A 50th reimagined

August 21, 2024August 21, 2024 / Greg / Leave a comment

My wife and I have had a string of bad luck with our plans for recent anniversaries and our respective 50th birthdays. Ever the optimist, when a week’s trip to the Okanagan to celebrate her 50th fell through on account of the health of a close friend, we put together a quick three day visit to Calgary because even in tough times you have to find a way to celebrate.

Calgary has quickly become a favourite city for the two of us since moving to Saskatoon. It’s a reasonable 6+ hour drive, we’ve found a favourite hotel, and over a number of visits we’ve found a collection of favourite restaurants and bars to fill a weekend. On top of that list is Native Tongues, where an early meal during their happy hour lets you order the delightfully named “snackarita” that saves you money to buy even more of their amazing tacos. Hands down so far, this is our favourite restaurant in the city.

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Dreams of Tofino

March 30, 2023March 24, 2023 / Greg / 1 Comment

For a very long time I had made up my mind that I would fall in love with Tofino when I was finally able to visit. That really isn’t much of a stretch as I have always been partial to west coast locations with their beaches and wonderful sea air. When we planned out our Vancouver Island trip last summer there was no doubt that a significant portion of it would be based out of Tofino. While the warm up acts of a few days in Victoria and spending some time at a cottage on the east coast of the island were splendid, I was giddy when we pointed our car toward the west coast and Tofino.

On our way there we made a few stops to break up the drive. First up was MacMillan Provincial Park and Cathedral Grove. Finding a parking spot in the tight highway lot was a bit of a chore, but after that was sorted out, our hike through the forest was perfectly serene.

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A perfect unplanned day

January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 / Greg / Leave a comment

Anyone who tried to travel by air in the summer of 2022 in Canada will have some sort of horror story to tell. The day before our planned trip to Vancouver Island I received the dreaded text message from Air Canada with a flight cancelation for our flight the next day. In the end, we lost the first day we were scheduled to spend in Victoria, but on the positive side, we at least arrived just in advance of the airport’s rental car location closing so we could snag our car for an extra late night drive to our downtown hotel.

We woke up fresh the next morning, but quite hungry as the previous day’s delays and flight changes left us woefully little time to actually eat en route to Victoria. My wife had picked out John’s Place, a diner a block from our hotel that had an extensive list of gluten-free goodies (waffles!) and while she had done significant research on this place, I knew nothing about it…. until we walked in and I was greeted by this sign. Instantly, I knew this was a good omen for a great day ahead.