Home at Last

It was a long journey yesterday.

This trip was a drop in the bucket compared to the long journey last year where we traveled half way round the world.
Having been to Fiji and back again last summer, Bobby and Jenny are great little travelers adn they are familiar with the necessary airport protocol.
A mere four and a half hour flight took us back across the country to our home.

Our trip began in the morning with a two hour drive to Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport in Montreal.
We had to be there earlier than ever because of the beefed up security resulting from the latest air travel threats.
We had a couple more hours to while away at the airport, so we bought lunch - three sandwiches, a fruit drink each and fruit salad for the mind boggling total of $67.00!!!
Albeit the sandwiches were delicious - gourmet to say the least - but I had a bit of a time swallowing the price...

We visited the bookstore - my favourite place to spend time while waiting for a flight - and we each bought a new book for the journey.
The copy I chose was a memoir of John Lennon written by his first wife, Cynthia. It made for easy, yet interesting reading during the flight.
Bob picked a book of The Simpsons cartoons and Jenny decided upon an activity book involving felt shapes that, when put together, make funny characters on a fuzzy background.

George met us at Calgary airport and we loaded our luggage into the van, pointed it west and headed for home.
The air was filled with a haze of smoke due to some forest fires burning down in the States - it's odd how smoke will drift hundreds, and often thousands of miles from its source.
The mountains on the western horizon did not come into view until we were very near the valley where we gain entrance to The Rockies.
The sun setting through the smokiness added to the magnificent eeriness of their craggy peaks.

We planned to sup at Melissa's Misteak, our favourite restaurant, on our way through the town of Banff.
George missed to first exit off the highway, so we were forced to take the next exit over the level railroad crossing. There was a line-up of vehicles - cars, trucks and campers, trailers and motor homes - waiting at the crossing for two one mile long trains going in separated directions to pass on Siding 29.
We did a loop de loop and headed back to the first entrance and drove beneath the tracks to avoid the wait.

The line-up of traffic should have been our first clue as to how busy my favourite town was...
We drove up and down the streets, through back alleys and round parking lots in order to find a place to safely - and legally - park the van.
There were people everywhere! The streets were crowded as though it were New York City!
We discovered, after walking several blocks, that our lovely Melissa's was overflowing with a crowd waiting outside the door.
By that time we were becoming rather tired and cranky - and we still had an hour and a half drive through the mountains.

We ended up stopping dinner at Storm mountain Lodge, a beautiful old inn looking out across the valley with a view of the mountain in the above photo.
The peak is aptly named for it seems that, even if the weather is lovely everywhere else, it is bound to be inclement over the high Storm Mountain Pass.
Our dinner was rather pricy - again - but delicious.

By the time we arrived home it was 10:30 p.m. local time, but we gained two hours on our cross country flight, so it was 12:30 a.m. for Bob, Jen and myself.
A long day by all accounts and we all slept like logs - in our own beds.

Our holiday with Grandma and Grandpa in another beautiful valley of this vast country of ours was wonderful...

...but it's good to be home!