Banff - September 13th 2012

The whole day was mine to do what I pleased.  I decided to take advantage of the great sunny and warm weather to check out the local area and see what I might do to pass the day.
So a little cruising mode was in order.  No full riding gear, no packing, just hop on the bike and go.
This shot was taken from the parking lot of a fur trader outlet.  Poor chap who owns that shop has got to look at this view every single day.  A European couple from France were nice enough to snap this picture of me when they left the Fur Store.

It was quiet when I passed through but still early in the day.  I passed it a few times later on and it was always full of cars.
Here's the view from the Front of the Parking lot:

So having a full day to hang out in Banff there is something that I needed to do I realized - SHOP!  No no not for shoes and clothes kind of tourist shopping, but trying to see if any Sport Outlets or Camping stores might be found so I could buy a New Sleeping bag - Some of you might recall my critical DEFCON count down experience one night somewhere camping in the the Dakota's?  Well lets just say that nights events were still very fresh in my mind and I did not want to have to deal with that again on the return trip home.
Ok, so shopping in Banff should be an expensive venture one might think.  But I actually found some good prices and sales.  And as luck would have it, one place did have 20% discounts on sleeping bags.  After very close inspection of this bag which also happens to be the same model as mine but just a tad warmer.  I decided this might fit the bill.  This model seemed to have a better finish of the material to avoid zipper snags.  I made the purchase and headed back to my hotel to call www.campsavers.com for their return policy.  I've got to give a positive shout out for the great customer service from campsaver.com  They made it easy to return the product and followed up with a timely and full refund of my original sleeping bag.  All I had to do was go back to the post office in Banff and mail them my old sleeping bag.  Job done and I'm fully satisfied with my new sleeping bag.

Close-up of the good rounded off stitching on my new bag which avoids potential snagging.  Wish I thought to take a picture of the old bag to show the comparison and the manufacturing defect it had.  But this did the job.  No more Mr. Wiener Super Glued into his buns for this guy! 

With the coming and goings it was soon time for super again.  I walked into a spot I had spied earlier and thought it would be nice place to sit down at the bar and mingle with the locals.  The name screamed locals dare only enter this place and I was definitely right.  I would be somewhat disappointed however of my short visit to the "Magpie & Stump Est.1977".

As I waited to be served my 1st and only round I picked up the local paper and here is where I found out about the Speed Traps in the area from the previous weekend.  Not sure you can make out the text below but it states that a total of 434 motorists were charged with speeding over the Labour Day weekend alone!  And a total of 2096 were charged in August which was up from 770 only in July!  Guess they needed to meet some quota's me thinketh for those lackluster showings from July?  Even the BVITU are aloud vacations in July eh!

I still seemed invisible to the bar man and his close customers who were rehashing some party they got bombed at the previous night and who did the stupidest things and so on...made for some interesting eaves dropping though.  My glass had been empty for some time now and I slowly started to realize that I might not want to eat here anymore.  I still had one little bit of reading to do...This next cartoon caught my attention and got a solitary laugh from me whilst twirling that empty drink of mine:

Well I was done reading the menu, the paper and the comics and I was hungry and thirsty and it took long enough to get my 1st round that I simply left a few bills with a small token tip and left that spot.
At least I had a bit of quality reading time done.

My next stop proved to be the winning spot.  Friendly, fast and excellent service along with great patrons and good food.  What else would you expect from a good Olde-Irish-Pub?  Well for one thing a little bit of history - This might interest some of you guys so read on if you feel up to it.
I forgot to take a picture for TracyB of the houses specialty "The Hunter Pie" which came highly recommended by my waiter - So here is how this dish is described in their menu:
The Gate's Irish Fare favourite "Hunter's Pie" is a an excellent braised beef, pearl onions, mushrooms, red peppers & smoked bacon in a rich Irish whiskey sauce, enclosed with mash potoato & puff pastry.  Served with with emerald greens.
Now that was simply a delight to eat from this hungry "meat and potato" loving Irish man from Montreal.

So after finishing off that plate and giving a hearty farewell to all the patrons I was ready for some bed and maybe a bit of TV.  Something I had not done in over 13 nights now.  So back to my room and I must have watched all of 20 minutes when I awoke sometime around 03:00 am in the morning to some loud - "Bang-Bang" WWII war packed scene emanating from the tube.  I never realized it stayed on while I dozed off to never never land dreaming of Hunter's Pie and rides to come.

I still had some time to sleep and managed so slide-off to to sleep again surprisingly quickly even though I was full of excitement about the days ride to come only hours away..