As a kid, I made the trek to Alberta and back several times with my family. As an adult, I went back once more on the road and once more by air. The memories I thought were set pretty clearly turned out to be foggy and mis-remembered. Once in a while, something would leap out of the landscape at me, just the shape of a mountain or a building or monument. At one point I realized I was not seeing the little oil wells in the fields as I had expected… but then I saw a few and felt better.
The clearest of my memories was West Edmonton Mall. I’d visited there in the early 90s with a friend and some of it stuck. (None of it helped me navigate that monster of consumerism though.) Mostly though, it was a blur of unfamiliarity. Names of towns sounded familiar but nothing in them did, though this may just be the march of time; my most recent visit was about 15 years ago.
Whatever the reason, even places I knew I’d travelled through seemed alien. Best example of that? Banff. I was certain I had good happy memories of Banff but it was as touristy as Government Street crossed with the centre of Whistler. We all wanted the hell out of there pretty quickly, though we did manage to find a spot to sit and have a pre-packed picnic lunch down by the Bow Falls where I used some photographic witchcraft to make it look like we had the place to ourselves (we did not).
On the other hand, there were some lovely surprises. Best example? Revelstoke, where we had an amazing meal at Woolsey Creek Bistro and visited the Revelstoke Railway Museum. It was also the cheapest room we found along the way and it came with a free pass to the local rec centre (thank you Alpine Inn).
Aside from more expensive hotels, the biggest difference to travelling in the off-season (or at least the shoulder season) was the sheer number of Other People and Other People’s Children. Unavoidable, of course, but by the time we rolled into Drumheller (which was FULL of families, excited to visit Dino Central) we had hit Tourist Saturation. This did not stop us from visiting the Royal Tyrell Museum (well worth the trip, by the way), but it did encourage us to leave town as soon as we were through the gift shop.
We condensed our trip home after our next stop when Kiddo woke up with a nasty chest cold. She’s still coughing tonight. Our last night before we returned to the island was in Osoyoos. Mike and I may go back there for an anniversary; we both felt there was enough going on to lure us back… and this was the view from our room:
