My girlfriend and I recently endured an interesting exercise by deciding to take our daughter with us on a quick trip to Alberta.
For those contemplating traveling with an eleventh month old my suggestion is... don't.
Iona's default mood, much like myself is set to "mildly put out". She's generally not a fan of travel to begin with, so confining her to a three foot space in a metal cylinder, then spending four days in a car and small unfamiliar bedrooms pretty much guaranteed that her mood escalated from "mildly put out" to "severely displeased" and frequently "royally pissed".
I don't think she smiled the entire time. I don't think I did much either.
Mood aside, there's also the logistics of travelling with a baby. Carting half of your standard baby equipment with you over half a continent (and keeping tabs on it all) is a task unto itself, which is all the more difficult with an eleventh month old constantly reminding you that she'd like to go home.
If however you are thinking of travelling with a baby, I would suggest a couple of things... bring a sacrificial magazine. Iona spent over an hour on the flight back gleefully tearing up the in flight magazine on the cabin floor. It was the "happiest" she was during the entire "holiday". Secondly, bring some pain killers. You'll need them after having to sherpa all their damn equipment all over the place, including their stage two car seat.
Iona aside, while in Alberta we visited Calgary and Banff. The highlights of the trip for me were quite different than I think would be for most people, but I'll get into that in a moment.
When we arrived, we landed in possibly quite the thickest fog I've ever seen anywhere, and that's including various places in the UK that are well known for fog. It didn't really lift until the following midday, and even then the weather remained fairly miserable. Once the fog did lift, I would say three things struck me about Calgary:
As for Banff and the Rockies, I'm reminded of a couple of things. A good friend of mine a few years ago traveled to Arizona. He drove four hours to see the Grand Canyon and on his return remarked that it was essentially a very big hole in the ground. At the time, I was a bit mystified as to how one could go and see one of the marvels of the natural world and be completely unimpressed. Now I understand. Once you've seen one mountain, I think you've seen them all. Granted, there are a lot of them. Thousands of miles of them in fact. I just found personally after looking at them for five minutes, I found myself wanting to do something else other than stare at a wall of mountains. Unless you're into skiing or snowboarding (I don't need the injuries) or hiking (80 degree inclines are not my idea of hiking) then, there isn't all that much more to do in Banff.
Banff is essentially like Niagara Falls, but with mountains instead of a waterfall. Instead of tacky colourful shops, they have loads of shops with a faux "rugged west" theme peddling moose themed apparel. If you ask me, even someone as clueless about fashion as myself strongly believes that nobody should have moose themed apparel. As far as I could tell, Banff was mostly populated by people that used the word "narly" in every day speech still, and most of the buildings were either shops or hotels. I figured all Banff needed was a Casino... which we discovered on our way out (Casinos are my idea of what hell must be like*).
So not my cup of tea.
Calgary at least did sport a couple of interesting military museums, so it wasn't a complete loss. The Calgary Aerospace Museum and the Military Museum were the highlights of my trip, although the Science Centre was also an interesting diversion.
Iona and I are such a joy to travel with.
Oh, and a special thanks to Apple Maps for trying to drive us into a glacial lake... repeatedly.
*Anyone remember that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the crew become stuck in a Casino?
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| The Calgary skyline as viewed from our hotel room in the morning. during sunrise (I had to check the internet to see that the sun had risen.) |
Iona's default mood, much like myself is set to "mildly put out". She's generally not a fan of travel to begin with, so confining her to a three foot space in a metal cylinder, then spending four days in a car and small unfamiliar bedrooms pretty much guaranteed that her mood escalated from "mildly put out" to "severely displeased" and frequently "royally pissed".
I don't think she smiled the entire time. I don't think I did much either.
|
| The Rockies as viewed from the highway on our way to Banff. A group of Mustangs frolicked with a moose and some mountain goats. It was an amazing sight. |
Mood aside, there's also the logistics of travelling with a baby. Carting half of your standard baby equipment with you over half a continent (and keeping tabs on it all) is a task unto itself, which is all the more difficult with an eleventh month old constantly reminding you that she'd like to go home.
If however you are thinking of travelling with a baby, I would suggest a couple of things... bring a sacrificial magazine. Iona spent over an hour on the flight back gleefully tearing up the in flight magazine on the cabin floor. It was the "happiest" she was during the entire "holiday". Secondly, bring some pain killers. You'll need them after having to sherpa all their damn equipment all over the place, including their stage two car seat.
Iona aside, while in Alberta we visited Calgary and Banff. The highlights of the trip for me were quite different than I think would be for most people, but I'll get into that in a moment.
When we arrived, we landed in possibly quite the thickest fog I've ever seen anywhere, and that's including various places in the UK that are well known for fog. It didn't really lift until the following midday, and even then the weather remained fairly miserable. Once the fog did lift, I would say three things struck me about Calgary:
- Calgary looks like pretty much every other large North American city I've ever seen.
- Calgary has one of the most bizarre road networks I've ever come across. I get the distinct impression that it was a colossal experiment that failed, however instead of fixing it, they simply decided to run with it. Who in their right mind names all the streets in a given section of town with the same name and only differentiates them by appending them with drive, road, trail etc, etc? Unimaginative nutcases, that's who.
- People from Calgary drive even worse than those from Toronto (which I didn't think was possible). And for a city where everyone seems to drive vehicles the size of an M1 Abrams tank, you'd think they'd have larger parking spaces.
As for Banff and the Rockies, I'm reminded of a couple of things. A good friend of mine a few years ago traveled to Arizona. He drove four hours to see the Grand Canyon and on his return remarked that it was essentially a very big hole in the ground. At the time, I was a bit mystified as to how one could go and see one of the marvels of the natural world and be completely unimpressed. Now I understand. Once you've seen one mountain, I think you've seen them all. Granted, there are a lot of them. Thousands of miles of them in fact. I just found personally after looking at them for five minutes, I found myself wanting to do something else other than stare at a wall of mountains. Unless you're into skiing or snowboarding (I don't need the injuries) or hiking (80 degree inclines are not my idea of hiking) then, there isn't all that much more to do in Banff.
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| Here's a nice shot of a mountain after the fog finally cleared. |
So not my cup of tea.
Calgary at least did sport a couple of interesting military museums, so it wasn't a complete loss. The Calgary Aerospace Museum and the Military Museum were the highlights of my trip, although the Science Centre was also an interesting diversion.
Iona and I are such a joy to travel with.
Oh, and a special thanks to Apple Maps for trying to drive us into a glacial lake... repeatedly.
*Anyone remember that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the crew become stuck in a Casino?
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