I forgot to mention that after an extremely long day of travel, we walked 20 minutes to town (downhill there, uphill back) to eat dinner with some of my husband’s colleagues at Hello Sunshine Sushi. The food was really good, although I’m not totally sold on topping sushi rolls with mayonnaise. 🤷🏻♀️ As we tried other restaurants, it became clear that Canadians really like mayonnaise. A lot.
Day #1 of our vacation got off to a nice slow/late start. The tween/teens all slept until 10 AM. After showers and snacks for breakfast we headed out at around 11:30 AM. The walk from the hotel at the Banff Centre to downtown Banff is about 20 minutes downhill, 1.2 km or about 0.8 mile.
I’ll count today as hike #11 for 2026. We walked downhill to downtown Banff, walked around all afternoon, and walked back to the Banff Center in the afternoon.
We had seen a family of elk the night before. The bull elk are enormous and rather terrifying. I prayed not to run into any on our walk to town.
We made a pit stop at the Banff Pedestrian Bridge on the way to town.
Our next stop was lunch at Nourish Bistro. I was hoping to try poutine and they offered a vegetarian version of this classic Canadian dish. All the food we tried here was very delicious!
After lunch we were on a mission for an HDMI cord. Spouses were invited to attended a company dinner in the evening, and we wanted to set up a movie in the hotel room for the tween/teens. The TV in the hotel only had cable and we wanted to use the laptop for Disney+. Once we found the cord at Best Buy Express, we spent the afternoon exploring and shopping for souvenirs.
Each of the kids selected something special, I bought my husband and myself each a t-shirt, we found cards for my daughter’s pen pals, magnets for our fridge and for my sister, Coffee Crisp bars for my dad, and keychains for singlikewildflowers.com.
We met up with my husband at the Banff Centre and got the tween/teens dinner at Maclab Bistro. Again, the food was very good, but the french fries were served with mayonnaise, you have to specially request ketchup. Then the tween/teen watched 2 movies and we went to the company dinner at the hotel. I was very nervous because I don’t think I’ve ever been to a fancy, catered company dinner. It really wasn’t that fancy but I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what to wear while we were packing for the trip. My husband’s colleagues were all very nice, as well as the other spouses that I met. It was great to put some faces to the names that my husband is frequently referencing.
The forecast is calling for rain tomorrow… 🌧️
Thanks for letting us ‘peek’ into your trip! We flew to Texas last? winter (feels like yesterday!) and it was the first time we took a flight with all 9 of us. It was intense. So I totally understand some of the angst from your first post. 😳And yours was international! 😫 We ended up switching with a passenger for our 14yo to sit by my hubby, but we paid extra for my younger boys to be in my row. Our other 4 kids were 16 and older and were spread throughout the plane!
All the food and your adventures (and photos) are so interesting! 🤩♥️ I don’t love planning trips or traveling, but once I get there, I usually looove it! 🤣
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