Waterfall bike ride, leaving banff and catching up with the Crandalls after 14 years

On the last day in Banff we got up at 9 and had some breakfast and started packing up all of our stuff. I finished reading my book and we headed into banff for our final ride and exploration. 

We then got a smoothie and headed to coeur d lane to meet up with our friends we hadn’t seen in 14 years. The Crandalls. We went to law school for two years with them and had a good friendship. We’ve kept in touch via social media and it was really good to see them again. They were super nice and it felt pretty natural. 

They took us boating. The kids did wake boarding and surfing. It was wonderful. Their boat is nice. 

Dru went as well and I’m sure it was nice not to have to drive the boat. Their family are super nice. We ate pizza and ice cream  

We played card games afterwards and talked then fell asleep. It was wonderful. 

Here we are getting our smoothies after our ride. Everyone was getting their pictures right here. So I forced us to get one. 

Everyone was also doing these poses. So we did them too in jest. 

Another pose everyone was doing. I forced yuki to do it. 

Our greenbelt ride to the waterfalls. 

Yuki teaching is how to eat pancakes the better way. 

I forced Emiko to do this pose too. Another classic. 😂 I’m glad my girls don’t do this. 
 

Takeshi doing some surfing. 

Today we woke up and said goodbye to Ryan who was the only one up. And now we’re heading back to Boise. I dunno if masaru missed us or how he truely did or what he did while we were gone and quite frankly I don’t wanna know. But we all missed him. 

Now is the toughest part of the trip. Getting home, u packing, showering and getting ready for the busy week ahead 😭 

I’m super grateful for our trip. It was and always is epic. MVP goes to Dru Nakaya who drove the whole time and proves time and time again how much he loves us with his service big and little. He’s so great. He gets me a chair, a cup, my sunglasses, food, my pillow etc and I don’t even have to ask. He’s so kind and so thoughtful to my needs. He just loves me so much and I feel it daily with his constant thoughtfulness into finding ways of making me happy and comfortable. Don’t worry, we fight, but we also love. And our love is way bigger than our fights. And it’s because of little acts of service like this that he’s done for years on end that keeps me appreciating him and wanting to do the same thing for him. It helps me forgive too and quickly. Cause his heart is always pure. He’s pretty great. And that ultimately what makes our trips great. He’s our heart of the trip. I’d like to think I’m the humour 😂 

Gondola ride

 

Great shot of me. This is called “Mother camping and looking over when her daughter takes a picture of her” Long name but it fits. 

This is us after the gondola 🚠 eating some lunch. 

I just love this beautiful moss plant life growing here. 

Tiny waterfall. 

This was at the top of the gondola. 

So this morning we actually planned ahead and purchased a ticket to the gondola. So we had to get up mega early and get to the car park. It was actually pretty awesome to be up early and getting things done. If we were early risers I think we could get lots done. But you try waking up teenagers at 6:30 and convincing them to do physical exercise. It’s pretty tough. So we chose to let sleeping dogs lay most mornings. Except this morning. We had tickets for 8:10am and got there around 7am. We read the car park fills up fast. We were one of the first ones there. So it’s good to know people aren’t crazy. Just us and two others.  

We took the gondola up and chose to hike down. 

It was beautiful at the top. A 360 view of banff. Loved it. We met some Aussies Up there who talked to us and took our picture. There was a boardwalk type walk to this spectacular view. It was a little windy but nothing bad. 

Us in the gondola 🚠 going up. It was just a little gondola. Great ride up. 

Me and Dru keeping things light for the hike down. Emiko was pissed. She couldn’t believe we chose to hike rather than take the gondola down. We got her a smoothie afterwards. That helped. 

We then hit the local hotsprings. Man did that feel good. Yuki chose to sleep and read her book in the van. 

Then we got smoothies and headed back to the campsite. We had dinner earlier and had plenty of time for games and a movie. 

The tea house hike.

So the next day we slowly got up and had breakfast then made our way to do the tea house hike. Turns out the parking was full according to the sign. So we went to pay for a shuttle and that was sold out. So we sat and thought about it for a hot second and decided just to go up there and take our chances. 

We said a little prayer to Heavenly Father and then tried our luck. Turns out they had spaces and we parked and were able to hike. I was so grateful and happy. 

It turns out that Banff is super popular and busy and there’s a lot of people that wanna see it. You can register for lots of things and plan ahead. We had made some plans of course with some ideas of what we wanted to do. But we hadn’t booked much at all. We just had a list of ideas and decided what we’d like to try that day. I’m glad it all worked out in the end. 

This hike was medium for sure. It was straight up to the tea house. I felt bad for Emiko. We hiked down fast though. It was beautiful like everything in banff. 

We promised Emiko a pastry at the tea house once we got to the top if she didn’t complain. She didn’t complain once. So when we got to the tea house we were ready to get her her pastry and they were closed. She took it well. 

This is right at the beginning of the hike. 

Cool trees. 

Cool views from the top. 

This lake 2/3rds of the way up. 

This is what the hike looked like. Pretty steep. 

The waterfall at the tea house. 

At the tea house. 

 The boys and I hiked further while the girls waited. They were done. 

We got down to the bottom and tried to get Emiko ice cream but everything was closed. So we went back to camp and made dinner, played card games and watched a movie. 

Farmers market and canoeing

So we slowly woke up the next day and had breakfast then went into the town of Banff and went to the farmers market and then went canoeing. 

Here we are canoeing together. They weren’t going to let us go cause it was a little windy. But then they made an acceptance for us and off we went. It was good and filled with adventure. We had to get out and go over a beaver damn. We also saw a baby bear that came out on a branch. I’m glad we never saw the mama. I don’t think that would’ve been good. It was beautiful and not too windy. I went with takeshi. 

Beautiful right?

Dad found this from his childhood memories of the movie BIG. 

Emiko, yuki and I got permanent bracelets with each other. They were expensive. But they’re pretty cute right? 

I also got this green beaded bracelet. I love it. 

The girls got themselves necklaces and I did too. It was a world record cause I didn’t get myself any earrings. So that’s a first for sure. 

Takeshi got a couple of things for friends. He also got himself a phone case. It’s awesome. Dad got himself salt and pepper shakers that are just beautiful. And we got his work friends a beautiful cheese and cracker cutting board. It’s so nice. I’m excited for Dru to give it to them. The kids and Dru also got themselves some empanadas. They were perfect. 

We sat by the river and then went canoeing 🛶 

Afterwards we went back to our campsite and had tacos for dinner and then played card games and watched a movie.