We’ve had two nights in Banff and we must now go and fetch our vehicle for the next ten days, which means a trip to Calgary, a couple of hours away. In order to do this we need to pack up and get to Banff bus station, where we’ll be getting ‘Brewsters Shuttle’. The bus station is smallish but it’s clear which bay we’ll need to wait at. When the bus pulls in we meet our driver, ‘Pat’ who is both jocular and informative. We’re armed with lunch from the town deli, which we’re intending to eat en route, since the journey will be over lunchtime.

The bus exits Banff and sets off along Highway 1. This is a major route, the ‘trans-Canada highway’ across all of Canada from West to East, 651 miles. Pat, the driver knows a lot about many subjects, especially geology and seems to be an expert on the local mountains. Something that astonishes me is that once we’re away from the mountains- which doesn’t take all that long, the terrain is all prairie right up to the lakes on the other side of the country. But we’re not going that far, and before long we’re entering the outskirts of Calgary, with the winter Olympic ski jump tower visible on the right. This is to prove helpful in our efforts to navigate to and from Calgary!

As we get towards the centre, Pat begins dropping passengers off at various points, mostly hotels, but he is not able to drop us at ours, the ‘Fairfield Inn’, owing to the fact that there is no access for the bus under the railway line. We get off at the Fairmont, [another Fairmont!] and must find out way to the Fairfield- which feels confusing, but after asking and using my phone we set off in the direction of the Fairfield Inn. Central Calgary looks unremarkable at this point- high rise architecture but without the pizzazz and style of Vancouver.

Trundling our cases, we trudge to the hotel, which is supposed to be part of the Marriott chain, although I’d have expected something a little more upmarket, since it’s on a side street and decidedly lacklustre. Our room is clean but not large. The fixtures and fittings are cheap and nasty and the coffee cups are plastic single-use. It is adequate, though not as good as a Premier Inn in the UK, which is bog standard for hotels. Ho Hum.

But there is internet, which is vital for us this evening, because we must reserve a camping pitch for tomorrow night and we don’t have any resources except Google to find one, whcih must not be too far to reach in an afternoon. We won’t be able to collect the van until then.

We settle to the task, then it begins to become clear that we’d overestimated the simplicity of it. We can find sites, but they are seriously busy! Not at all the ‘low season’ empty state we’d been led to believe. Most are full. It’s a blow. What on Earth are we going to do?

I search and search, then find a site- ‘Macleans’ somewhere between Calgary and Banff, which we’d been planning to return to. There are pitches, albeit without electricity, and it’s vast, but I’m not able to reserve until I’ve set up an account, which proves impossible. In desperation I phone up- and beg the woman on the end of the line to stay with me until i’ve set up an account…and…phew! I get a pitch! Now for the next hurdle… and things become trickier than ever…

Grace is the alter ego of novelist and short story writer, Jane Deans. To date I have two published novels to my name: The Conways at Earthsend [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conways-at-Earthsend-Jane-Deans-ebook/dp/B08VNQT5YC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ZHXO7687MYXE&keywords=the+conways+at+earthsend&qid=1673350649&sprefix=the+conways+at+earthsend%2Caps%2C79&sr=8-1 and The Year of Familiar Strangers [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Year-Familiar-Strangers-Jane-Deans-ebook/dp/B00EWNXIFA/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2EQHJGCF8DSSL&keywords=The+year+of+familiar+strangers&qid=1673350789&sprefix=the+year+of+familiar+strangers%2Caps%2C82&sr=8-1 Visit my writer Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=jane%20deans%2C%20novellist%2C%20short%20fiction%20and%20blog or my website: https://www.janedeans.com/