Being self-employed as I am, the holidays of my family tend to erupt into a kind of blur of confusion that leave me a bit discombobulated. The Kid just finished her reading week break, and we capped it off with a trip to the mountains, having left last Thursday and rolled back home on Sunday afternoon. I wasn’t on vacation, per se, but I obviously tagged along and spent four relaxing but unproductive days in the snowy rockies.

Friday we bummed around downtown Canmore in the morning. The forecast was promising to warm up a bit from the sub-zero-teens and we figured we could do something besides dash from kitschy store to kitschy store when the relative heat-wave arrived. 

That afternoon we did a gentle hike through a trail we’ve visited often called Heart Creek. It’s a two-in and two-out stroll with only a hundred or so meters of very gradual elevation, perfect for the dog and perfect for a winter trudge in fresh snow. 

I had this idea to bring my portable audio recorder to see if I could capture some “soundscapes” rather than my typical hundred random photos of the mountains. The birds were uncooperative, and I managed to isolate some gurgling water, but in the abstract silence of the space mostly the only sounds were our crunching footsteps.

We had a quiet evening in, avoiding the resumption of the chilly temps as the sun set behind the mountains.

Saturday morning, the Kid and I walked down to the cafe and I did a spot of writing, but nothing much to brag about. Aside from the fact that Canmore tends to be my fictional muse, an unreal version of the town acting as the setting for much of my recent writing, I only really try to write while I’m there so eventually I’ll be able to truthfully claim that indeed part of both my novels have been penned in while in the shadow of those mountains.

We did a longer stroll with the dog later that morning, and then went for a lunch at the local brewery, which is basically tradition at this point, though it was the first time that the Kid could partake in raising a glass with us there.

We checked out the local sushi hole for dinner, and it was about what you’d expect from a landlocked Canadian sushi place in a tourist town: respectable but suffering from the long commute for ingredients.

I did a lot of reading on the trip. I had made a conscious decision to leave most of my devices at home (the earlier writing was done on my phone with a portable keyboard I rarely travel without) and so I didn’t have any games, computers, or distractions, and the wifi was slow enough to be a barrier. I have been reading some Stephen King, because nothing picks one up as does a phone book sized horror novel.

The Kid woke up on Sunday and walked down to the bagel shop to buy us a six pack, and we packed up the car with time to spare before checkout. Sunday traffic out of there was a bit of a chore, but we didn’t encounter the kinds of weather that would have snowballed us a week previous, and which arrived later that evening… after we were home and unpacked.