Today was freaking cold. I now know what they mean when they say wind chill. I can’t say I ever thought it was a cop-out, but it kind of meant nothing to me. Until today. Oh my freaking jebus, it was cold. Apparently about -25 or so with wind chill. And tomorrow is due for a top, that’s right, a top, ladies and gents, of -26. Overnight it’s only getting down to -43, or something like that. Nothing drastic.
Today was a day of ADVENTURE!!! If you call getting hopelessly stranded with no way home an adventure (I know you do Tessa – thank goodness for your positivity!).
We left the hotel and went to the information centre to find out how to get back to Nakiska. We discovered a bus/shuttle combination, leaving in 20 minutes. However, combining my strained Achilles (yes, I’ve done it again) with OUR spatial, uh, inaccuracies, we COMPLETELY missed the bus (by 25 minutes). Fortunately we arrived in time (just) to catch a bus into Canmore, with the hope of catching a taxi back to Nakiska. This was not going to be the cheapest option, but it was what we had left.
We had lunch and did some shopping in Canmore, and then decided, as the wind tore through our puffy jackets and nearly stole my toes away, that we should call a taxi and head home.
1….2….3 taxi companies wouldn’t go out there. The fourth said they would, so we waited gleefully for the taxi. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. Then called them back, to find the taxi driver had changed his mind. What a caring, understand, nineties type. Okay…ADVENTURE!!! What the frick are we doing??
Snuffy made some more phone calls and booked a hire car. It’s okay, he tells me, it’s just in Bear St, just down from Banff Ave……which is in Banff, not Canmore. Sigh. Back to the phone.
Eventually we got a hire car in Canmore, but we had to walk for about ½ hr in the freaking cold – I have NEVER been so cold in my life. Falls Creek is in the tropics compared to what was going on over here. And I had bought a proper jacket. Even Andrew said he was unbelievably cold. I think you would have loved it Spunk.
ADVENTURE!!!!
But it all ended well, thanks to the lovely lady in the post office who let Andrew use their phone free of charge (the pay phone ate a lot of our money!) and the lovely Budget guy who drove from Banff to get us the car. I have finally thawed and am looking forward to a toasty, toasty, toasty hot shower.
I am heading to Quebec City on Wednesday and probably won’t post till then. Hope you are all doing well and are considerably warmer than us.
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