My three-woman Texas Water Safari team chalked up a short training session this morning on Lady Bird Lake.

Besides the first spin in the actual canoe we’ll put on the water at this year’s race, a 260-mile jaunt from San Marcos to Seadrift on the Texas coast, it served as a chance to do some planning, lay out expectations and talk about how we’ll handle stuff that goes wrong, because it invariably will.

The paddle itself felt great. I’m the least experienced member of the team. Both Sheila Reiter and Heather Harrison have logged multiple Safari finishes, but I just started paddling in the last year. I’m hoping my training as a swimmer will somehow come in handy when digging a paddle into a river for three days straight. So far the rhythm of paddling reminds me of the bilateral motion of swimming freestyle.

Highlights of today’s spin? An aggressive swan that wanted a peek inside our canoe,  turtles stacked on logs like dinner plates, bright sunshine and crisp air.

We single bladed, or used paddles with just one blade on each end. We’ll do some double blading during the race, too, but that involves lots of splashing, and since it was 45 degrees when we started, we skipped that today. That didn’t stop me from sloshing plenty of water on Reiter, who sits up front. (She yelled, I stifled laughs.) I sit in the middle and Harrison steers from the back seat.

My favorite thing about today’s session came during the post-paddle debriefing, which involved talking about the horrors of past Safaris. My teammates described one long, terrible portage gone awry as “the worst day of my entire life.” They also described boats flipping in the bay near the finish, core muscles that gave out, dry heaving and staggering around on the banks.

Just typical Safari stuff.

Our number one rule? Laugh – about the funny stuff, about the stuff that goes wrong, about everything.

 

A story about a 103-year-old woman sworn in as a Junior Ranger at Grand Canyon National Park recently caught my attention.

Most Junior Rangers fall between the ages of 5 and 13, according to the National Parks Service website, but people of all ages can participate.

I say go for it if you love the parks.

Ten years ago, when I was 44 years old, I was sworn in as a Junior Ranger at Grand Teton National Park. My husband chuckled as Ranger Fozzy asked me a series of questions, then bestowed upon me an official Junior Ranger patch.

Go ahead and laugh if you want, but I love the national parks, and believe that programs like this can help everyone better appreciate and protect what Mother Nature has given us. We have to take care of them, and by sharing our love of them, we let others know that they should care too.

Plus, I wanted that patch.

It all came back this week, when I read Good Morning America’s short story about Rose Torphy, the 103-year-old who rolled her wheelchair into a park store during the government shutdown to claim her own Junior Ranger patch. She’s older than the park itself, which celebrates its 100^thbirthday this year.

Torphy has three children, 18 grandchildren and 10 great-great grandchildren. According to her daughter, she’s been wearing her Junior Ranger pin proudly ever since – and telling those who ask her about it what it means.

The National Park Service’s Junior Ranger program teaches participants to protect national parkland. Its motto is “explore, learn and protect.”

Prospective junior rangers complete an activity book and promise to act as park stewards.

Way to go Torphy.

 

Texans eat breakfast tacos and nachos, Canadians prefer poutine.

But if you’re going to partake of the famous food, gird your loins. The dish, a favorite here in the land of sub-zero temperatures, snow-laden trees and incredibly beautiful mountain scenery, features French fries, cheese curd (read on) and hot gravy.

I ordered up dish of poutine last night with my burger at a great little hole-in-the-wall joint called Eddie’s Burger Bar in downtown Banff. I could have made a meal out of just the poutine.

But, honestly, I’m still trying to figure out the “why” of poutine.

Why take a perfectly good pile of fries, toss them with a handful of lumpy, tiny-dumpling-shaped globs of cheese (that’s the curd part), then suffocate them in dark brown gravy? It turns into a soggy mess.

I forgot to take a picture of last night’s poutine, but when I stopped for lunch at Chimney Corners Lounge on the mountain at Sunshine Ski Resort today, the guys at the table next to mine had ordered up a gourmet version of poutine topped with short ribs. (I ordered an amazing Sunshine Salad, loaded with broccolini, portobello mushrooms, carrots, arugula and pickled onion.

They were filming the food with their professional video cameras, so I horned my way over and asked if I could take a shot myself. They filmed me, narrating that “the poutine has attracted visitors.”

I’ll stick to the breakfast tacos, thanks very much.

The shuttle driver who drove me from Calgary to Banff broke the news: “When I got to the van this morning, it was minus 35.”

“Degrees?” I asked.

He wasn’t lying, although that’s not as bad as it sounds. A quick calculation told me that minus 35 degrees Celsius is the equivalent of minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit. And by the time we got to town, temperatures had risen to a relatively warm minus 25 celsius – minus 13 Fahrenheit.

I’m staying in Banff, Alberta this week, venturing out to surrounding ski resorts. My trip happens to coincide with the coldest cold snap of the year up here.

Even the locals think it’s cold, which is why hardly anyone was skiing Mount Norquay yesterday, when Simon Moffatt, who works for the resort, spent the day showing me around the mountain.

I loved it. Norquay is old school and small, with an unassuming lodge that serves amazing food (try the beet salad!), just four lifts (only one high-speed) and some amazingly steep terrain.

In the morning, we made some runs, then took a break to thaw with hot cocoa or coffee.

Thankfully, the sun was shining. Tiny particles of snow drifting through the air caught the light like glitter.

It was so cold my thumbs went numb, my toes lost feeling and my face hurt. The snot and slobber on my neck buff froze and refroze, scraping against my chin.

At one point, I told Simon my forehead hurt and I wasn’t sure why. “Like an ice cream headache?” he asked knowingly.

Exactly.

We stopped at a warming hut, where he detected a gap between my goggles and the balaklava tucked under my helmet. I adjusted; we headed out again. Much better.

During lunch, we gazed up at a super steep run off the resort’s North American lift. Moguls from top to bottom. Surely that would warm us up.

We caught the lift. At the top, we took some time to take pictures (tough when your fingers don’t work properly) and then pointed our skis down. I took my time, making turns around the snow humps. And here’s what I found out: Skiing the steep bumpy stuff warms you up, even when it’s well below freezing.

By the time I hit the bottom, my muscles had warmed and I felt quite fine.

We headed to the other side of the resort, where we rode a few (empty) lifts and raced down plenty of (empty) trails, the sun still shining.

The views here blow me away. You can see all the way into Banff, tucked at the foot of Rundle Mountain.

Today I’m heading to Sunshine ski resort, where it’s currently minus 26.

No problem.

No more driving all the way to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area just to get turned away at the gate.

Officials from the Texas State Parks Department unveiled a new system Wednesday that allows visitors to buy day passes in advance, reserve specific campsites or buy or renew a Texas State Parks Pass online.

The system, which works on a computer or smart phone, lets visitors purchase day-use passes up to one month in advance, guaranteeing access to parks even during weekends and holidays, according to a press release. At some busy parks, pass holders must designate a specific arrival time.

The new system is designed to alleviate growing crowds at state parks. Read my article about long lines at Enchanted Rock here.

“We are excited to introduce these helpful features to park visitors and provide a new way to efficiently schedule a trip, either for the day or overnight, to any Texas State Park,” Rodney Franklin, director of Texas State Parks, said in the release. “These options give park goers the ability to plan their perfect state park vacation, no matter where and when they want travel.”

Visitors don’t have to wait until they get to a park to pick their campsite, either. The system allows visitors to look at photos and get details like utilities, amount of shade and parking pad size for each campsite, shelter or cabin ahead of time. They can search the website by park name or site type, and groups can pick and reserve neighboring sites.

Existing park reservations have been moved into the new system, officials said. (If you have trouble, call 512-389-8900.) As the new system goes online, wait times at the Customer Service Center are expected to be longer than normal.

For more information about the system, or to make a reservation to a Texas State Park, visit www.texasstateparks.org/reservations.