{"id":1725,"date":"2014-08-31T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-08-31T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=1725"},"modified":"2014-09-13T14:51:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-13T18:51:21","slug":"day-3-banff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=1725","title":{"rendered":"Day 3 &#8211; Banff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After yesterday&#8217;s mix of sun and cloud, today would turn out to be mainly sunny, but a little bit windy.\u00a0 The plan for today was to leisurely enjoy Banff as we rest from the hike the day before.<\/p>\n<p>Every year in Banff, we spend part of a day at the <a title=\"Willow Stream Spa at Banff Springs\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fairmont.com\/banff-springs\/willow-stream\/\" target=\"_blank\">Willow Stream Spa<\/a> at the hotel, and we had reservations for today.\u00a0 After breakfast at the hotel, we checked into the spa for our treatments, and spent some time enjoying the relaxing water features before going into town to explore.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly before leaving for our trip, Nadine and I watched the TV Show <em>Burger Wars Banff<\/em>.\u00a0 We set out for the saltlik Steakhouse to try the winning burger from the show.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1726\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P8314028.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And here it is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1727\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P8314044.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After a nice lunch, we explored the town to do some souvenir shopping.\u00a0 Shown below is the famous Banff Avenue.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1728\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P8314063.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We stopped by the Banff Park Museum, which we hadn&#8217;t visited yet.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it was just closing for the day, so we will have to try again tomorrow.\u00a0 Instead, we walked along the river a bit before returning to the hotel for dinner (a light dinner&#8211;the burger at lunch was very filling).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1729\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P8314089.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Heading back to the hotel was a busy drive, and we got to experience rush-hour like traffic in the mountains.\u00a0 I suppose that was to be expected since it was the Sunday of a long weekend.\u00a0 Here is a shot of the traffic behind us on Spray Avenue as we make our way back to the Banff Springs Hotel.\u00a0 I gather many weekend visitors who aren&#8217;t even staying at the Banff Springs Hotel drive out to see it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1730\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P8314138.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We did, however, have a bit of entertainment on our drive back.\u00a0 Below is a picture of an elk we saw grazing on someone&#8217;s front lawn.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1731\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P8314125.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"424\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Walking around back at the hotel, there apparently was a meeting of Porshe owners!\u00a0 I don&#8217;t know where the hotel valet parked our rental Jeep, but it apparently isn&#8217;t among this group of fine cars.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1732\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P8314158.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Nadine and I returned to the Willow Stream Spa to soak for another hour or\u00a0two before bedtime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After yesterday&#8217;s mix of sun and cloud, today would turn out to be mainly sunny, but a little bit windy.\u00a0 The plan for today was to leisurely enjoy Banff as we rest from the hike the day before. Every year &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=1725\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-1725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canadian-rockies-2014","tag-banff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1725"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1933,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1725\/revisions\/1933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}