August 28, 2012 - Clay's first photo from this trip was actually out our bedroom window of a rabbit that has been hanging out around our yard. Our first wildlife sighting of the trip was walking back from dinner by the airport. I'm not sure I know the difference between a rabbit and a hare!
Thus began our Caravan Tour Canadian Rockies and Glacier Park 2012. This is our 2nd Caravan Tour. We did the
Copper Canyon in 2009. Sadly, Caravan has discontinued that tour. Anyway, we went again with Caravan with Debbie's Mom, Margie and her friend, Judy.
We all flew on Delta and all flights were on time and we all flew with only carry on luggage, so no problems there. We all cleared customs and immigration into Canada without a hitch. We met up at the hotel in Calgary, Alberta in the afternoon of August 28th. Caravan had us at the
Airport Hilton Garden Inn for one night. They provide a complimentary shuttle from the airport. You go outside from baggage claim and look across the street for a yellow column with a 10 on it. You go across and pick up the phone there to call the shuttle. The shuttle runs about every 45 minutes all day as best we could tell. The hotel is right next to the airport, but evidently because of the way the roads run or construction, it takes between 20 and 40 minutes to drive between the two. There is not much near the HGI. In walking distance to the left as you exit are
Tim Hortons and the
Aerospace Museum and to the right is
Moxie's Bar & Grill. We were all pretty exhausted from the flights, jet lag and knowing we had an early morning tomorrow, so we did not go to the museum. Clay and I were in room 409, which had a view of a warehouse and parking lot. Mom and Judy were a couple of doors down and across the hall and they had a much nicer view of downtown Calgary's skyline.
At 7pm, we met our group of 46 (a sold out group!) and our tour director, Amy. It was about a 5 minute meeting. We learned to redeem our breakfast coupons in the hotel lobby between 6am and departure. To have our bags outside our doors at 7am. Bus loaded in front of the building and departure by 8am. We learned that we would learn about the rotation of seats on boarding the bus. I'll spare you the suspense. Amy hung an index card with our names on it above the seat we were assigned each day. We got to freely choose the first day and then she made up the cards and moved us 1 to 3 rows forward or back each day. So, for example, Clay and I lucked into the first row due to a misunderstanding the first day and by the last day we had worked our way all the way to the back of the bus, around to the other side of the aisle and were 6 to 8 rows from the front on that side.
Regarding our dining choice, we were to learn very soon, that Canada or at least Alberta, has strict controls on the sales of alcoholic beverages including wine and beer. Since that is all any of us drink, that is all that impacted us. But, there are very limited places to buy beer and wine. You can be served in bars, in some restaurants, and in state controlled specialty stores. Therefore, while we could have had about the same meal choices for late lunch/early dinner at
Tim Hortons, we could not have gotten the beers. (Go to Tim Hortons and get a Canadian Maple! Yum!)
Photos
