Filed under: Blogging, Bras, Canada, Canadialand, Family, Fraccing, Friends, General, Holidays, Humanity, Life, Memories, Pain, Thoughts, Wishes | Tags: a room with a view, Banff Gondola, Banff National Park Alberta Canada, fracas, melancholy, Mother Nature, mountain views, nature, Olga the traveling bra, raining, sadness, Sulphur Mountain
This, dear fraccers… is going to be one of the saddest posts you’ve ever read at fracas.
Have you ever walked by a candy shop or a toy store, and noticed some child standing there, pining for the contents? If you have, then you’ll understand.
You see… this was the view from our hotel room. We would wake up, draw the drapes, and be greeted with this. On arrival, Olga thought it was the best room she’d ever stayed in… merely for the view.
Little soaps and fancy creams… who cares?
Plush robe… who needs it?
Olga… was happy with being able to say hello to her precious mountain in the morning.
We were happy for her, and if truth be told… we enjoyed the view ourselves as well. The air was crisp and clean and I’d be a fraccy liar if I said it didn’t make me consider selling up the fraccy home and moving lock, stock and barrel to the mountains. Olga understood.
So we thought after our gondola experience, that coming back to the hotel might make Olga feel better. She was, as I mentioned, a little sad (missing her Blog-Mistress and wishing she could’ve stayed up there forever…) and we really wanted to cheer her up.
Things didn’t go as I planned.
The mere sight of the mountain outside our room sent her into a deep, dark pit of sadness that we weren’t sure what to do about. Suddenly, the little soaps and all the lovely trappings of a hotel room reminded her of the fact that this, after all… wasn’t home and we had to leave her beloved mountains.
The photos below are thumbnails of larger images you may view by clicking them. It was such a sad, sad site that I can feel the tears welling up again just recalling poor Olga’s suffering. She held on and no amount of prying could release the grip her little straps had on the window frame.
Fracas (that’s me) as you know… has a heart. I couldn’t bear to see Olga suffer so, and so the fraccy family knew what we had to do…
Only I’m not going to tell you what that was just quite yet.
I’m going to make you come back later tonight to find out.
Filed under: Announcements, Blogging, Canada, Canadialand, Canadian, Entertainment, Food, Fraccing, General, Humor, Notables, Notices, Shameless Self Promotion | Tags: fracas, Fraccers, fraccers.com, Rent My Melons, Dangerously Delicious Pies, $55 Watermelon, new posts, rentmymelons.com, Joe Canadian, Mercy Buckets, Merci Beaucoup
We interrupt this Olga-fest to warn you about the newest posts over at the other Fraccy sites.
- New post over at Fraccers: Bald Guy… Great Pie!
- New post over at Rent My Melons: What Does A $55 Watermelon Look Like?
Please note, that the older Whore-y version of Fracas site will not be updated any longer, nor will I be able to reply to comments there. I’d kept it because before OpenID, a person needed a Blogger ID to comment on Blogger blogs. If you have it on your blogroll, please change it to the Fraccers.com site.
No, I am not French.
I am Canadian though, and I like to think I’m way more attractive than that Joe Canadian guy.
If you don’t agree, please don’t tell me.
I like to live in my fantasy world.
If you mess that up for me, you might find out that there are other uses for a Dangerously Delicious Pie.
(Just don’t tell Rodney Henry…)
Filed under: Alberta, Amusement, Bras, Canada, Canadialand, Entertainment, Family, Fraccing, Friends, Fuel My Blog, Fuelmyblog, Fun, General, Holidays, Miracles, Travel | Tags: Banff Gondola, Banff National Park Alberta Canada, fracas, gondola accident, haunting mist, Make lemonade, Mother Nature, nature, Olga the traveling bra, Rainbows, raining, Rimrock Hotel, Sulphur Mountain
Olga would like to clarify something first.
This is a Gondola, exactly like the one she rode in. Obviously it’s not the one she rode in, or how would she be taking this picture? It is however, one that she took the photo of from the observation deck at Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Click on it if you’d like to see a wider version that shows the car dangling mid-air.
(And a word of advice here now. This post contains many photos of Olga’s adventure up to and atop Sulphur Mountain. I’ve reduced their size for the post, but click on any photo and it will show you a larger, 800 x 600 version!)
From the Banff Info site:
“The Banff Gondola is located just 5 mintues from the Town of Banff, on the shoulder of Sulphur Mountain, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies.
The 360 degree view from the upper gondola terminal, view decks and summit ridge interpretive boardwalk, is the very best vantage point in the west. Safely seated in a 4 passenger gondola cabin, visitors are transported in 8 minutes to the summit at an elevation of 2281m (7486 ft) above sea level.”
You did catch that, didn’t you?
7486 ft above sea level! ***
Olga couldn’t believe the bra-very it took to get in that car once she got there and saw how high up those cars were dangling from those wires. Still… she had her heart set on seeing the tops of those mountains and so she pushed onwards and upwards, just like any good bra would do.
As soon as the car started its way up the mountain, Olga’s became very excited, asking a million questions about what she was seeing.
Clearly, these were the tops of some of the tallest trees Olga had ever seen! It’s truly amazing how tall trees will grow when there’s no one or nothing to get in their way and lots of sunshine and rain to feed them! Olga wasn’t frightened a bit. In fact… she said it made her elastic feel all ‘tight’ again.
While Olga was certainly enjoying herself, I and the fraccy children were a little concerned for her safety. After all, there was that incident where a man fell to his death from a gondola car after breaking through the plexiglass. Granted… it was suspected that the men in the car (having been drinking) were pushing each other around in the lift and that’s how the freak accident occurred, but I was a 
little worried about her being so close to the window.
It was open a few inches for respite from the heat on a hot day, but I calculated that Olga was small enough to fall out and so asked her to come away from the window a tad.
Before doing so, she quickly snapped this photo, and mused how it would be grand if Kevin and Sylvie ran another “View From My Window” contest so that she could enter this picture of the view from her gondola window!
Though the ride up takes 8 minutes, it goes by so quickly, you’d swear it was only a minute or two. Olga noticed a building that stood out, seemingly right below us, and asked what it was. We’d driven by it on the way to the gondolas, but the Rimrock Hotel looked quite different from up here. We were so high up, we couldn’t even see the doormen or the valet parking attendants!
Perhaps next time, Olga mused… we could stay there?
When I told Olga that August rates at such a fine hotel were about $230.00 per person, per night, she did the math for five of us on this trip… and said she felt her stitches popping.
Perhaps if Mr. Fracas and I go all by ourselves sometime, I’ll sneak her in!
Finally at the top, we had to take a moment and watch the lifts come in. Standing beneath them is quite a thrill, and how Olga managed to take the photos at the beginning of this story. Wandering around the 360 degree observation deck was a lovely experience. We hiked down a trail and though Olga couldn’t understand why, we ran into a man who said he was contemplating hiking all the way back down. He apparently didn’t enjoy the gondola ride as much as Olga.
Unfortunately, to the dismay of the younger fraccy son and Olga, a kibosh was put on the hiking by none other than me… dear old fracas, fearful that my control-top garment wouldn’t be enough and that silly old hernia would ruin the day. Olga volunteered to help with that, suggesting that her elastic was good and tight from that exciting trip up, but I had vowed not to put her to work like a certain old git had.
We’d no sooner come around to the main side of the observation deck when a light rain started to fall. People were rushing to the building to head back down, but Olga, the fraccy children and I decided to put up the hoods and press on. We were quite glad we did. For a brief time, we had the observation deck all to ourselves, and though I and the children had been up last year, we’d never gotten to experience it in the rain.
The rain was more of a mist, and it created a misty, foggy, haunted kind of mood that was quite remarkable. Within minutes, the mountains around us, though still visible, were covered in mist.
Almost as quickly as it began, it was over and the sun came back out. We were chuckling about how silly it was for the folks that left to have done so. Looking about, we decided to try the walkway across to the other mountain. It’s about 1 km of wooden trail, stairs up and down as the terrain between the two peaks allows.
We’d no sooner set out across, when Olga noticed the most beautiful rainbow! In fact, if you stood in the right spot, you could see two! It seemed like it was hanging there, just ready for us to reach out and grab it. Olga decided it was her rainbow.
I, realizing what a wonderful experience this had been, took a moment to remind the fraccy children that while others had thought rain was a bad thing… an activity ruined, we had chosen to take the ‘lemon’ we were handed, and make lemonade.
Olga agreed. Lemonade sure never tasted this good before.
On the way back down, Olga was quiet. I asked her why, and in a very tiny voice, she said that while she was very happy to have had this experience, she wished she had been able to share it with her Blog Mistress.
Indeed. That would’ve made it perfect!
*** To compare… The total height of the Empire State Building, including the lightning rod, is 1,454 feet.
Filed under: Alberta, Amusement, Bras, Canada, Canadialand, Entertainment, Family, Fraccing, Friends, Fun, General, Holidays, Humor, Travel, Weather | Tags: Banff National Park, cows, Cows Store, fracas, mountains, Olga the traveling bra, rain, Rihanna, Sulphur Mountain
We were about an hour past Calgary on our way to Banff, me (fracas) resting comfortably because I was ‘apparently’ three sheets to the wind tired, and Mr. Fracas enjoying the break from driving, when one of the kids nudged me out of my slumber to let me know we were almost there.
I looked up and noticed that Olga was driving with one strap and wielding the camera with the other. Momentarily upset that she didn’t have both straps on the wheel, she reassured me that driving with one strap was something she could do quite proficiently… likely from her brief stint as a smoker. I calmed down and realized she was in fact, doing a fine job of driving and taking some really great photos of our approach to the mountains. (If you’d like the mammoth version, click the photo and see for yourself.)
I tell you fraccers, Rihanna’s got nothing on Olga, The Traveling Bra!
Finally we were there, and Olga was as excited as a bra ever could be.
We had a long wait at the gate (isn’t there always some yahoo ahead of you asking every conceivable question of the gal who is supposed to just be taking your money because there are information booths to answer your questions all over the dang park?) and Olga used it as a fine opportunity to snap some proof that we were there.
After what seemed like forever, it was our turn. We paid our fee, Olga put the pedal to the medal and within a few more minutes we were cruising the main street.
First up, we planned a bite to eat and a quick tour of some of the shops on Banff Avenue. Though Olga was too excited to eat much, the rest of us, though lured by the numerous candy and chocolate spots, decided to be responsible and have a good, nutritious lunch so that we’d have the energy for a long day.
It started to rain a bit, and though we worried we’d not be able to enjoy another gondola ride to the top of sulphur mountain (like last year), we decided not to give up hope and bide our time in the shops.
Olga was particularly excited to come upon a certain shop. I didn’t understand her zeal, but she explained… and it all made sense after that.
We of course, had to go in and check it out.
There were loads of hilarious t-shirts with pictures of cows on them sporting slogans like “Graze Moo-natomy”, “Hannah Moo-ntana”, “Dairy Potter”, “Pirates of the Cowibean”, and “Horton Hears a Moo”.
There was also an ice-cream counter with some of the best ice-cream Olga’s ever had! The waffle cones were being cooked up right there in front of us and the smell was moo-velous.
Olga’s favorite item in the store though, happened to be these little guys that were hanging out in the store window.
She said they reminded her of home and home reminds her of her lovely Blog Mistress.
Momentarily… she was a little sad, and I even thought I saw a tear… but when we realized that the rain had stopped and the sun had come out, she perked right back up and put aside those little pangs of home-sickness because we had to hurry over the the gondolas lest we lose our chance to see the top of the world!
Having shared this much… Olga bids you good-bye for today, with promises of an exciting tale of her ride to the top of Sulphur Mountain!
