I have returned triumphant!

[kitchen_kink]

Well, alive, anyway.

For those of you who don't know, I just got back from a week's vacation in Banff. For those of you who don't know what that is, no, it has nothing to do with the X-Men. Banff is a Canadian national park in the Rockies, close to Calgary, the site of the 1988 Winter Olympics. ('88? '84? Actually, I can't remember.)

I don't really have it in me today to begin recapping, but I will be doing somewhat recappy reports of the trip, informed by the more immediate impressions I wrote in my paper journal while there.

For now, I'm happy to be back East. Yesterday morning, the temperature reading on the rear view mirror of the giant SUV we'd rented read -27 C. (That's, like, 72 in dog years.) Today, for the first time in months, I stepped outside without buttoning my jacket. No evidence remains that the so-called blizzard ever happened. (I don't believe in it.)

So today I'm just chillin' at work, getting over some mild jetlaggy feelings, and feelin' pretty good. Not terribly articulate, but good.

I shall return after some sleep.

Comments

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

'88. In fact, Neve Campbell and the guy who played Cigarette-smoking Man in the X-Files played a daughter and father in an ad that was run to encourage young Canadians to participate in the torch run.

Have I mentioned that I worked for the IOC?

Re:

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

No, you haven't! Do tell! I hate sports, yet I love the Olympics. Go fig.

[wurmwyd.livejournal.com]

Hi There!

Then tell me how I get to be a Skeleton rider!! I was born for this event!! I want to ride Skeleton damnit!!

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Actually, I worked for the marketing folkx, so that info I don't have...

Re:

[wurmwyd.livejournal.com]

Hi There!

Damn.

Re:

[wurmwyd.livejournal.com]

Hi There!

Damn.

[wurmwyd.livejournal.com]

Hi There!

....and ironically, the missus and I just saw "Cool Runnings" for the 187th time on cable recently. I don't presume to be able to drive a bobsled, but I want to know if they let you ride down the bodsled run on your tummy. Would that not be the coolest experience in the world? (Wait, wasn't there a new Olympic event like that last time? It had a really bizarre name, too?)

But there WAS actually a blizzard here, there WAS! I have proof! Go look at the pictures I posted last monday!! (or the link to them, anyway

Re:

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

I SAW your pictures! Cute!

And the event was called Skeleton. You go headfirst on your stomach down a luge on a sled. Dumb, dumb, dumb. :)

Re:

[wurmwyd.livejournal.com]

Hi There!

That's IT!! Skeleton! I want to be a skeleton driver!! I want to join the skeleton crew!! I want to be the King of the Pumpkin Throne!!

That would be so cool! How do you get a gig like that? Just pop on down to your local skeleton track with your single-person-tummy-luge you bought down at Wal-Mart for $39.95? Does it matter that I'm older than most olympians? I wouldn't think youth would matter much, since it's more of a "gravity" thing.

SO......

[rosif3r.livejournal.com]

how'd the boots work out for ya?

hope you had a great time. you missed some, uh, interesting weather while you were gone.

ro

Re: SO......

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

The boots are fantastic, thanks! I really fell in love with them around the second day, when I walked around in them a bit, and later in the week I attached crampons and hiked on ice. Whee!

I got your message, btw--it was hysterical. Yes, we should definitely watch some Hicks. I have a great BBC documentary on him, followed by a really great performance at the Dominion in London.

Re: SO......

[rosif3r.livejournal.com]

The boots are fantastic, thanks! I really fell in love with them around the second day, when I walked around in them a bit, and later in the week I attached crampons and hiked on ice. Whee!

ok, so two things about this paragraph. when i first read it, i was also talkign to David (Kaz's other sweetie), and i was randomly mousing around and unconciously highlighted the words I attached crampons . a relatively random phrase to just sit by itself, all highlighted in purple.

and tonight when i got to the post to respond to it, i read it quickly and saw it as I attached crayons.

go fig.

but it sounds like you had way more fun in the snow and ice than we had here. to which i can only say two things:

1. go, you!

and

2. you bitch. (but in the sweetest way)


I got your message, btw--it was hysterical. Yes, we should definitely watch some Hicks. I have a great BBC documentary on him, followed by a really great performance at the Dominion in London.

mrowr? was i being particularly witty or something? i have no recollection. very zen. or incipient alzheimers. one or the other....

let's talk about it more at Kaz's party.

ro

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

glad you trip was triumphal.

i tried to email you but it kept bouncing back. please get someone at versailles to print, show, forward, or otherwise bring into your presence the silly mass email with a paragraph directed especially at you.

[ert.livejournal.com]

Wha? Huh??

Re:

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Oo! I don't believe anyone at Versailles got such a thing, either...help?

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

hmm, it looks like i accidentally left ert off of the original to-line. i'm sending again to both of you. i know the mass email actually went out into the world because some people replied. alert me if trouble continues.

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

sorry, i forgot to say also, and share with other versailles types, please.

Banff

[cos]

I love Banff! My family went on a camping trip to there, and Jasper, for several weeks, when I was little - before the Olympics had been there :) I think we spent four weeks out there in total, though we spent a few days of that in Calgary, and on a small trip to Glacier park in the US. We went to Glacier just for a day, and that evening when we returned to Canada, Canadian customs confiscated a lemon I was eating, which we'd just brought over from Canada that same morning.

I especially remember Lake Louise, did you get a chance to hike up there? Also a certain wonderful glacier we got to wander around the edge of. Beautiful blue ice-cave wonderland. I wonder how much the glaciers have receded in the past two decades since I saw them.

Re: Banff

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

I did get up to Lake Louise, in fact. And I'm guessing that Johnston's Canyon is the ice-cave wonderland you're thinking of, though beyond Lake Louise is the Plain of Six Glaciers, which I didn't make it to.

The fruit confiscation thing is just weird.

Re: Banff

[cos]

Nope, not Johnston's Canyon. I was talking about the bottom edge of one of those glaciers. We got to walk around and inside it - at the bottom edge it was only a couple of meters high/deep in places, and many of the crevasses were clear all the way to the ground. It was shallow enough that the sunlight went all the way through and turned all of the ice into glowing blue - curvy twisty glowing blue ice walls and ceilings and floors.

My confiscated lemon story has been immortalized on a recording of moxy früvous at WBRS, August 1996.