Canada Day 14 - From the Upper Hot Springs to the sleepy Golden

Rain - all day! Once again. Today we had to check out in Canmore, as we would be leaving Banff National Park and heading to Yoho National Park. We had planned to see a few things in Banff or on the way to Golden, but the weather was just awful. About 5 degrees and raining. So, we had to make a small change of plans and went to the Upper Hot Springs in Banff. Just the thing for this kind of weather!

The hot water was really soothing and since we arrived early enough, it wasn't overly crowded yet. We could enjoy our stay until it started to get busier. However, as more and more people arrived at the hot springs, we could observe some interesting things. For example, there were people who felt so bothered by the rain that they couldn't be in the pool without an umbrella. They might get wet! But the best was still the older lady who seemed to have forgotten her umbrella and therefore pulled a bag over her head instead. Not wrapped around her head or anything, no, she just pulled the bag over her head and walked around the pool more or less blind. Too bad we couldn't take a photo of that, it would have been a funny memory for sure! :D

Before the lady with the bag could suffocate, we made our way out. It was getting too crowded with all the people and umbrellas. Weather-wise, I would have loved to stay in the wonderfully warm pools for the rest of the day, but our journey had to continue. And since the weather didn't improve even after the thermal visit, we drove to Banff to find something to eat. The traffic there was a nightmare and finding a parking spot was more luck than anything else. In the city, we finally found a restaurant where we had lunch. In the meantime, we were thinking about how we wanted to spend the rest of the day, because I would have really liked to see Moraine Lake. But strangely enough, it was further away than our actual destination, Golden. And with the weather, the long drive wouldn't be worth it. So, we decided to drive directly towards Golden and visit a waterfall along the way, hoping that the weather might improve a bit later.

After lunch, we set off. However, progress was very slow as we were stuck in traffic all the time. To make matters worse, the waterfalls we wanted to visit were closed. In a pretty bad mood, we headed straight to Golden, to the Rondo Motel. And behold, the weather here actually turned out to be nice and warm, so I could change my sweater for a t-shirt. But now we had the problem that there was absolutely nothing going on in the town, and there was nothing to see either. So, we walked along the river for a while, then found something like a beer garden, but we didn't stay very long as it started to cloud over and rain again.

Tomorrow we wanted to go to Yoho National Park, to Emerald Lake. But once again, it all depended on the weather...