before.
We have those back home.
But this particular mall had something I definitely don’t see every day:
A botanical garden inside of it.
So naturally, we had to explore.
There’s something slightly surreal about wandering through a shopping center and suddenly finding yourself surrounded by plants, flowers, greenery, and water features. One minute you’re walking past stores and restaurants, and the next you’re standing in a little indoor oasis hidden in the middle of downtown.
It was another reminder of why I don’t like scheduling every minute of a trip.
Sometimes the memorable places aren’t the famous landmarks you traveled hundreds of miles to see.
Sometimes you wander into a mall and find a botanical garden.
Adventure comes in many forms.
Calgary Tower: Round Two
Since this trip was becoming a combination of “let’s try something new” and “hey, I liked this last time,” another trip up the Calgary Tower was inevitable.
I’d already made the trip to the top during my previous visit, but this time I had someone with me who hadn’t experienced it.
And really, getting a bird’s-eye view of Calgary doesn’t suddenly become boring because you did it a few weeks earlier.
So, up we went.
The interesting part about returning so quickly was that I actually recognized some of what I was looking at this time.
Instead of staring down at a completely unfamiliar city, I could spot streets I’d walked, places I’d visited, and sections of Calgary that had somehow become familiar after only two trips.
And then there was the glass floor.
I’m perfectly capable of understanding that it was engineered to safely hold people.
My brain understands this.
My feet occasionally have a different opinion.
But that’s part of the fun.
Wandering Stephen Avenue
We also spent time exploring Stephen Avenue Walk, which perfectly fits my preferred travel strategy:
Pick a direction and see what happens.
Historic buildings mixed with modern Calgary, restaurants and bars provided plenty of opportunities for distractions, and there was always something interesting enough to make me stop and pull out the camera.
Frequently.
This wasn’t about racing toward another attraction or checking boxes off an itinerary.
It was just exploring.
Naturally, with all those restaurants, patios, and bars around, walking eventually led to the familiar vacation question:
“Should we stop somewhere for a drink?”
The answer is almost always yes.
Back to Banff
Then came the real reason I’d returned to Canada so quickly.
Another trip to Banff.
Yes.
Another one.
At this point, Calgary was basically becoming my base camp for repeatedly finding excuses to head into the Canadian Rockies.
But this was the moment I’d been waiting for.
Remember the previous trip?
Snow everywhere.
Frozen lakes.
Lake Louise looking like one giant sheet of white surrounded by mountains.
Beautiful?
Absolutely.
But there was one fairly important thing missing.
The water.
Well…
Surprise, surprise. Look at that water.
There it was.
That ridiculous turquoise-blue Canadian Rockies water I’d seen in photographs for years.
The kind of water that makes you look at the back of your camera and wonder whether somebody secretly cranked the saturation slider to 100.
Nope.
It actually looks like that.
Banff Had Come Alive
The water wasn’t the only dramatic change.
Everything that had been buried beneath snow during my previous trip was suddenly green, lush, and flowering.
It was almost hard to believe I was standing in the same place I’d photographed only weeks earlier.
Spring comes a little later up here, and apparently once it finally gets the opportunity to arrive, it doesn’t waste any time.
There was an urgency to it.
Plants and wildflowers seemed to be making up for lost time, exploding out of a landscape that had been covered in snow during my last visit. Greenery filled spaces that had previously been white, flowers were blooming wherever they could, and the entire landscape seemed determined to squeeze as much life as possible into the short mountain growing season.
It was nature saying:
“Okay, snow’s gone. GO! GO! GO!”
The first trip had been quiet, white, frozen, and dramatic.
This time Banff was alive.
And naturally, the camera came out.
A lot.
I already have a weakness for photographing bodies of water, so combining turquoise lakes, green forests, wildflowers, and the Canadian Rockies was basically unfair.
Mountain? Photo.
Lake? Photo.
Wildflowers? Photo.
Mountain reflected in a lake surrounded by wildflowers? I’m going to be here for a while.
Same scene from three feet to the left because maybe the composition is slightly better? Obviously another photo.
I’ve been carrying a camera around for more than twenty years, but places like Banff remind me why I started doing it in the first place.
Sometimes you don’t need some complicated artistic concept.
Sometimes the world just looks really damn good and you want to remember it.
Lake Louise: Take Two
Of course, I had to return to Lake Louise.
My first visit gave me the frozen version.
This time I finally got to see the version I’d seen in travel photographs for years.
Mountains rising behind the lake.
Trees lining the shoreline.
That unmistakable turquoise water stretching out in front of me.
After seeing it both ways, I’m honestly not sure I could pick a favorite.
Frozen Lake Louise feels quiet, dramatic, and almost otherworldly.
Summer Lake Louise feels alive.
Same mountains.
Same lake.
Completely different world.
And now that I’ve seen Banff frozen and Banff exploding into summer, surely I’m satisfied and don’t need to come back during another season.
Right?
Right?!
And Then We Got a Flat Tire
After another fantastic day in Banff, it was time to head back toward Calgary.
Or at least that was the plan.
Somewhere along the way, our tour van decided the day had been going entirely too smoothly and developed a flat tire.
Well, that’s inconvenient.
Fortunately, we weren’t stranded on the side of some remote mountain road contemplating whether Canadian wildlife could smell fear.
We made it to the nearest Tim Hortons, where our group settled in while someone came to rescue us.
Honestly, if you’re going to be temporarily stranded in Canada, a Tim Hortons isn’t exactly the worst possible outcome.
Coffee.
Food.
Bathrooms.
Chairs.
Civilization.
There are considerably worse places to contemplate your transportation problems.
Eventually, rescue arrived and we continued back to Calgary.
At the time, the whole thing felt like an annoying little travel mishap.
“Remember when our tour van got a flat tire in Canada and we got stranded at Tim Hortons?”
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
Looking back now, however, that little delay really wasn’t that bad.
Compared with what the future had waiting for us…
That flat tire was going to seem downright pleasant.
Back to Exploring Calgary
Despite our unexpected Tim Hortons intermission, we made it back to Calgary.
The next morning, we were right back at it.
One of the advantages of returning to a city is that the pressure to hit all the obvious attractions starts to disappear. I’d already done some of the big-ticket sightseeing, so we could wander a little more and see what else Calgary had to offer.
That included exploring Calgary’s Chinatown.
It was another side of the city I hadn’t experienced during my previous visit and exactly the type of neighborhood I enjoy finding while traveling.
We walked around, checked out the architecture and businesses, and naturally kept an eye open for somewhere interesting to eat.
Because sightseeing is great and all, but eventually sightseeing becomes:
“I’m hungry. What’s around here?”
This second Calgary trip had become a nice mixture of old and new.
Familiar enough that I wasn’t starting from zero.
Different enough that it still felt like an adventure.
And after the previous day’s transportation hiccup, it was nice to simply be walking around and enjoying Calgary again.
Everything was back on schedule.
For the moment.
And Then Came the Last Day…
After several days of exploring Calgary, returning to Banff, staring at ridiculously blue water, eating, drinking, wandering around Chinatown, and surviving our little flat-tire adventure, there was only one thing left to do.
Fly home.
Simple, right?
Pack the bags.
Head to the airport.
Board the plane.
Fly home.
End of trip.
Except…
Nope.
Remember that flat tire I said wouldn’t seem so bad in hindsight?
Welcome to hindsight.
Our flight home was canceled as a mechanics strike hit the largest airline operating out of Calgary, throwing travel plans into absolute chaos.
Suddenly our relaxing final day became considerably less relaxing.
There was confusion.
There were crowds.
There were long waits.
There were phone calls.
There was waiting on hold during those phone calls.
There were more phone calls because the previous phone calls hadn’t actually solved anything.
And naturally…
There was more chaos.
Instead of sitting comfortably on an airplane heading home, we were trying to answer a considerably more important question:
How exactly are we getting out of Canada?
At first, you’re optimistic.
“They’ll get us on another flight.”
Then some time passes.
“Okay… maybe they’ll get us on another flight tomorrow.”
Then you spend enough time on hold with the airline that you begin developing an emotional attachment to their hold music.
Eventually, we realized we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
So we headed back to a hotel.
Again.
Bags came with us. Travel plans went out the window. Instead of unpacking at home that evening, we were sitting in another Calgary hotel room trying to regroup.
The vacation was technically supposed to be over.
Canada, however, apparently wasn’t finished with us yet.
“So… Funny Story. I’m Still in Canada.”
There was another slight complication.
I was supposed to be at work the next day.
When I’d planned this trip, I had done the responsible adult thing.
Vacation scheduled.
Flights booked.
Return home.
Go back to work.
Nice and simple.
The mechanics strike apparently hadn’t received a copy of my itinerary.
So instead of returning to the office, I was sitting in a Calgary hotel room with my laptop, a suitcase full of dirty vacation clothes, and absolutely no idea when I was getting back to the United States.
Time for an awkward conversation with the boss.
“So… funny story. I’m still in Canada.”
Fortunately, I convinced my boss to let me work remotely while we figured out our next move.
It wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined extending my Canadian vacation, but at least I could keep up with work while simultaneously trying to solve the increasingly complicated problem of getting home.
My then-girlfriend wasn’t quite as lucky.
Her job didn’t really have a “temporarily stranded in another country because the airline canceled our flight” remote-work option.
She just had to call in.
Now the disruption wasn’t only costing us extra hotel nights and creating transportation headaches.
It was interfering with work.
So there I was the next morning.
Technically no longer on vacation.
Technically back at work.
Physically still in Canada.
Mentally somewhere between “we’ll figure this out” and “seriously, how are we getting home?”
My laptop was open, my workday had started, and somewhere between emails and meetings I was also researching our escape from Canada.
Four Nights Became Eight Days
The original plan was a quick four-night trip.
Fly into Calgary.
Revisit some favorites.
Explore some new places.
Head back to Banff.
Look at ridiculously blue water.
Take entirely too many pictures.
Eat.
Drink.
Fly home.
Simple.
Instead, thanks to a mechanics strike, a canceled flight, overwhelmed airline phone lines, extra hotel nights, and the increasingly complicated challenge of finding another way home, our four-night getaway eventually stretched into an eight-day Canadian adventure.
Double the vacation!
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the fun kind of vacation extension where you look at each other over breakfast and say:
“You know what? Let’s stay a few more days.”
It was more:
“Well… apparently we live in Calgary now.”
By this point, I’d gone from tourist to temporary international remote worker.
My then-girlfriend had gone from vacation time to calling out of work.
And both of us had gone from casually exploring Calgary to treating getting back to the United States like a logistical puzzle.
Apparently Canada appreciated my enthusiasm for returning so quickly.
It just wasn’t ready to let me leave.
The Best-Laid Plans…
Before the mandatory Canadian extension, this really was a great trip.
We ate and drank our way through familiar places and new ones. We wandered around Calgary, explored Stephen Avenue and Chinatown, visited the botanical garden, went back up the Calgary Tower, and returned to Banff to discover that the snowy landscape I’d seen only weeks earlier had exploded into green, flowers, and some of the most ridiculously beautiful water I’ve ever photographed.
Then life did what life occasionally does.
It completely ignored the plan.
That’s life sometimes.
Truly unpredictable.
You can make reservations.
You can build itineraries.
You can schedule vacation time.
You can buy plane tickets and carefully plan exactly when you’re supposed to be home.
And then the universe looks at your beautifully organized little plan and says:
“That’s cute.”
The best-laid plans can be ripped apart without warning, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do except pick up the pieces and start putting together a new plan.
Fortunately, I’m pretty good at that.
Travel plans, anyway.
Relationships?
Historically, not so much.
But that’s a completely different blog, and nobody came here for that.
At Least I Had More Than $100 This Time
There is one other thing I have to appreciate about this whole adventure.
My first trip to Canada had been that eighth-grade trip to Toronto when I had roughly $100 to my name.
Decades later, Canada stranded me for several extra days, and thankfully I was in a much better position to deal with it.
Extra hotel?
We’ll figure it out.
Extra meals?
Okay.
Transportation?
We’ll figure that out too.
Unexpectedly working from a Canadian hotel room while trying to engineer an escape back to the United States?
Apparently that’s something I do now.
Maybe that’s one of the quieter benefits of getting older.
The unexpected still happens.
Plans still fall apart.
You still occasionally find yourself sitting in another country thinking:
“Well, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
But you’ve got a little more experience, hopefully a little more than $100 in the bank, and enough confidence to know that somehow you’ll piece things back together.
And eventually, we did.
Oh Canada…
So Oh Canada, Part Two didn’t exactly end the way I’d planned.
But then again, some of the best travel stories don’t.
I returned expecting four nights of familiar places, new adventures, mountains, food, drinks, photography, and finally seeing those famous turquoise lakes without a sheet of ice covering them.
I got all of that.
I also got a flat tire, an unexpected visit to Tim Hortons, a mechanics strike, a canceled flight, four bonus days in Canada, remote work from a Calgary hotel, and another reminder that travel—and life—doesn’t particularly care about your itinerary.
Would I visit Canada again?
Absolutely.
Would I prefer the airline actually bring me home on the day printed on my ticket?
Also absolutely.
And as for bringing a girlfriend along on the next adventure?
Well, considering my track record…
Maybe there’s something to be said for returning to what I know best.
Solo travel.
No coordinating schedules.
No relationship drama.
No explaining why I need another picture of the exact same mountain.
Just me, my camera, a boarding pass, and whatever questionable travel decision comes next.
So here’s a cheer for solo travel!
Because apparently I can piece together a completely destroyed international travel itinerary better than I can piece together a relationship.
And after all, this blog is called Maybe A Weekend.
Sometimes it’s a weekend.
Sometimes it’s four nights.
Sometimes the airline decides it’s eight days.
Either way…
Adventure!!!
