The forecasted overcast day turned out to be a lot better than expected & started off well with another free Pancake Breakfast at the fire-house just down the street.  It was the end of fire safety week & there were kids all over the place climbing on the big red engines – I missed my best opportunity yet to have a photo taken in the cab of one of these nice shiny appliances.   The pancakes weren’t too bad either – sausages were the meat this time, they go surprisingly well with maple syrup.

Alex & Megan had a Melbourne friend, Jackie, staying with them so about six of us headed west to Johnston Canyon (just west of Banff) to check out the falls.  Becca brought Adele & I here in January – it is now much different with no snow & ice around.  The two and a half kilometre trail was concreted pretty much the whole way – with bits of it being tacked on to the side of the canyon.  It’s a popular spot – the parking lot was full – & we passed many people on the trail (highway).

It was another one of those places around here that I can’t work out whether it’s more spectacular in summer or winter.

Here a few pictures from January for comparison purposes (it turns out that these didn’t make my blog at that time, for some reason).

Sunday prevening was spent learning a new game (Bananagrams) that was basically everyone playing their own little game of Scrabble simultaneously in a race to use one’s tiles up first, before heading downtown (a whole block away) to get yummy ice cream & heading down to the river for no particular reason to finish said ice cream.  I think we went straight from there to a Japanese restaurant – perhaps I just don’t get Japanese food, but I was slightly disappointed; my disappointment was mostly due to the fact that my spicy Teriyaki was not at all spicy (they forgot the extra sauce) & the cabbage & other vegetables were pretty bland.  Back to Alex & Megan’s for more Bananagrams, which was OK for a while – but as much as I like words & being a geek, the lack of interaction between players (as in what others do has minimal impact on your own little game-world) got me a little bored after a few hands.  I miss evenings of Settlers, Articulate, Cranium & many more.