...Life's a beach.

So when we woke up in the morning, we had breakfast with a few of Dan's friends. He bought us to this cafe/bistro where they served cinnamon milk. Dan was really amazed by it. I just thought it was, "meh".

The plan for the day was to head to the beach. I was already a bit burnt from the day before so I really didn't want to be there for long out in the sun. I did manage to pick up an awesome fedora! But it ended up being caught by the wind and flying into the ocean. Now it has this salt water stain.

While at the beach, I sat there and enjoyed the weather. Everyone else went surfing, obviously with my knee that was out of the question. *sigh* maybe next time?

After the beach we all went home and showered getting ready for a nice dinner out. There's this thing that's really big in Cali - Fish tacos. I've never really had them. But anyone who knows me knows I like to travel and eat at places featured on the food network. So yes, that was my goal. I usually watch a show called, "the best thing I ever ate..." where celebrity chefs list the best 'something' they ever ate. One of them recommended this place, "George's at the cove" in the La Jolla beach area. It's was a very fancy and the food was delicious. The view was amazing - right by the ocean!


After the meal we walked the beach and saw the sea lions too! *sigh* The sun set and everything seemed gorgeous.




You can't just end a perfect day like that. You gotta top it off with a DELICIOUS dessert! The food network tells me, Extraordinary Desserts was the place to be - their Dolce De Leche cake was tummy bound!
Boy was it worth it. SUPER sweet thought... It actually took me 2 days to eat it.

Final thought: Need to find sunscreen I'm not allergic to... it hurts to be double sunburnt...:(

"Going to California...

...gonna live life right. Sipping on Tequila, night after night."

Do you remember that song? Maybe it's too old. You know 'wave' and their song "California"?...*silence*...well that was my theme song for the weekend.

I know this is a very very delayed post, but I'd still like to let you know how my summer went :). School has been bogging me down lately...but I finally caught a breather!

So continuing on...

While everyone was getting ready for long weekend and putting on some red and white, I added the additional colour of BLUE! That's right, I went down to the states. Left on the 30th and came back on July 4th, I was there in time for the American festivities. Although since I was flying out on the 4th I didn't really get to see the fireworks at night. Meh.

So I left work at noon to catch an afternoon flight on the Thursday before Canada Day. I was slightly terrified as I have never been on a flight to the states before. I hear of all these security horror stories, and people breaking their limbs but not being able to pay due to the lack of free health care. Yeah... I was a little uneasy. BUT I made it there safe and sound to San Diego! Dan met and picked me up at the airport. He had 3 other friends with him who were also road tripping across the states and stopped to visit him. We all got into his apartment.

So the weird think about Cali is that there isn't a lot of rain, so having an open inside hallway in a 3 story apartment complex is normal. Yeah... and it's carpeted too.

So he just moved in and didn't have a lot of stuff. Dishes were still packed and stuff, but we made do with things. Dan wanted to show me the night life so we went to this "bar" in the Pacific Beach area. TONS of asians. He then followed to tell me, it's asian night here on Thursdays. It was an okay night. I learned that beer was only $3 for a pint. That's CRAZY!

DAY 2: Wonderful world of Disney!

The next morning was what I was most excited for. DISNEYLAND! *raise the roof!* I've never been and man I couldn't sleep! The drive there was ok. I think Dan was a little cranky I woke him up early. There was also this weird... mist/fog.

It almost completely blocked out the sun. Meh, that wasn't going to ruin my day!



Oh yes, I finally got to ride splash mountain. It's a really creepy ride... some of the toy characters were being roped and strangled... messed up if you ask me.
. While there we didn't really meet any of the Disney Characters, but we did get front row seats to the parade and we saw them all there. For lunch we had giant turkey drumsticks.
*OM NOM NOM NOM* Super salty! After a hot long day, we cooled down to the 4th of July Fireworks show.
The streets were lined with tons of people. . But it was worth it. The show was Incredible!

They even had star shapes too! We drove home that night and I slept like a baby. I was also sun burnt :(.

Day 3: THE BEACH!

Final thought: It's a Small world ride = the worst ride. NEVER EVER EVER again. It really is how the simpsons portray it...creepy...weird stenches coming from the water...and the song that never gets out of your head.

On top of the world!

So This particular weekend, Tonya and I decided to venture the Kananaskis area to hike again. Most people usually go to Banff and such around this time of the year, so those hikes can be a little packed. I also just received this book online, "where locals hike". It's an opinionated guide, and ranks the hikes on difficulties, time, and worthiness. My other traveller's book gives me hikes in Jasper, Banff and glacier national parks, but this new book is good because it gives me hikes on the Kananaskis and Canmore region.

So on this particular day wed decided to go to the Kananaskis Lakes to hike to Rawson Lake and the Serrail Ridge. We left at 8am, nice and early, and got there around 9 something. Not too bad, considering we got lost a few times.

Once we got to the lake, we geared up in our hiking gear. I actually got these new hikers from my friend's mother. Apparently they didn't help with her arthritis, so she passed them on to me. They are a little big, but man they have great grip. Also, they have a gortex coating which kept me dry when I stepped into the lake a few times.



So here we are at the Upper Kananaskis Lake. We start our climb! It gets a little steep, but it's still managable. As we gain in elevation, we start seeing a bit of snow. Today was a good day for hiking. Down at the bottom it was 20-25 degrees, clear sunshine. Once we got to the top, it was snowing. We were in about 2-3ft of snow! Luckily my shoes had amazing grip. I could've easily twisted my ankle several times. Tonya was smart, she had hiking poles to provide her with balance. Look I even made a snowman!








Once we got to the lakes, there weren't many places we could hike to without falling into a snowbank, into the water, or walking to a tree. We found a spot, sat down, and enjoyed our packed lunches. By this point I already had blisters on the back of my heel. Yeah...it was painful! She then gave me a thing to put on the back to prevent further blistering (note: that moleskin band-aid is a b*tch to pull off a punctured blister). We hiked back down and once we were at the bottom, we sat by the lake. There were a ton of people fishing.




We decide we didn't want to go back to calgary yet. It was still relatively early. Why not try one more hike? Nothing too long and nothing too hard. We looked through my book is found one that was only about 1-2 hours long. The book called this "Easy". This hike was named Ptarmigan Cirque. So, not knowing what a cirque is, we decided to go for it anyways.

This hike was located just off of Highwood Pass. At 2206m, this is the highest road in elevation in Canada. Once we got there, we read the sign for the trail head: "Ptarmigan Cirque is a 1-2 hour strenuous hike...". Say what? We looked at each other...do we want to do this? Why not... let's just see where it takes us.

This trail leads straight into a forest. On a warmer August's day, it may have been easier to spot the trail and signs to follow, but at this time of the year, all we could go off of was foot prints. Some which forked off and lead to no where. I'm pretty sure people walked those and turned back creating all these dead ends. We met a family there while hiking. We decided it was safer for us 2 girls to walk with them. They kind-of seemed to know where they were going.




Eventually we found a "path" and tried to follow it until it, again, was snow covered. We got far enough to the top to see the cirque. (A cirque: A half-open steep-sided hollow at the head of a valley or on a mountainside, formed by glacial erosion; I didn't know what it was at the time). We saw a part of snow melting creating this little glacier river flow. I guess that was the run off that formed the creek near the base of the road.






While we were up there it was quite the blizzard. We started to turn back. We didn't make it all the way to the cirque, but considering we were expecting an easy hike and got about 90% there, I'm quite proud of ourselves. Final Elevation gain: 2206m + 230m = 2436m. Now that's being on top of the world!

I was exhausted by the time we got to the bottom of the mountain.

Final thought: Cover those heels with duct tape. It's prevent the formation of blisters.

Just around the river bend, I look once more!

Just around the river bend, beyond the shore!

Apparently Rafting along the Kicking Horse River is one of the main things you need to to while you're here in Alberta. Luckily, since I'm a groupon-addict, I found one!

So we decide to make a weekend adventure of it. Saturday we were going to go to Radium Hotsprings, BC and then the following afternoon we would go up to the rafting site.

Saturday we started to drive out to BC. We were taking 2 cars, and one of the drivers decided to take a pit stop in Banff. Not knowing that there was a car expo there (aka making it PACKED with people), we got delayed majorly and lost our other car/friends. See the thing is... when you're in the mountains, cellphone reception is unreliable. So luckily we got a hold of them before they went into the no reception zone, but we got the meeting location mixed up, so we missed a few hiking sites I really wanted to see :(.


We drove through the Kootenay National Park. Once we got to the BC border, we entered Vermilion Pass. All the trees were burnt!

Apparently there was a forest fire that destroyed the area in 2003. 13% off the forest was burned. There was an interpretive trail, but... we never got to that...

We stopped off at the ochre ponds/paint pots. The trail was really mosshy and wet. The soil was really orange too from all the iron/copper in the ground.



We didn't have time to do any other hikes as the rain was starting, so we just drove to Radium. We got a small little 3 bedroom cottage with a pull out couch for 5 of us. One decided to leave to go sleep at a friends place so everything worked out really well. We also got our own private BBQ so that how we cooked dinner! Since it was still relatively early before dinner, we decided to drive around and see the area. We found one little trail that lead the a mini falls and canyon. I think it was Juniper Trail.




Sinclair Canyon, I think was the name of the canyon that we drove through/pass.




Then it started to rain, so we went back and started our BBQ. Smokies, burgers, roasted corn, salad, fruit, etc. Om nom nom!

The next morning for breakfast we had breakfast sausages, bacon, hashbrowns, english muffin, and more fruit. Once we were energized we headed to the rafting area. We were going to be about an hour early so we found a quick hiking trail to Wapta Falls, which is apparently North America's 3rd widest falls. It's originally a 1.5 hour hike, but we booked it and made it back in less than an hour.



At the rafting site, it was awesome. The river level was optimal and fantastic! Here are a few shots.








At the end of the day, we decided to stop off at Field, BC to try for the restaurant "Truffle Pigs" again. Luckily, we weren't blocked by a train again lol.

Before we headed home, I really wanted to see what the natural bridge looked like without all the snow.


Emerald Lake was pretty close so we drove there too.



It was so nice and relaxing.


Final Thought: I gotta admit, I am going to miss the natural beauties.