We stayed at Redstreak Campbround in Kootenay National Park and visited the town of Radium Hot Springs.
The drive down was gorgeous. We saw a bear along the road and some other locals.
We went to the hot springs themselves twice. Jordan loved it. Who wouldn't!? The water was nice and warm but not dangerously hot. They had to rebuild at one point and so it was structured more like a manmade pool rather than a pool in nature, but the surrounding mountains made it very cool still. The magical baby curls appeared spontaneously afterwards.
We found the best ice cream cones ever there. Their waffle cones were amazing. We went like 2-3 times. There was some good pizza across the street that we went to a couple times as well.
Our last camping spot was back to Banff. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory downtown. It was quite delicious. We went twice. They give you unlimited bread, so Jordan was all over that. We wandered the town and took it easy overall.
One day, we went to Lake Minnewanka and did the short boat cruise. It was fun. That was Jordan's first bigger boat ride. She did great.
The next evening, we did the Banff gondola. That was a bit stressful getting there. We were planning to take the public shuttle up, but it was super late. Jordan was having a tough time waiting patiently. We made it, but not by much.
Our last full day was spent relaxing at the nearby Cascade ponds park. That was perfect. Very low key walking around the ponds and seeing the nice mountains. Jordan was all about the photos that day. It was a Canadian national holiday so it was packed at the picnic area, but luckily we got there early enough to get a parking spot without trouble. There were people foaming at the mouth for our spot when we left.
During those final days in Banff, we did all the routine flushing of the tanks and maintenance for storage. We stored the RV and truck at Stampede RV, which was about 15 minutes from the airport. We made sure to fuel up the truck and fill the propanes so we would be ready to go when we returned, something we were grateful we did later. We went to our hotel at the edge of the airport. After setting up Jordan's bed with all the best precautions so she didn't fall off, she went to our bed and passed out, so we moved all the precautions to the other bed. The morning at the airport went fine. It was weird - they had us go through US customs before we got on the plane, but we were plenty early so it didn't matter.
We all had a rough time on the plane since Jordan didn't understand that she HAD to put on her seatbelt and put up the tray table during takeoff. There was a lot of yelling that was stressful for all. Then, we missed our connection in Chicago. We had to sit on the runway because of weather and so the first flight took off late. Our second plane seemed to be waiting (it said due to luggage). However, even after running across the airport and through the tunnel with a screaming toddler (she wanted to play on the escalator), we just missed it. We collapsed in defeat since it was pretty late. United helped us out with some food vouchers and a hotel stay, I think because of how ridiculous it all looked with us running with Jordan crying. It would have been better if we never thought we had a chance. We grabbed some airport food and shuttled to another hotel and ate our cold food. Anyway, the next morning we were rebooked and made it home smoothly. Jordan was much more cooperative and flew like a pro (these photos).
With that, we were home for the summer, or at least 6 weeks of it. It was a bit of a whirlwind, but we made it. Anjuli would work for the weeks we were home, before flying back to continue the journey up to Alaska and back...
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