We discovered Stanley Park

 In Calgary, there are 5200 parks. We just need time to discover more places. I already wrote a blog about my 3 favorite parks in Calgary. You can check it here on this blog.

This year, with the pandemic forcing us to stay in Alberta, we have no choice but to really explore our backyard. We've been to different places and parks here in Calgary. I was suprised that we just discovered Stanley Park. 

Stanley Park is located in 4011 1A St. S.W. It's in the middle of the city, its near downtown. It is 21 hectares in area. They have 2 parking places, an outdoor pool, playground, a lawn bowling area, tennis courts and an access to the part of Elbow river.

 We visited on a Friday, it was about 30 minutes away from us. We arrived at 11am. There's still a lot of places to park. It's a huge place and not a very busy one when we came there.

When we arrived, we park on the side near the lawn bowling. There's a playground for children, a green space for them to run around. We also like the washroom on this side because it's clean.

Emma played there for about 30 minutes. When we went there, she was the only one playing. She played with the swing, slide, seesaw and even asked me to play XOX with her. She had fun.

 After on this side, we walked a little bit more and found their outdoor pool and wading pool. It was close though. In few meters away, there's another bigger parking area and playground. On this side, there's also an access to the Elbow river. There's also a lot of picnic tables for the whole family. One thing I really appreciate when we went there is that there are circles on the grass that would encourage families to social distance.

We stayed there for another 30 minutes because we didn't really plan to go there.
Emma enjoyed playing in the water, throwing some stones in the water and just splashing up and down.

We're planning to go back here some other time and maybe have a picnic here. 

Hiking to Lake Agnes teahouse

 We've been planning for weeks to go to Lake Agnes tea house. I've first seen the teahouse being promoted in the Bring me Instagram page. I'm curious as to how far is it, how cool the tea house and how popular is the place. 

We left our home at 6.15am, we arrived 8:30am at the Lake Louise Fairmount hotel. As early as 8:30, the parking is 80% full and we parked on the upper side.

We took some pictures in Lake Louise and started to walk towards the start of the trail. 

The trail going to Lake Agnes tea house is 3.4km one way. On the way, you'll pass to Mirror Lake it's in 2.6 kms. This was considered to be a moderate hike and can be finished in 1 or 2 hrs depending on your health status.

We've been hiking on the easy trails. We've finished Upper Grassi Lakes trail and Troll Falls trail. They're very easy for the beginners and good for the whole family. So, the trail to Lake Agnes is something that we really pushed ourselves to finish. 

We brought 6 water bottles, boiled eggs, cookies, and cheese for the snacks. We also used walking sticks to help us on our trip. Going up was really a hard inclined. On the first 30 minutes, I was really catching my breath to climb. I am honestly not in my best shape when I took the hike. I was not very active and not exercising days prior to hike. It took us about 2hrs to reach Mirror Lake. We stopped couple of times to breath, to relax, to drink water and to eat our snacks. 

After Mirror Lake, we continued our hike to Lake Agnes tea house. It only took us 30 minutes to reach the place. At the bottom of the tea house, there's a small waterfall. We were able to wash our hands there, relax a bit and have our pictures taken. Then, there was a stairs going up the teahouse.

In the teahouse, we enjoyed a cup of tea and light snacks. The tea was really good. We tried the Alpine meadow tea and Lake Agnes wildberry tea. Both are herbal teas. They are both so good.

There's no garbage bin there so we have to pack away all our garbages. We spent for about an hour and a half at Lake Agnes. There's a couple number of people going there. It was kinda busy but there's a lot of place to sit and relax.

Going down is easier, because it's all downhill. It took us an hour and 15 minutes going down and we only had few stops. Also, the blueish Lake Louise is one of our landmark. While we're going down, we can see it. So, it motivates and encourages us that we're near the bottom. 

Overall, the hike was good. It was really exhausting especially to us because we're not really that active. The whole round trip hike, it took me 24,000+ steps. Eventhough it's tiring, it's still good for the whole family. The pathways are generally safe for kids and adults alike. 

Are we going back here again? Yes we will, but not this year, maybe next year or so. Are we recommending this place to other hikers and families? Yes we do. It's really a good experience for everybody.

Strawberry picking experience

Emma loves strawberries so much. So, we've decided to try this The Jungle Farm strawberry picking experience. It was suggested to me by my friend Kahlile. She mentioned that her family went here few years back and tried this.

So, I googled it. I found the address. It is located in Inisfail, Alberta. It's only an hour and 10 minutes away from home.

We went there today. It was not too busy today when we arrived at 11am of a Saturday. There was a short line-up of going to the farm. They have good protocols with regards to social distancing and Covid awarenes. There was a sign in front of the entrance of the things we should do. It's like a waiver but a sign. 

When it was our turn, we asked for 2 baskets. The lady told us to just go and go to the guys in the field. They were wearing maroon shirts like a uniform. They instructed us of what to do and where to pick strawberries.

I appreciate this part because they assigned us rows where to pick the strawberries. And they will assign another group of family to a different row to maintain the 2 meter social distancing.

The baskets are almost full

We spent about an hour to pick up the strawberries and filled our baskets. After picking, we went inside the little house by the entrance to pay for the strawberries. Actually, you can also pick some vegetables if you want. But we are already happy with our strawberries.
The price of strawberries is $4/ lb. We have about 10 lbs. They only accept debit cards or cash. 

The staffs are nice. They gave clear instructions and know what they're doing. Also, when we left at 12 noon, there's already a line up of people going inside the farm. I think in my opinion, it's best to go there earlier so you can pick the fruits or vegetables you want earlier. Also, always check their facebook account for the updates with regards to schedules or hours of operation.

We didn't linger there any longer, after paying we went home already. We can't wait to try the strawberries. When we reached home and tried them, I can say that they're so good, sweet and juicy. Emma loves it so much. She also had fun doing our strawberry picking. She kept saying "This is the best day ever."

I'm just so glad that we found a farm that is fairly near us and has really good strawberries to pick. We'll be definitely coming back here.