A Room With a (Spectacular) View + Update

I'm off at a conference for the next 7 days, so it'll be silence around here once things get going. At least when I travel I get reading time on the plane and such.

But, the conference is in a place I've wanted to visit for nearly 30 years - Banff in the Canadian Rockies. So far it's just as beautiful as I've always thought. Later in the week I get to hike around on a glacier (awsome!) - which is great geologist cred (I've also felt an earthquake and closely observed a volcanic eruption). And to top it off I'm staying in one of the nicest hotels in the world - Fairmont Banff Springs (did you know it's a castle?). The view is great.

The Hotel: Fairmont Banff Springs

The view to the northwest from my room

The view to the north/northeast from my room

An American Blogger in Canada

So my trip to British Columbia for work is done and now I’m happily back at home. Ironically, it was snowing here in Arizona this morning and officially colder here than it was in British Columbia (though the actual mine site may have been slightly colder). I really don’t have that much to say about it all since work dominated my time.

Kamloops was fairly unimpressive. The town itself was just a bit boring. It sounds like there are great things to do around the town, but I didn’t have the time to visit them and it was really the wrong season to enjoy them. Vancouver is a great city, and I wish had longer to explore both the city and the surrounding environments. It’s definitely a place I hope to visit again. I didn’t do much – hit the Canada Line from near my hotel and the airport and took it to the Waterfront. I walked around the city center a bit – Canada Place, Gaslights District, etc. The weather was perfect: clear and warm, the cherry blossoms were just past peak. Then I had a nice sushi dinner (it was odd to find Bible verses on the chop sticks wrapping) and a beer or two in the Gaslight District. Steamworks Brewery was fairly unimpressive – next time I will have to make it to Granville Island, whose beers I was far more impressed with when I was laid over at the airport.

Did a bit of reading – I finished up The Midnight Mayor by Kate Griffin (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) just before leaving and read Soulless by Gail Carriger (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) while on the trip. Now I’m reading King Maker by Maurice Broaddus (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound). Expect the reviews to start arriving early next week.