Sighting of legendary beast rocks Canada!

Today John and I spotted an amazing animal in the woods when we were driving back from Calgary...the fabled Loch Ness Moose! I have been hoping to spot a moose since we got here (though hopefully from a distance, because apparently they're most commonly seen flying through your windscreen), and while we were driving in the dark through dense trees I spotted a pale, moose-shaped thing and we stopped. The moose turned out to be a moose-shaped thing covered in snow, and I was v disappointed.

We also had another surprise driving back from Calgary tonight when a big SUV spun off the road in front of us on the highway and ploughed down the bank into a snowdrift! We stopped to see if the people in the car were ok and it turned out to be a lone girl about 20ish who was driving to meet a friend - she was pretty shaken but otherwise fine, and although we tried to help her get the car back onto the road it couldn't get up the incline and we ended up driving her to the next town (where she was headed anyway) to her friend's house to call a tow truck. Was pretty scary seeing the big car in four wheel drive spin off the road, but the conditions are fairly extreme - we will post a few pictures of snowstorms we have driven through for you to see!

Now, the reason we were driving back from Calgary to Banff AGAIN is that in the Great Saga of The Strange and Unemptiable Frozen Poo Receptacle, once again our water tanks and pipes froze and the furnace broke and we had to drive to Calgary to get a replacement RV. They assured us that our old RV was broken and this new one would be tough and stand up to the (minus 28C last night!) cold. So for the last time (I really, really, REALLY hope), we are on our way north!

We also recently tried our first live music night in Banff (don't do it), and our first nightclub in Banff! The club was good fun, all rnb and hip-hop, which John does not love but which he took manfully. There was also a punching bag machine attached to a meter thingy, and it measured how hard you punched the bag....so of course we had a go. We then attracted the attention of a couple of very white, very tattooed, very biceppy 18 year-old skinheads who wanted to join in, so naturally we let them have a go, and it developed into a weird macho contest between me, John, and a pair of skinhead (army recruits? /Neo-Nazis? /youths?) They were really quite intense so in the end John and I went to dance and leave them to their angry manly bag-punishing. That was quite odd.

Back in Banff now. Sigh.

Em