Banff National Park

Yesterday, we spent a great day with my niece (@maddzimm) who was on a pre-Sophomore-year-in-college road trip with her boyfriend and just happened to be in Banff for a few days. With one main day for a hike, we suggested the crowded but classic one up to the Lake Agnes Tea House at Lake Louise. Of course, we were required by Canadian law to take a pic in front of the eerily blue-green waters as the bright red canoes slid by in the background. Doing it while wearing a tutu over pink fleece pants with cowboy boots and a Patagonia poof and pig tails was optional. #lakelouise #banff #alberta #fulltimefamilies #advodnaxmascard

A bit wintry up at the tea house, but after three miles of steep uphill, a few pots of tea, hummus sandwiches on fresh baked bread, some tomato vegetable soup and chocolate chip cookies were pretty amazing. Oh, and the scenery's not bad either. No, that's not one of the super fat, tame chipmunks that live on scraps from hikers down by the lake. That's Mae in the bright red full MEC (think REI, but in Canadian) fleece suit with a rain suit over it, happy as can be. #childhoodunplugged #lakeagnes #lakeagnesteahouse #lakelouise #banff #alberta #mec @mec

Moved just a few kilomiles up the road to be closer to the Banff village for a couple days (laundry, a restaurant burger and fries and summer gear sales!). We also needed to get out of the trees for a few days since, after not using it since the weekend we bought it four months ago, our little 1000W generator has been having a hard time keeping up with the overcast and chill. Lemme 'splain. First, we've been getting practically zero solar and second, our power usage has spiked since cold nights have been requiring more furnace and rainy days have meant more days inside with the heat on. Instead of our usual 50-60 amp hours per day, we're probably up around 75 at least. Now, most campsites have generator hours from 9-10:30 am and 5-7 pm, 3.5 hrs total. Our 1000W Yamaha generator puts out something like 8 amps of AC power. The way the guy at Magnum, the maker of our 50 amp charge controller, explained it to me our unit takes about 8 amps AC and converts it to 50 amps DC. But, we've been finding that with any other loads (particularly the "hungry" ones like the fridge on AC, the furnace, the bathroom fan etc), the generator quickly overloads and shuts down. In fact, we've had to adjust the "Max Charge Rate" setting on the controller down to 40% or so to keep draw to about 20 amps DC. 20 amps for 3.5 hours, should get us 70 hrs, close to what we need daily, but considering we'd started down about -100 hrs and aren't always home during generator hours, it's been a losing battle. An argument for a 2000W, perhaps, but it won't fit in the roof top box and in reality, the little guy has done its job pretty well considering the conditions. #airstream #myrivetedlife #airstreamwithkids #banff #banffnationalpark #tunnelmountain

"Trailering is unquestionably the ideal way to travel with children. They can live their normal life and have their normal schedule of food and sleep and play and get a most wonderful education without even realizing it." I've been reading "Fifth Avenue on Wheels," a short book written by Wally Byam, the founder of Airstream, recently reprinted by Airstream Life and now available on Kindle. While it was written in 1949, it seems like every page has something like the passage above that I could see as a blog post or caption to an IG post today. He goes on to talk about the simplicity and convenience of a kitchen in which everything is within arm's reach, the dual benefit of meeting people you might not have met otherwise or seeing things you might not have otherwise seen but doing it right from your "home," and enjoying the freedom of making your own schedule and turning inconveniences into an opportunity to brew a cup of coffee or take a nap. Amazing that something true 65 years ago could be so true today. #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #airstreamwithkids #travelwithkids