Oh Canada! Part 3: Golden

 Hi Everyone! 

Ok, so when we last left off, we were heading to Golden, BC, after a long, exhausting day.

We perked back up during our drive from Banff to Golden – it was maybe the most spectacular drive we’ve ever been on. Gorgeous scenery of incredibly high rocky mountains, waterfalls, glacial rivers and more.

Once we got to our place, which is near the top of a mountain and about 15 minutes outside of town, we got in to discover that the house…being in a ski resort area…had no air conditioning. It felt like a sauna in there, and there were no fans. Glenn called Chad to warn them because we felt so bad – they were supposed to come stay with us Wed – Fri, and their room is upstairs, where it was even hotter.

Chad said it was fine, that they had not had AC anywhere they stayed in Canada. We opened up all the windows overnight and it cooled the place down a lot, and then we shut all the blinds during the day to keep the cold air in.

Here are some pics of the house though (called Huckleberry cottage), which was cute.

Yes, please let it snow!

DAY 7: Tuesday, July 16^th

So this morning, we went into the town of Golden to go to an Ace Hardware to procure two fans for the house, as well as doing some grocery shopping. When we got to the Ace Hardware, we discovered that pretty much the whole town had no power as someone had wrecked into a power pole. The guy at Ace said they were closed, but when we told him we just wanted two fans, he let us buy them and pay in cash. We felt like looters taking them out of the dark store with no receipt.

Later the power came back on, but apparently (and as we soon learned), Golden has frequent power issues.

Anyway, the town is TINY but cute. After lunch we went and toured around the Kicking Horse Resort a bit, and later had dinner in town (Taco Tuesday) in the hot sun. There we learned a lot about a retired chemist/would-be musician, and his wife's service dog, Hope, who hung out with us while we waited for the cheapest dinner in town (which was delicious and 2 Canadian dollars per taco), but we were probably there for two hours.

Glenn and Hope

Here are a few pics of the river walk in town and their little pedestrian bridge.

From town, it's about a 15 minute drive up the mountains to the Kicking Horse Ski Resort, and then our cabin was just a few minutes past that. Here are some pics from the resort.

There's a gondola and a chair lift and you can see the ski runs.

Here you take the chair lift up to the Grizzly Bear Refuge (more on this later).

And they have condos and little shops and restaurants here.

And the surrounding views are not so bad either.

DAY 8: Wednesday, July 17^th

Anniversary day (but we almost forgot since we had celebrated earlier in the week). In the morning, Glenn took what he said was a very scary, but scenic drive on a steep dirt road while I was still asleep.

Later, we decided to take a short hike. It was hot and when we got to the trail, they had a warning about bears, and carrying bear spray, which we did not have. 

We did not walk far before we spotted a huge pile of fresh bear scat, so we quickly aborted our mission and went home. 

Chad and Lisha got here around three, and OMG, we had so much fun together. Chad had us laughing so hard that we were crying and holding our stomachs. (Remind me to tell you how Lisha gets squirrely around border patrol agents). Anyway, here we are at the pedestrian bridge in town.

We had dinner in town at the Whitetooth Bistro, and then hung out on our back deck in the evening. (There’s a bird’s nest in the eaves of the house next door where we've been all watching a mama bird tirelessly feeding her babies.)

Anyway, we all went to bed around 10, and Chad and Lisha were very grateful for the fan we bought them. Until a couple of hours later when the power went out. Then, we were all dying in the heat. It was out for three or four hours so none of us got a great night’s sleep.

Alright - we really don't have too much left, but that's enough for now. Stayed tuned for another float trip, our visit with a grizzly bear, and the international disc golf championship.