We’ve had a busy couple of months here at Zen Travellers, but with the new year comes a new focus, and a new look to our blog!
Since our last post, we rang in the new year in one of our favourite places, skied and skated our way to a happy winter, got hitched, and went on our honeymoon to Japan! Now that those busy months seem like a distant memory, we have been taking some time to reflect and refocus on which adventures we want to embark on first in our married life.
We already know that travel will be a big part of our future together, but what about the here and now? All the rushing around we did for the wedding planning took its toll on our enjoyment of the present. This caused us to pause and think; what in our home would we miss if we were gone?
We usually manage to make the most of our weekends and either get out to the mountains for all kinds of active pursuits, or explore the city’s wonderful food and music scene. But there are only so many weekends in a year and new and worthy destinations always seem to pop up. With an ever-expanding local bucket-list in mind, we decided to narrow it down our most urgent must-dos, our 2017 Alberta Bucketlist. For us that means some incredible mountain adventures, exploring new regions of the province, and musical experiences in the city.
Cross Country Skiing in the City
We already satisfied one of our goals of cross-country skiing in the city by skiing both and Confederation and Canmore Parks before a potentially season-ending chinook rolled in. Our prior busyness meant we weren’t able to fully take advantage of actually having winter this year and the unique opportunity of urban ski trails. Being able to explore these trails renewed our resolve to visit those places that have always inspired us but remained uncrossed off our list.
Alberta Bucket List & Emerald Lake Lodge
Given that the winter may soon be over, the first experience in our crosshairs is to spend a night at the beautiful Emerald Lake Lodge. We have heard nothing but good things about the Lodge and the ski trails in the vicinity. Although technically in the neighbouring province of British Columbia, Emerald Lake is close enough to be a day trip from Calgary and has a reputation for being extraordinarily beautiful. We’ll report back after our visit and here’s hoping it lives up to the hype! (Update – Here is the post about our visit to Emerald Lake!)
If ever we needed more inspiration to pursue the activities and visit the destinations that inspire us the most, we learned about Norma Jean Bauerschmidt, who at 91 years old, rejected chemotherapy in exchange for some last months of travel. She ultimately lost her battle with cancer but not before experiencing a number of firsts and taking in breathtaking sights along the way. Norma proved that it’s never too late to go boldly in the direction of your dreams, and we aim to prove that it’s never too early either.