Grande Prairie & Banff

The past few days have been pretty fantastic. On Thursday I presented at noon rounds (not considered fantastic) then hurried off to the airport to head up to Grande Prairie for our peripheral clinic. 

Grande Prairie is a city of 55,000 about a 4.5-hour drive (or 1-hour flight) northwest of Edmonton, where we run a radiation oncology clinic once a month to save patients a trip to Edmonton. I'll get to head up a few times a year during residency; so fortunately I really enjoyed this first trip.

I spent most of the evening in this giant cloud of a bed, watching TV. It was perfect.

View from the hotel. Impression: very flat.

The clinic is super fast-paced (at least by rad onc standards) and efficient, the staff are wonderful, and the patients are so kind and appreciative. It was a perfect day in the sense that I learned lots and felt like I was being useful (always nice; doesn't always happen).

The clinic wrapped up mid-afternoon and I caught a cab with the staff physician back to the airport. Random fact: despite being tiny, the GP airport has the most high-tech toilet seats I've ever seen -- they're wrapped in plastic that rotates when you wave your hand in front of a sensor. I was a dork and took a photo:

blogworthy

We had time to sit and have tea in a nice lounge overlooking the runway (and saw zero planes land or take off -- the airport's that small), then went down to our gate. Our plane was delayed a little thanks to "a mechanical issue" (reassuring), but fortunately we made it back to Edmonton uneventfully.

more forest up here; it's all farmland around Edmonton

I drove from the airport to a friend's place; we grabbed dinner (including Tim Horton's new creamy maple chill. yum.) then headed off south to Banff, where we'd be spending the weekend at a retreat with other board members from our provincial residents' association. The drive into the mountains was beautiful as always and actually bright nearly the whole way thanks to our 10 pm sunsets.

We attended meeting sessions on Saturday and Sunday, which were interesting and productive. More importantly, I got to know the great people I'll get to work with over the next year, ate tons of delicious food, and stared out at the stunning mountain scenery all weekend from the conference room's picture windows.

this picture does not do it justice

one of many great meals

Although most of the retreat took place at the beautiful Rimrock Hotel, we did head out to visit Tunnel Mountain, a short and easy hike right in the town of Banff. The views were fantastic and thankfully the forecasted rain held off.

a little cloudy

ruggedness + golf course

muskoka chairs at the summit

town of Banff

Another highlight was dinner at Balkan Restaurant, a lively Greek place on Banff's main street. The portions were huge; I was basically full after the appetizers (pitas, dips, and deep-fried feta balls), but my lamb entree was delicious, so of course I ate it all. And then couldn't pass up dessert -- galaktoboureko, a Greek custard and phyllo pastry -- with some ouzo.

lamb chops

We made it back to Edmonton on Sunday evening and it was back to the regular routine (last week of this block!) on Monday. It was a super weekend that I feel really fortunate to have gotten to partake in.

heading home

pitstop at Bow Falls

Bow River -- this all freezes in the winter and you can walk out on the ice!