The Tunnel Mountain RV and Campground is huge, the sections are broken down into villages, we are in the Trailer Court Village with Full Hook ups. This Parks Canada Campground is very clean and very well organized, they have a “keep your site clean” policy and it is much appreciated by all. We had a good night sleep waking up a few times as the rain began at the forecasted time of 3:00 am, pretty accurate reporting now we just had to hope that it stopped at the 11:00 am forecasted time - our gondola time slot is set for 11:50 am. We dropped off Zhalbey at 10 o’clock at Veronica’s dog grooming and daycare so we could go off and do these few activities so we did not have to worry about him being alone in the RV, worked out very well. So, yes still in the spitting or rain we headed to the gondola parking lot with the mountain shrouded in cloud, hmmm. We arrived very early just because of the parking problems of yesterday and to our delight there were no cars in the RV spots and in fact there were also no RV’s around, we had the pick of the spots. The nice thing about the RV is that your home travels with you, so refresh the coffees, have some breakfast and watch a show on Netflix. At 11:00 o’clock the rain stopped and some blue sky broke out, nice. By our 11:50 time the views broke and we had a very nice visit at the top of Sulphur Mountain. We mainly stayed in the visitors centre, it is very well laid out including a fabulous observation deck on the 4th level. There are a few hikes to do from the visitor centre but we opted out as it was pretty cold up there, in fact, while it rained down below where we were it had actually snowed on top here, so a fresh layer of snow to help enhance the pics… nice. We were back down at about 1:30 and found a perfect parking spot close to the Banff Springs Hotel, this parking thing is looking up. This Fairmont Hotel is beautiful, absolutely stunning. Originally built in 1888 this hotel has evolved into one of Canada’s iconic Chateaus. We both enjoyed the Alberta Steak sandwich along with a most incredible Lemon Drop - White chocolate,, lemon mousse, pistachio crumble with a candied lemon to complete the presentation, can I say yum now… We completed our visit by touring the hotel areas that we could. A very nice visit here. 4:45pm we picked up Zhalbey who had a wonderful day as the person running the Day care showed us videos of Zhabey’s day - he made many new friends and lets just say he is exhausted. Before heading back to the Campground we checked out downtown Banff and surprise, surprise we found the perfect parking spot on the street about 4 blocks from the core village centre, perfect. Banff is the perfect situated tourist town with a car free main street of about 4 blocks and the backdrop of the amazing Rocky Mountains, all with a fresh layer of snow. Tourist shops galore along with all the major restaurant chains (from McDonalds to the Keg Steakhouse and beyond). Very nice, very clean, electric charged silent buses shuttle people back and forth. Interesting that many people wore their masks on the street as well as in the various stores, Covid is still very heavy in the minds of all here. We were back to our site by about 7:30 and began preparing for our evenings wind down but first our cells phone alarms all went off from the Alberta government - vaccination passports will now be required for many activities, surprise, surprise, surprise. Otherwise, what a great day indeed…
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