Banff

I have nowhere to stay tonight. I'm currently in Banff, at the Banff Center, anxiously awaiting on whether or not I can find some lodging for the night because, due to certain complications, my first night's accommodation has fallen through.

Complications

It all started when I woke up late for the bus (as I had mentioned in my post this morning) and had to end up hitching down to town. After about 10 minutes of waiting by the side of the road watching a very small number of cars pass by as I stuck my finger out, a nice man from Calgary (with a rather nice BMW) stopped and told me to hop in. We had a chat, as you do when you get a ride from somebody, and before I knew it, we were at the Petro-Canada gas (a.k.a. petrol) station where the Greyhound buses stopped. I hung around the general area for an hour before going back to the station to wait for the bus, which was, naturally, about 10-15 minutes late.

I caught a bit of sleep on the bus, and when I woke up we were getting close to Banff. Last night, Justin told me that Mike could no longer give me some accommodation for Banff for tonight. I was originally going to stay at Zach's place, but he was going to Edmonton tonight, so I decided I'd try Mike. Alas, that fell through, so now I sit here at the lobby of Mike's accommodation, using the Internet, as I wait for him to find me some slightly less free accommodation at the Banff Center (where he works and lives). Fortunately, I hear it's quite a nice place since they have lots of important international guests visiting here on a regular basis, so maybe it'll be a bit of money to buy a bit of the experience. Anyway, I have to wait for Mike to go on his lunch break before he can try giving the reservations desk another call (as he got put on hold for about 10 minutes just before he had to start work).

To go on a bit of a tangent, but still sticking to the general theme of things not being as simple as they could be, I decided to buy a board bag today. I figured that I'd be needing one for the end of the season when I set off on my adventure and have to haul off my two boards, bindings, and boots, among other things. All the ones that I had seen so far at other places had been too large for my board, so I decided that Banff would be an ideal place to get some more variety in terms of size. I ended up buying an LTD board bag... just a cheap padded carry-on bag (i.e. no wheels). However, it wasn't my first choice. There was this really cool looking Drop bag that I bought, but once I got my board in there, it turned out that the handle was a bit off-center, making it a bit of a pain to carry around. The good thing was that the LTD bag was the same size and the same price, so I went for a straight swap for it. Should teach me to look more closely next time.

Action plan

I'm not sure if I'll get much done today. It's already 4:45, and I'm still waiting on that accommodation to be sorted out. Assuming it does get sorted out, I'll probably just take a leisurely stroll around downtown Banff and maybe buy a couple of items I've been meaning to buy for a while, mainly gloves since mine are breaking apart. There's always tomorrow to do some more shopping (which was one of the main purposes of this trip). I'll probably also get some nice food to eat for dinner, as I am quite famished. I only had a sausage and egg (and hash brown) sandwich for breakfast, and a few snacks for lunch, and the greater variety of food establishments that Banff has compared to Panorama is calling out to me. Mike finishes at midnight tonight, so we'll probably end up going out late. Not quite sure where the night will take us, but it'll be short (bars close at 2) and hopefully pretty damn sweet. The big night will be tomorrow night, when Aurora serves 25c beers, kinda like Cowboys in Calgary but with bigger glasses. Time to get drunk on a dollar again.

The plan for Monday is to go to Sunshine Village for some backcountry snowboarding. Since Mike's a local, he knows all the sweet spots that not a lot of people go to. Jacky, Andy, Tyler, and possibly a few others might be coming to Sunshine on Monday too. I'm not entirely sure that I'll go again on Tuesday. I've only got a reciprocal letter of introduction (for free lift tickets) for Monday, so getting some tickets on Tuesday might be a bit of a hassle. Another hassle is going to be getting home on Tuesday night. The Greyhound gets to Invermere at about 9:30, and the last bus back to Panorama leaves at 9:05. I'm hoping that I can get a ride back from one of the people coming back from bowling.

Oh yeah, speaking of which, there's now a regular bowling get-together every Tuesday. I obviously won't make it this Tuesday, but I went last Tuesday and it was great fun. It's not your regular 10-pin bowling though. This was a Canadian variation on the well-loved sport... 5-pin bowling. It's pretty crazy. You get 5 pins positioned in a V-shape (each pin worth a different amount depending on position), 3 shots at knocking them all down (like regular bowling, you get a strike if you get them all on the first, and a spare if you get them all on the second), and have to aim at these targets with a ball that is about half the size of a regular bowling ball, and has no holes. It certainly takes more precision aiming to get a good score in this variation of the game. It's just about as fun as 10-pin though.

I guess I should get going soon. I gotta wait for Mike for any updates, and I've been hogging this computer for about an hour now. Ciao.

Marathon man

Well, I survived the craziness of working 8 days out of 9, and came out of it in one piece. I am, however, incredibly exhausted and just missed the bus to Invermere that I needed to catch. I guess snowboarding all day on Thursday didn't exactly help.

It all started on that fateful Thursday of last week when I started work, when I thought I'd be working my longest shift ever. Alas, I was mistaken as, after 6 days in a row of hovering around the 10-hour mark, and about 6 or 7 hours of snowboarding on my day off, I experienced a true marathon of a 14-hour shift yesterday. I came home at 11 at night, which threw my plans for Banff completely out of whack. I was meant to sleep early so I could catch the 7:40 bus to Invermere and wait for the Greyhound over to Banff, which leaves at 10:25. Sadly, I woke up at about 7:25 and couldn't be bothered walking over to the bus, which I probably would have missed. The current plan is to hitch a ride down, which usually works out. I hope it does again today.

The actual marathon was meant to happen on Thursday, when I had planned to do a 9am to 9pm snowboarding bonanza. It was all talk though. I was dead tired by 4, and Mark, Jacky's friend, hurt his shoulder on a run, so everybody decided to call it a day early. I guess it was a good thing, as I wouldn't have lived through that 14-hour shift if I had boarded 12 hours the previous day.

Anyway, I better start heading off and try to hitch a ride down to town. Photos when I get back, I promise.

Ch-check it out

Well, I ended up getting that job. They started me off on the same day that they told me I had the job, so it was a bit intense. Add to that the fact that it was a fairly busy day and it all equated to a 12-hour marathon of work. I was actually going to finish at about 7:30, but there was a bit of an emergency at the last minute, which I volunteered to help out in, and I ended up finishing at 9 on the dot, quickly rushing to Laura's going-away dinner soon after, for which I was about an hour and 10 minutes late for. But anyway, I guess it's pretty good that I get paid for 12 hours on a higher rate than what I usually get paid for... and that's just my first day for the week.

The annoying thing is that I gotta work for the next 6 days, making it a full 7 days in a row. It only really sucks because the heavens have finally opened up today and is giving us some insane snowfall, and by the time I have a day off to go snowboarding, all the snow be chopped up. It's a really busy period too, so any new snow is almost guaranteed to be tracked within days of fall. My only hope is that it keeps snowing until Thursday (or it snows HARD on Wednesday).

Road tripping

The Fernie trip on Monday was pretty epic. The resort had gotten 11cm overnight for a 24 hour fall of 14cm, so everybody on the bus was pretty excited to have a great day on the slope, and it certainly didn't disappoint. I rode with Nugget for most of the day, and he's a bit of a crazy snowboarder, so we did some pretty crazy stuff. The most memorable run was the short but oh so sweet ride down one of the Knot Chutes, which were some crazy double black chutes off of one of the ridges. We also managed to get stuck in a creek (with no paddle) after going too deep into some trees. We somehow managed to navigate our way out of there. All in all it was a crazy day, and I was just so tired by the end of the day that I completely skipped jam night.

I went on a bit of a road trip on Tuesday. It was an impulse decision after finding out in the morning that Tyler and Andy were driving Georgie to Calgary (with a slight detour at Banff) so that she could catch her flight home. The general plan was to drop Georgie off then go back to Banff for some sightseeing and shopping. Unfortunately, as we were leaving the Calgary city limits, Tyler's car had a bit of a cough up and the 4-wheel drive gave way. It was still fine in 2-wheel drive mode but they didn't want to risk prolonging the trip so, apart from a stopover at the mechanic at Banff (which was just about closed), the side-trip was canned.

I was meant to go to Lake Louise yesterday but decided not to after feeling lazy in the morning. I got up early, but unlike the morning of the Fernie trip, the snow report on the net wasn't that appealing. It was only about 3cm overnight, and the weather was freezing, so I decided to just surrender my $15 (which is what it costs for a staff trip to another resort - quite a bargain) and chill out at Panorama. I did a few runs, trying out a smaller board that Becky donated to me, and decided to call it a day early on. I ran into Leigh and Ben and we hit the park for the last run of the day. It turned out to be a bad call, as I had a massive bail (caught on camera too) off one of the jumps. Nothing broken, but I got a bit of whiplash and a few bruises.

I'll try to upload that video and some new photos this weekend... if I get the time. It's going to be the busiest period for the resort since Christmas, so it should be a hectic few days in a new position. Talk about trial by fire.

Worn out blues

It's been another full-on week. I had two days boarding at other resorts (Fernie and Kicking Horse), two days of pretty long days at work, and another two days at work when it was fairly quiet. The other day was spent at an interview and in town. The interview went pretty well although I won't find out who they decide will get the position until next week. I hitched a ride to town (I love how easy it is to get a ride down to Invermere) and spent about 60 bucks on groceries, mostly consisting of various meats that will hopefully last me for the next few weeks.

The trip to Fernie was pretty good despite the icy conditions. I spent most of the day doing groomers and had a few runs at the terrain park too. I can definitely see how the resort would be great on a powder day. Kicking Horse had some pretty epic terrain too. The visibility was pretty bad but that was because it was snowing all day, which made for some pretty sweet riding. The only really bad thing that happened that day was Denise having a huge crash. She got a concussion and was taken to the hospital as a precaution. Fortunately, it wasn't anything major.

I have the next three days off, two of which will be more staff trips. Tomorrow shall be a return to Fernie, where it has been snowing on and off for the past week, and on Thursday, I'll finally go back to Lake Louise where it probably won't be as good as it was the first time I went, but hopefully it won't be icy either.

The vibe around the staff housing has been getting a bit weird lately. There have been a lot of parties but they have mostly been for people leaving, so it's kind of a bittersweet feeling. A lot of the people are going back to Aus or NZ because of uni or because they simply want to get on with their regular life. It's strange to see people leaving so early when it's only just halfway through the season.

Going to California

Plans for my post-season travels have been uncertain due to the many options that I've had to choose from... until now.

Earlier in the evening, Ben, John, Kelly, and Leigh were making plans to see Tool in San Diego at around mid-March. I was tempted to go but wasn't sure because of the total cost of that trip, which would have had to have factored in return travel (bus to Calgary then plane from there), concert tickets, and accommodation. I then decided to research other bands who were on tour, and found out that Arcade Fire were doing a few dates to promote their upcoming album, Neon Bible.

The tour date that caught my eye was their appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Coachella have had pretty solid lineups in past years, including some of my favourite bands. I decided to investigate further, and to my amazement, I read through one of the best festival lineups I have ever seen. I had no other choice but to throw caution to the wind and commit to going to this event. The 3-day pass and camping fee alone is around $400 [side-note: I speak in Canadian dollars because that's what is most familiar to me right now] but the 3 headlining acts (Björk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Rage Against The Machine) themselves makes it worth the cover charge.

I guess the loose plan right now will be to visit some relatives in LA and take a 4-day side-trip to Coachella. There's about 6 of us that are going so far. I think most of those people are taking a week-long trip to Mexico right after the season ends, but I don't know if I'll join in on that. It'd probably be a good idea to save some money after that $400 splurge, especially if I want to see a specialist about this rib problem. I'll definitely need to start dipping into the Australian bank account some time soon.

Curling is a dangerous sport (and other winter adventures)

On Sunday, some people from housekeeping and guest services, along with a few others from a variety of departments, went to Invermere for some curling. Curling is one of those sports that you wouldn't think would be very interesting but, upon closer inspection, is quite a neat little game. I would equate it to lawn bowls, with the obvious differences of the lawn being sheets of ice, the balls being stones, and the people sweeping to help the stones along.

Anyway, during a few practice games, I got a bit too enthusiastic about sweeping the ice, and slipped over, falling on the stick, with the stick hitting me square on the ribs. It's been hurting ever since, and was probably not helped by the fact that I took on some more physical activities this week.

On Monday, we had the weekly broomball game where, quite spectacularly, we lost 1-0. Drama was added to the game late in the first half as I scored a goal that was soon disallowed because the ref couldn't see the goal too well (which I thought was a bunch of crap). I was pretty angry for the rest of the game, especially after the other team scored. By the end of the night, the pain in the ribs was intense.

I wasn't going to do anything on Tuesday, but ended up going out to buy some new bindings for my board and tested them out for a few runs. A couple of weeks ago, I had a huge crash on a run rife with moguls. I flipped over a few times and ended up landing on my board. The front strap of the back binding (probably the weakest part of the bindings) ended up snapping, and I had to ride down to the bottom with one dodgey binding. It wasn't really too bad because it was the front strap, and I guess it was bound to happen eventually, seeing as I got those bindings about 6 years ago. Anyway, the new bindings ('06 Burton Cartel) feel so much better than the old relics that I used to ride with (Burton Custom from ages ago).

I wasn't going to do anything on Wednesday, but again I strayed from my plans and went ice skating on Lake Windermere. Cara, my supervisor, knew somewhere to borrow some skates for free, and it was free to skate on the lake, so this helped my current financial situation. Oh, and it was lots of fun to go ice skating again, and with a bunch of friends too. The only downside was that the ice was a bit uneven. That, and I was quite tired by the end of it. Read as: ribs hurt like hell.

They were very sore again today after a few hours of Nordic skiing (aka cross-country skiing). A few of us that went ice skating yesterday decided to give Nordic skiing a try, and we went on a couple of the easy trails, which weren't all that easy due to a few big dips. There were several spills but nobody was seriously hurt and the general consensus was that it'd be great to go again some time.

One of the many great views witnessed while Nordic skiing

Today is also the end of my 3-day weekend, and I now have 3 days straight (possibly more, depending on next week's roster) of work. Fun times. I applied for a different position within the department that has slightly better pay and a bit more consistent hours, so I hope I get that. Otherwise, I'll probably be applying for a transfer to a different department as soon as the 3-month probation period is over (around the start of March) because my current position just isn't getting me as much money as I would like.