Birthday's, Freezing Rain and Spring?

Happy Birthday to Brina for this weekend (well it was on Monday, but we went out to Banff for a bash over the weekend to celebrate). Brina turned the big 29 (an age which I still have 4 years to reach) and we cruised Banff on Saturday with a whole host of wannabe Irish pretenders all pledging their allegience to St Paddy and putting on brave faces faking their enjoyment of their yearly pint of Guiness. The Canucks love an excuse to party, and for the non Guiness fairing folk you were able to buy a pint of regular gnats piss larger with green food colouring in - for the authentic taste of a pint of Irish Listerine.
We had aspiriations to ski and board for the weekend too, but a lazy crawl out on Saturday via the coffee shop made for a chilled out Saturday, and the rather comfortable lodging plus overcast sky on Sunday kept us in relaxed mode on the Sunday too - but a nice weekend to play the real tourist and actually just take in the town - although Brina was becoming a little weary of my regaling of tales about "when I was a lad..." as we visited many venues which brought back rather humorous (and sometimes scary) flashbacks about my earlier days in Banff (admitedly only the more tame stories were released, the others remain firmly locked away in the dark recesses of my brain - and they'll stay that way thank you very much - Until the next time I get caught unaware with a bottle of Jim Beam anyway).
We stayed up at Buffalo Mt Lodge (part of the group that own Emerald Lake lodge and Deer Lodger - we were putting a great voucher to use which Mark and Lucy sent us as a gift - many more thanks to bro and sis there!) and it was super! It's all very cosy with log fires in the rooms - although as you can see, our ability at using the fire to cook baked potatoes was somewhat poor! Those damn log fires need a timer on them or something for the hicks who decide to use them as a stove;

The place had a great hot tub which was great for star gazing from. Our camera didn't make it on the weekend (another packing calamity), but here's a shot of the serenity of what it was like when we stayed up at Emerald Lake lodge - and you'll get an idea of the ambience of the place;

You can make out what was our lodge there in the foreground - with Mt Mitchell (I think) in the background, and the world famous Burgess Shales (world famous to geologists and fossil hunters that is.... yawn, stop me before I send myself to sleep).

As for other things on the great Canadian Frontier, I had to scrape not just snow, but freezing rain from the windscreen the other morning (the car looked like it had been sat in the deep freeze for a month with the bubbled ice covering it from an overnight freezing rain storm!). How I do like to prattle on about the weather (I thought it was very British - but that would be complaining about the weather - here I just tend to talk about it in awe!). With Spring officially starting tonight, the winter decided to have one last kick of the ball before being bumped off the seasonal calendar - freezing foggy morning followed by a rather heavy, wet snowfall. Winter was making it's final call as; true to the date; by the afternoon the sun was out, temps were soaring and with Spring offically here (in a couple of hours) the forecast is sun, sun, sun with highs of 18 degrees for the weekend!!!! Great!!!!

Time to dust the shorts off,

Remember to pack the camera

Embracing the season and thinking of you all,

S&S.

p.s. I finally worked out how to put the links on this blog (on the right there) genius (not).