Water and Mountains Make me Happy

Hola peeps!

Blogger and I are getting along again - so I can finally finish the entry I started days ago!! Shall we?

Many apologies for my blogging absence yesterday. You see the fiance had yesterday off and we have come to an agreement whereby I'll try to keep blogging to when he's not around. So I was busy spending time with the love of my life instead! lol :o) I'm sure you'll understand!

Thankfully the fiance also had this past weekend off which lead us to take one of our impromptu trips. This time we drove through a couple of mountain passes, a valley, a serious mountain pass (!) and finally found ourselves in the West Kootenays city of Nelson. It's a hippy dippy kind of town located on one of the arms of Kootenay Lake. It's wonderfully restored and has some amazing food! Plus the views are awesome too!!!

When we checked into the hotel (The Prestige) we discovered that there were a bunch of kids staying there for a band competition. Thus the hotel upgraded us for free (woohoo!!!) to their prestige level. It was a tricked out suite with a jacuzzi tub, huge flat screen TV, and a little flat screen in the washroom! lol I loved it!

Oh and there was a balcony which featured this:


What a view, eh!? I took this picture early on Sunday morning. When no one was awake and the lake was perfectly still.

Some more of the view:


I loved my trip to Nelson! Being near water again was good for my soul. It kind of reminded me of being in Victoria.

Now this is the part of the recap where I should probably explain that I indulged in a rare junk food treat this weekend. While in Nelson we hit up this Italian place that I had tried on a previous visit (when nothing else was open). They make THE best calzones. I had a Greek Vegetarian Calzone and opened it up so I could show you it's yummy-factor:


Well worth the calorie expenditure! :o) lol Not too worry though, I upped the healthy quotient by sharing a Greek Salad (sans dressing) with the fiance.


After my picture taking session on Sunday morning we headed out for a lazy and relaxing Sunday breakfast at a local hot spot: Oso Negro. It's a coffee shop that sells some baked goods and limited breakfast sandwiches. One look at the surroundings however and there's no doubt that it's THE place to be on a weekend morning.

While I waited for my breakfast sandwich to be made I nibbled on a bit of the fiance's breakfast cookie - featuring hemp. Now I know this may sound silly but I wasn't entirely convinced that this cookies was high-proof! :oP lol


When my sandwich arrived I was thrilled to see how big it was! lol What can I say? I woke up kind of starved!!!!


After breakfast we headed out on an excursion to a long-retired but beautifully restored paddle wheeler. Once upon a time it traveled the river from Idaho to Canada bringing passengers back and forth. Pity a service like that doesn't exist anymore! Nonetheless when we heard about the restored boat we decided to check it out!

On our arrival at the S.S. Moyie I was excited to see not only the beautifully restored boat but the stunning scenery too!


In it's heyday the S.S. Moyie turned the now sleepy town of Kaslo into quite the prosperous Port, as evidenced by the beautiful architecture on the main street:


The fiance and I had a wonderful time exploring both the boat and the town. We met some interesting characters too! In fact we had two random older people just come up and say hello and start talking to us. They were the most fascinating conversations!!! The first gentleman was originally from Cypres and was trained as a ship engineer in the Navy. He told us about his travels around the world, life on a Naval ship, and how he finally ended up in a small mountain town in Canada. The next lady was very old, probably 80 something, and she told us how she was originally from Alberta (Canada) and trained as a nurse so that she could see the world. When she finished her schooling she worked in Halifax (Nova Scotia), Toronto (Ontario), and San Francisco (California). She told us how she had many adventures and eventually settled down in the beautiful town of Kaslo.

Go figure! Those two conversations were amongst the highlights of my day. In fact I think I'll remember them for a long time to come. Moments like that make traveling worthwhile! :o)

Once back in Nelson we found ourselves in sweltering heat and so decided to indulge in a light dinner salad, accompanied by a glass of an ice cold beverage:


By this point it was getting late and we started our trip back home. In order to change things up we took the free (!) ferry across Kootenay Lake. Sure it's the slower journey home but it's definitely worth it for the views alone.

Check out the magnificence of my ferry journey home:


My pictures don't even come remotely close to doing the views justice! Let me put it to you this way - I have traveled all the way to the Norwegian Fjords and seen how beautiful they are. They were indeed wonderful but this particular area of Kootenay Lake is just as AMAZING! :o) I highly recommend it!!!

Instead of stopping along the way to eat dinner we headed home and had dinner courtesy of some left overs from my lunch the day before (pre-impromptu trip). But these weren't your average left overs - they were kind of special given how they started out:


And that bloggies was my random weekend trip! :o) Stay tuned for a recap of my week's highlights, an exercise video review, and tales of my half-marathon training!

See you tomorrow!!!