We broke for the border and they let us in! The super-Canadian dude at the booth deemed us worthy after a few questions. Now we are in the land of Sportscentre, washrooms and Poulet McCroquettes.
We set a goal for Calgary so that we could be in a hotel near Banff National Park to head there the next day. This time we did not get a reservation so I was left just picking a place at random and asking for their rate. The 10 year old I’m travelling with was excited that I grabbed the one with a waterslide. Our Super 8 was reasonable, especially since they’ve rebranded. I find that very important.
Actually I just got through bitching about Super 8’s rebranding. First of all it is not an improvement on their logo at all. They did the 90s/early 2000s “trick” of taking the previous idea and putting it through a windtunnel. They basically hit Skew on Illustrator and dragged the bottom right corner up and to the right a little and added some gloss to the text. Is that going to bring Super 8 up to date with their clientele? Was Brosius really dying for a more aerodynamic hotel room?
Anyway, the girl behind the desk was friendly enough and our room was actually a suite. And yes, Jayne did go down the waterslide.
Next door to Canadian Super 8 was Canadian Wal-Mart. We needed to replenish our soda, orange juice and Kool-Aid Jammers stocks so we drove over. We spent most of our time marvelling at people. The number of times we thought (or said) “Man you’re Canadian”… Why did everybody look like they were on meth? Boardshorts, dark socks and work boots were very common. We also saw a few people who were clearly under the influence of something and it wasn’t Molson Ice.
To complete the Americans-in-Canada triangle, we decided to see how they do Papa John’s. Another thing that transcends cultures is the type of dudes who work at a Papa John’s.