Day 25: We arose to the smell of pancakes and stepped out of the shower to have my coffee hand-delivered. It's gonna be tough leaving this hotel! After a lovely breakfast, we left Calgary at 10:30am and made our way to Banff.
As soon as we got into town, we found our way to the Upper Banff Hot Spring. 
Turns out it's just a pool with hot water that they say comes from the spring. I found out that since the water flow from the glaciers slows over the summer, they have to compensate by adding their own mineral water. I guess I was expecting to walk through a forest to a nice pond of hot water. Live and learn. I am sure they exist but are not flowing through downtown Banff. 
From there we toured around and in the Banff Springs Hotel. Very magestic. It reminded me to buy a lottery ticket! 
A little bit of lunch at Phil's restauraunt and off to our accommodation for the night.
Turns out it's just a pool with hot water that they say comes from the spring. I found out that since the water flow from the glaciers slows over the summer, they have to compensate by adding their own mineral water. I guess I was expecting to walk through a forest to a nice pond of hot water. Live and learn. I am sure they exist but are not flowing through downtown Banff. From there we toured around and in the Banff Springs Hotel. Very magestic. It reminded me to buy a lottery ticket! A little bit of lunch at Phil's restauraunt and off to our accommodation for the night.When we had originally planned the "Long Way Across" route, we had decided Banff would be our last stop. We had been looking at hotels there, the average price of which was quite high, but Jeff and I had decided this would be our anniversary gift to each other (and our one nice hotel during the trip!), so we were willing to upgrade. When we asked Jeff's brother, Scott, for a recommendation, he suggested we stay at the lodge where he has worked last summer, called Num Ti Jah (http://www.num-ti-jah.com/). Scott went a step further than getting us a family/friend rate... he offered it to us as an anniversary gift. What a great brother-in-law! Thanks, man!
We arrived at Num Ti Jah Lodge and were immediately blown away by the beauty of the area. It is situated on the banks of Bow Lake, which looks out at Bow Falls and the Bow Glacier. At this point we were running out of room on our camera for pix. We had to start deleting so we could capture the beauty of it all. The day we arrived was kind of gloomy and started to rain so the pics were not as good.
"My feet are NUMB-ti-jah!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
We took a tour around the grounds before the three-course meal: spinach salad appetizer, bison or stuffed chicken entrées and blackberry crêpe or blueberry pie for dessert. We had one of each so we could sample it all! Fantastic! Since there are no TVs or phones in the rooms, they have a boardgame room and a library for people to keep themselves entertained. After a quick game of Scattegories, we ran into a couple from Edmonton who were vacationing with their two children. They are on a work exchange from England for a year. Hope they enjoy the winter in Edmonton! They were actually very nice people and we stayed up chatting with them until quite late.
Day 26: We had planned to get up and make the 1.5 hour-walk to the falls in the morning, but the fog had rolled in over night we couldn't even see the lake from the hotel. We decided to head to the dining hall for some breaky and get on the road to Kelowna. If you ever find yourself in the area, be sure to check this place out. It ain't cheap, but if you go and just check it out you won't be disappointed. If you do stay, the staff is great and the food is delish.
With full tummies, we got in the car for the HOME STRETCH! Too bad Jeff had to focus on the windy roads and couldn't take in the gorgeous scenery we were driving through! Why should you be able to take your eyes off the road in the prairies... there's nothing to look at! Kelowna, here we come!
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