SLIP SLIDING AWAY
Making the best of it when well-laid plans go awry!
When their carefully laid plans went awry, this couple found a way to make the best of it!
When my alarm began to play its familiar tune, I leaped out of bed on this Saturday morning. My backpack sat, packed and ready to go in the corner of my room. After sending a quick text to my fiancé, Jordan, who I’m sure was just as excited, I grabbed my lunch, skates and bag, and headed for the door.
As we drove towards Ban, Alta., the Rocky Mountains loomed larger through our windshield. Jordan and I often head to Kananaskis to hike on our free weekends, but today was dierent. We figured the deep freeze that had been chilling the Alberta Prairies over the past week had been freezing all the lakes and ponds in the Rockies, too. We were on the hunt for the perfect all-natural skating rink. We’d done our research and while Jordan drove, I took the title of navigator upon myself. The night before, I had mapped out all of the premium skating lakes laid out on the various hiking blogs that I follow. Our plan seemed foolproof: We’d skate three dierent times on three dierent lakes, eventually ending up at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Ban for supper. As we veered o Highway 2, I could feel my excitement brimming. I’d grown up skating on the small pond behind my house in Calgary but skating on a lake surrounded by the glorious mountains seemed too good to be true!
This dream, however, wasn’t achieved at our first stop. As we pulled up to Johnson Lake in Ban, a dreaded ring of water surrounded the outer rim of the lake, and the ice itself was covered in snow. “Well,” Jordan chuckled, “On to the next place, I guess!”
Unfortunately, the next two lakes were just as lackluster as the first. A combination of the insulating snow and Chinook winds from the day before had caused all of our plans to melt away with the natural skating rinks. Though we were far o from suppertime, we figured that The Old Spaghetti Factory wouldn’t fail us, and wandering around the quaint town of Ban would make up for our disappointment.
When we arrived in town, we found a parking spot and decided to start with a walk along the stunning Bow River. The tiny town was packed with tourists but as we walked, the distance between us and the downtown core grew and everything became quiet. The Bow River was frozen and, as we continued our stroll, we came to a small oshoot of the river covered in what looked like tiny pus of ice crystals. As we scooted down to the riverbank to get a closer look, Jordan checked the depth of the ice, it seemed thick enough to explore. After slip-sliding around on the smooth ice in our winter boots, I locked eyes with him and smilingly asked, “Want to grab our skates?”
We ended up having our ice adventure after all, and the post-skate spaghetti dinner had never tasted as good!