On the way to Waterton

On the way to Waterton
A note on the Hampton and our location: The Hampton was great with a spacious room, real pillows and all the chain things we have come to expect. The location is crappy from an aesthetic view point; it’s like motel row or something, but it’s literally across the street from the train and from University of Calgary. The one notable thing about this hotel was the security. Mind you, this is in no way an iffy neighborhood and yet in order to get from our car in the parking garage (the parking garage in itself was strange—no other hotel in the row had one) to our room, we had to insert our room key into four different locks: first to get into the lobby to the hotel lobby, then to get into the hotel lobby, then to get the elevator to go anywhere, and finally, to get into our room. The place was like Fort Knox.
We ended our afternoon with a visit to a used bookstore. I had bought Asha five books to read but she’d already finished them and we needed to load up. We found, within walking distance, an excellent used bookstore called Twice Sold Tales. Huge inventory, well organized, well lit (not at all the stereotype of the used bookstore). But, we made the mistake of asking the proprietress for help. She was the victim of one of the worst cases of logorrhea I’ve ever encountered. And she literally followed us around the store giving us the name of every historical fiction author she could think of and all of the books she/he and written. We finally just headed for the cash register to get her to stop, but she still did not stop talking. We left the store as she was still speaking to us feeling as if we’d just fled a natural disaster. But Asha had some good finds, so it was worth it. I f you do make it the store, just don’t make the mistake of speaking to the owner.
Last night, we mourned the absence of our third member and ate a quiet meal of leftovers in the hotel room reminiscing about all the good times with Grandma and bidding her a fond farewell (until the next trip!). We know she won’t be having as much fun on her four week cruise to Athens and Russia. First of all, she’ll miss wine tasting, and the hour long wake up ritual with Asha, and the smells of the rotting food in the car and the moldy car rug (that I spilt my water bottle on) and all those other fantastic parts of road travel. Readers may think that this was not a sacrifice but we were in Calgary and they are rumored to have great restaurants, but in respect for Mom, we passed those up (I only drank ginger ale for heaven’s sake).
Today, we are adapting to our twosome. I’m driving and Asha is riding side saddle. Asha would prefer to sleep in the back then read to me the itinerary, hand me things, take pictures out the window and perform other mindless tasks for me (as well as repeatedly having two notebooks filled with travel notes flung into her lap everytime we turn the car on or turn a corner). She’s a good trooper though and I am hoping I can get her to stay up front a bit longer. She’s already said that when her brother comes he can have the front seat the whole time (if you have teenagers you can appreciate this: the two of them constantly fight each other for the front seat).
We wanted to visit one of the city parks: Prince Island. But we nixed that idea once we ventured out of the hotel parking lot into Calgary traffic. Now, I can drive in traffic, but this is something else all together. Calgary has very few freeways (I’m sure it must have at least one but Sally (our GPS) has yet to direct me to one on our driving around the city) and so all driving is on city streets. And Canada speed limits are very low and there is all kind of road construction (like the Midwest in summer) and it takes forever to get anywhere. By the time we had driven two or three miles we were in agreement that the best plan was to abandon this city and head south to Okotoks.
Okotoks is the home of a wonderful honey farm that I had read about on the internet. It’s off Hwy. 7, off the beaten path, but well worth a visit. We were the only customers and got a wonderful tour that started with a description of the bees hiving and a look at the demonstration hive. The thing has four panels and the queen had just been put in about a week ago (they shipped the bee and her minions in this tiny wood container from Hawaii in order to decrease the risk of hive disorder). One of the panels was simply packed with bees. It looked like an enormous bee festival or bees at a rolling stone concert or something. Some were smashed to the side fo the glass. I wasn’t horrified by the bees but I was horrified at the thought of ever being anywhere that was that crowded! We got to see the queen bee, busily working. She was huge. They make all kinds of products from this wonderful smelling soap and lotion, to honey syrup and Mead.
I tried the Mead and have to say I wasn’t too fond of it. It’s nothing like wine—it’s sweet and not very complex. She said Mead is the oldest fermented beverage. I don’t know if that’s true, but I am betting they were quite excited when they realized they could ferment grapes. The bee stuff was great though and I bought an assortment.
Route 40 soup company
Waterton town trail
Bel Lago