![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
33 hours and 3074 Days
Apr. 24th, 2016 10:03 pmMy friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
devoidofthought is moving back to Ontario this week. To celebrate many years of joyous friendship, thebrucie, LA, and I went on a quick jaunt for the weekend. We left Saturday morning and returned Sunday, spending the night near Cranbrook, BC. 4.5 hours out and back. What did we do? Mostly we ate and soaked in warm water. There was some gambling too.
We started by filling our pie holes for breakfast, then took Roo's truck down to see the Frank Slide. We took pictures and wandered around the interpretive centre, but opted not to see to go on the tour due to raging indifference. Bruce observed that there really needs to be a slide at the Frank Slide.
Late lunch was in Kimberly at the Pedal & Tap pub. The food decent gastropub fare (but nothing special beyond that), and they had decidedly discriminatory hiring practices. It's noteworthy because I may have finally internalized the fact that I like Kölsch beers.
We wandered around downtown Kimberly for a bit, discovering lots of kitschy shops, and assorted small-town eccentricities. From there we went to check into our hotel, the St. Eugene Mission Golf Resort and Casino. It was only when we where approaching the parking lot that Allison mentioned that the building wasn't just a Catholic mission, it was also a residential school. Now it's run by the Ktunaxa First Nation. Good on them for turning the site of so much suffering into such a quality resort. I'm a big fan of the McMenamins model of repurposing old sites for modern use rather than tearing them down. Nice to see the local band do that here.
We has supper at St. Eugene Smokehouse; it was very good. We had breakfast at St. Mary's restaurant; it was OK. Somewhere in there we soaked in the hotel pool, which was fantastic. Also, my "cheap" room was excellent. We rounded out the trip with some gambling at the somewhat sparse casino. Mostly it was slot machines, but there was a handful of table games, blackjack mostly. I sunk (gaharf gaharf) $20 on the Titanic Movie slot machine in about five rolls. What I really wanted to do was play roulette. Sadly, they didn't have a real roulette table, with a croupier. Instead, they had an automatic roulette table that's a cross between the wheel and a bunch of slot machines. I staked $100 and won $228.
I would definitely go back to St. Eugene's.
Sunday we drove to Radium Hot Springs and spent two hours soaking in its relaxing waters. Normally there is a hot pool and a cold pool, but they were doing the yearly maintenance on the hot pool in preparation for the high season, and had emptied it. They diverted the hot water into the cold pool, so we ended up with a larger hot pool and no cold pool. As the cold pool is much deeper, the staff had provided many pool noodles, so that people wouldn't get tired and drown in the 3 meter deep water. This worked well.
We stopped at Tooloulou's in Banff for some cajun fare, then returned to Calgary. I'd have preferred a little more time to more fully enjoy every portion of the trip, but it was still a fun trip with good friend.
Rosa, it was a blast knowing you, from the moment I tried to kill you with a train, all the way up until this weekend when we failed to pull off that bank heist. I'm going to miss you, and I hope that we don't loose touch in the future, even if you are living out east. Here's to finding joy, fulfilling work, and fewer migraines.
devoidofthought is moving back to Ontario this week. To celebrate many years of joyous friendship, thebrucie, LA, and I went on a quick jaunt for the weekend. We left Saturday morning and returned Sunday, spending the night near Cranbrook, BC. 4.5 hours out and back. What did we do? Mostly we ate and soaked in warm water. There was some gambling too.We started by filling our pie holes for breakfast, then took Roo's truck down to see the Frank Slide. We took pictures and wandered around the interpretive centre, but opted not to see to go on the tour due to raging indifference. Bruce observed that there really needs to be a slide at the Frank Slide.
Late lunch was in Kimberly at the Pedal & Tap pub. The food decent gastropub fare (but nothing special beyond that), and they had decidedly discriminatory hiring practices. It's noteworthy because I may have finally internalized the fact that I like Kölsch beers.
We wandered around downtown Kimberly for a bit, discovering lots of kitschy shops, and assorted small-town eccentricities. From there we went to check into our hotel, the St. Eugene Mission Golf Resort and Casino. It was only when we where approaching the parking lot that Allison mentioned that the building wasn't just a Catholic mission, it was also a residential school. Now it's run by the Ktunaxa First Nation. Good on them for turning the site of so much suffering into such a quality resort. I'm a big fan of the McMenamins model of repurposing old sites for modern use rather than tearing them down. Nice to see the local band do that here.
We has supper at St. Eugene Smokehouse; it was very good. We had breakfast at St. Mary's restaurant; it was OK. Somewhere in there we soaked in the hotel pool, which was fantastic. Also, my "cheap" room was excellent. We rounded out the trip with some gambling at the somewhat sparse casino. Mostly it was slot machines, but there was a handful of table games, blackjack mostly. I sunk (gaharf gaharf) $20 on the Titanic Movie slot machine in about five rolls. What I really wanted to do was play roulette. Sadly, they didn't have a real roulette table, with a croupier. Instead, they had an automatic roulette table that's a cross between the wheel and a bunch of slot machines. I staked $100 and won $228.
I would definitely go back to St. Eugene's.
Sunday we drove to Radium Hot Springs and spent two hours soaking in its relaxing waters. Normally there is a hot pool and a cold pool, but they were doing the yearly maintenance on the hot pool in preparation for the high season, and had emptied it. They diverted the hot water into the cold pool, so we ended up with a larger hot pool and no cold pool. As the cold pool is much deeper, the staff had provided many pool noodles, so that people wouldn't get tired and drown in the 3 meter deep water. This worked well.
We stopped at Tooloulou's in Banff for some cajun fare, then returned to Calgary. I'd have preferred a little more time to more fully enjoy every portion of the trip, but it was still a fun trip with good friend.
Rosa, it was a blast knowing you, from the moment I tried to kill you with a train, all the way up until this weekend when we failed to pull off that bank heist. I'm going to miss you, and I hope that we don't loose touch in the future, even if you are living out east. Here's to finding joy, fulfilling work, and fewer migraines.
