Canada is a hybrid foreign experience for me. First of all, it feels very normal because I understand the language. Up here, English is widely spoken. From the flight attendant in Toronto to the cashier at the IGA in Banff, most folks I talk too smiled and responded pleasantly.

Take for example the young girl working the counter at Tim Horton’s in Calgary. After my fifth cup of coffee I felt “the urge” because drinking that much coffee on a jet-lagged stomach is kind of like pouring a bottle of Drano down the pipes. Not knowing for sure if she was of French or English orientation, I spoke slowly in all caps.

“THE BATHROOM IS LOCKED. IS THERE A KEY AND PLEASE HURRY.”

She smiled at the funny American saying, “I can open that for you.” At which moment she simply reached under the counter and, I assume, pushed a button that remotely opened the door to the men’s room. I was very grateful for our meaningful conversation.

In other ways, Canada is totally foreign.

Our rental car is a Mini Cooper Countryman, which is like a miniature SUV. This is foreign to me after driving a Chevy 2500 HD truck for the last 20 years. I have to lower my body to within 4 inches of the ground to get inside. Once inside, all communication dials and digital screens are based on the metric system. I do not use nor understand metric values which makes this experience even more foreign to my thinking.

For example, the speed limit on the Trans-Canada Highway is 110. We drove this four-lane highway from Calgary to Banff, then on to Golden. A total of 256 kilometers. I’m not completely sure, but I reckon that is a hop and a skip longer than riding from Atlanta to Birmingham.

I set the cruise control on 115. This did not feel right for two reasons. For starters, 115 on any speedometer psyches me out. I know it’s kilometers, but hey! Also, at that speed, driving a Mini Cooper feels like 400mph in a Go Kart going down I-75.

Having said that, traffic habits here are not so different from driving at home. They love to tailgate in Canada. I get tailgated all the time in Georgia. And at 115, I got passed like I was standing still. Apparently, 110 is just the suggested maximum speed.

This part of southern Alberta is absolutely stunning. I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t have enough of a vocabulary to describe to you how beautiful, magnificent, lovely, glorious, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, delightful, and drop-dead gorgeous this place is to behold.

It started from the air as we approached Calgary. Nothing but agricultural land, flat as a pool table and as far as the eye could see. 500 acre fields of yellow flowered canola scattered across the landscape like a patch-work quilt.

Flying into Calgary is a lot like flying into Denver. Kansas to the east and the snow capped Rocky Mountain range to the west of the city.

Our first real taste of the Canadian Rockies came along the aforementioned highway. One minute you’re riding along the flat canola fields and the around the next bend these massive mountains come into view, and before you can say diddly-squat, you’re right in the middle of them craning your neck while trying to hold a Mini Cooper in the road at 115.

By the time we got to Banff National Park we were on mountain peak overload. It just never stopped.

“Wow, look at that one.”

“I know you’re driving but you gotta look over here.”

Marion kept the phone camera shoved up into the windshield clicking away every half-kilometer. The rocky crevices above the tree line are still holding on to last winter’s snow. Every few kilometers we passed under what they call “Wildlife Corridors” which is a wooded bridge over the highway designed to give Elk, Bear, and Moose a safe passage without vehicular conflict.

I found myself wondering if the wildlife could read the signs.

We eased off the highway into Banff Village, which kind of reminded me of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. All you’d have to do is pick it up and move it to the Swiss Alps. From the top of Sulphur Mountain we could see the turquoise blue waters of the Bow River and Lake Minnewanka. My photographer took over a 100 pics.

We only stayed a few hours. Lunch came from the deli at the local IGA, eaten at a picnic table outside the public parking lot. Small town folks know how to travel.

I don’t have time to tell you about our short detour to Emerald Lake. A gravel mountain road to a lake formed and colored greenish blue by glacial melt. Massive rocky peaks on every side. Signs warning us not to feed the bears.

Our real destination on day one was our cabin. We are traveling with my daughter, her husband and kids. Two rental cars. Uncharted wilderness in every direction. They had asked us in case we got separated if we had the address for the cabin.

Here’s the thing, we actually have two cabins reserved. One for all of us the first few days. Then a different one for just me and Marion after they leave to head back home on Monday.

“We’ve got it,” we said very confidently.

We rolled into Golden late in the afternoon. Our GPS is taking us north of town, which I questioned because I had remembered looking up the cabins on the map and cabin #1 was south of town. Nonetheless, I went with it since I own no Canadian road maps.

About 19 kilometers later we turned off the paved highway and followed a gravel road to the end of the earth in the shadow of an extremely large rocky precipice. We saw cabins but couldn’t find the right cabin number. After about 15 desperate minutes we realized our mistake. We had entered the address for cabin 2 not cabin 1.

So, here we are. Two southern corncobs from Georgia out the in the middle of Alberta with no cell signal.

“Can you remember your way out of here?” she asks me.

She’s standing outside the Mini Coop on the gravel road, pointing her hand-held device toward the sky.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to find a satellite signal.”

Me? I’m looking around for bear and moose glad that I’m the one inside the car.

We were supposed to meet up at cabin #1 about 45 minutes ago. We finally got off a text to the rest of the family to let them know that we were lost and if we didn’t make it out, we hoped they would have a great time without us.

That was Saturday.

Sunday morning, Marion and I are sitting out on the balcony with coffee. The Purcell mountain range stands about a half mile (804.672 meters) away. The snow caps and clouds are on fire from the sun coming up behind us. Our mouths are gaping open in wonder.

“Can you believe we’re here?” I ask her.

Canada is an unimaginably handsome place to visit.