New Year adventures

I can't believe it's already February! And it's almost halfway through February! Where is the time going?? I feel like time has flown by the last few weeks but that may be in part to all the small trips I've taken recently.

The year kicked off with a trip to Calgary to meet up with a high school friend. I think I had been to Calgary once when I was younger but those trips you take when you're super small don't really count because you don't actually remember anything. Anyway, so this was technically my first real trip to Calgary. This is the first thing I saw when I stepped off the plane and walked into the Calgary airport:

I don't even know what it was but I was like, oh Calgary, we are going to have a good time! Meanwhile, the second thing I saw in Calgary the next morning was a cop car zooming off somewhere. I'm always looking for the news, no matter where I am:

The first day we took a trip to Banff. The drive there was beautiful! I mean, I live by mountains in Kelowna but these were stellar! Snow-capped tops and just endless rows of mountains. I don't think I can live in a place without mountains or water now.

So we make it to Banff and headed to the ski hills. I had recently boarded in Kelowna and had always heard things about Banff so I wanted to compare the two. My friend and I went to Norquay and the runs there were not as long as I thought they would be. At the time, the powder was better in Banff but that's only because Kelowna still hadn't had a proper snow dump so the snow at Big White was bleh.

I'm in a snowboard phase right now where I just really want to get better. It's only something I used to do every once in a while but now I want to be super good at it and I want to be consistent about it. So whereas before I was like, eh I'm not doing this right, whatever. Now, I'm like, let's do this properly and I'm really pushing myself to get better.

After a physically exerting day on the hill (and very little to eat that day), I was ready for a full meal and what better way to be full than to get steak? We went to a nice steakhouse in town and I got a steak and (wait for it) lobster mashed potatoes. The latter BLEW MY MIND! I'm salivating just thinking about it right now.

So we're tired, we're stuffed...time to hit the hot springs! There are some natural hot springs in Banff so we capped off the night with a dip in the hot spring. I was thinking it was going to be a hot spring smack in the middle of the forest with rocks around it, you know, really nature-y. Unfortunately they just funnel the water into a pool pretty much. Don't get me wrong, it was lovely and it was the perfect way to soothe the muscles but I was expecting a bit more...nature decor I suppose.