My grandfather fought in WWII, or at least he tried to. He was too old to go on the front lines like he wanted and he was a skilled baker, so he wound up being stuck in the kitchen of a military vessel full of officers well away from the action. He wasn’t happy about it and came back from the war as a full-blown alkie. All of which is to say that I should have done a better job of taking Monday seriously, but I did not. It was Remembrance Day and those with family who served are expected to pay more attention than most. I was too busy trying to get my stuff out of an Airbnb in Canmore, Alberta, before the 11 am checkout deadline. I suck.
We spent some time after the checkout wandering around downtown, watching the crowds disperse from the town’s Remembrance Day ceremony. I couldn’t tell if Canmore was packed for that, or just, well, packed. It is a busy place, which caused me all kinds of headaches (literally) over the weekend. I don’t do people gracefully.
Our group had lunch, and then we strolled downtown one block over from main street as my wife and her cousin wanted to hit a bakery and then a vintage shop. The bakery was lined up out the front door and I think it took them almost half an hour to get served. I wandered across the street while they were waiting and tried to work the Civic Centre with my phone camera.
AB, 2024-11-11
AB, 2024-11-11
After that we stopped at a shop called Hello Vintage. It was packed with Gen Z ooohing and aaahing over all of the “vintage” clothing and, well, junk. To me the store looked like your grandmother’s shit that is leftover after the garage sale that you dump on the local Goodwill and that they pass directly on to the skip because they know no one will buy it.
Well, here in Canmore there’s a market for this stuff with the younglings. To me it was just all of the ugly crap from my childhood packed under one roof, stuff I am mostly glad to be done with these days. I do have some nostalgia for the old TVs and boomboxes, but I never want to own one ever again.
Canmore, AB, 2024-11-11
Local Mural, Canmore, AB, 2024-11-11
While I generally don’t go to the mountains to wander around the main streets of the towns themselves (they all have a sameness after a while), I do appreciate that these small towns are good about supporting art and local artists. The murals in Canmore are second to none and worth seeing. I’m sure I’m breaking copyright here, but this is a photo diary talking about what I saw and I saw some damn fine murals. It’s fair use, if you ask me.
AB, 2024-11-11
AB, 2024-11-11
Even better than the murals is that you can see Mother Nature’s art from town as well. Canmore is surrounded by the Rocky Mountains and you can enjoy seeing the tops of several ranges from within town. Looking at them brings me peace and I’d give anything to be able to live there. I’ve yet to figure out how to do this.
I got my last images of the mountains as everyone was exchanging hugs and getting ready to leave. The wife and I briefly considered hiking the Bow River Loop, but the wind was nuts and we could tell that the trail was probably packed. We were done with the wind and with crowds so we rolled back home. That was likely the last I’ll see of Canmore for 2024.
Just cell phone snaps in this post. If I had pulled out a full-sized camera I likely would have clonked someone with it by accident. The damn town was that crowded. Ugh.
