Holiday En Femme 95: A Preview

By Allison Marsh

(Ed. Note.: The Tri-Ess organization's Holiday En Femme takes place Nov. 15-19).
Phoebe and I decided to go see what the Kananaskas Lodge was like at Calgary.

So we drove up from the Olympia area as a couple of overripe tomatoes, breaksfasting at the Coer D'Alene Resort Hotel (a favorite haunt for the times when we want to feel you've been someplace ritzy) Kallispel Montana, through Glacer Park's "Going To the Sun" Road and on northeast to to Cardston, Alberta, where we spent the second night. At Cardston we turned north on Alberta Hwy #2, About 190 Km (114 miles) to Calgary .

Since we had forgotten to take the address of the lodge along, we started asking where the Kananaskas Lodge was, and got some strange stares. Then we found it was in Kananaskas Village, and were warned to fill our gas tanks before we left town. THAT'S NOT IN CALGARY! If you take CANADIAN HIGHWAY 1 from Calgary to Banff, you travel about 40 or 50 miles to Canadian Highway #40, which goes south from there about 20 Km to Kananaskas Village. On the other hand, if you are driving east from Banff toward Calgary, it's the same 50 Km on Hwy 1 to where Hwy 40 goes south.

The Kananskis is a valley nestled among beautiful mountains. The Village is composed of the Lodge, the Inn, the Center building where you can rent bicycles and buy incidentals, hiking and biking trails, and very little else that we saw, except that there is a grand covered swimming pool with coffee tables around, a big hot tub, and a well equipped exercise room, a massage service, and a beauty parlor. It's not a place where you go out to find a MacDonalds or Sheri's--there is nothing else for miles. This IS a fine, deluxe, convention hotel. It has a lot of in-hotel shops, meeting rooms, a large dining room, a lounge where they also serve lunches, and a deli for a quick bite.

We were wondering about what kind of clothes to wear. Within the hotel, of course, it's like dressing for any other Holiday En Femme-day clothes, evening clothes, and night clothes if you choose to wear them. The hotel staff told us our conference is between the golf and the skiing season, meaning there will probably be snow, but not necessarily enough to ski. So for outside, we'll take warm clothing, gloves, and walking shoes or boots; it's cold there. If there is a bus trip into Banff or Calgary, it'll be cold there too, especially if you take the gondola lift to the top of the mountain and walk around at the top at Banff. You will not want snow melting inside your shoes.

We didn't ask about how welcome we would be to use the swimming pool in our bikinis, or whether coming into the exercise room with bra strap imprints would cause embarassment. But we'll hope Tanya Brown brings along some extra (dry) nylon prosthesis covers so our chests won't drip when we put on our blouses. I'm planning to use the jaccuzi as Allison because since my last Holiday En Femme, I've gained a lot of weight; all I need do is push my stomach out a little, put my shoulders way back, and I can convince them the baby is due in 3 days.

We came home through Banff, taking the time to ride up the ski lift and enjoy the gorgeous view of the city and the surrounding valleys. It's about an hour and a half from Kananaskis. Even on a week day during the school year, Banff was busy; lots of people on the sidewalks, looking in the shops.

This is a tourist destination for everybody in the Orient, as well as the "Banff and Lake Louise Set" who congregate there from all over the U.S. It too has a luxury resort hotel, as well as a million other hotels and motels, and it's beautiful, both being there and getting there. >From Banff we continued 31 Km (20 miles) northwest on Canadian Hwy 1 as though we were going on to Lake Louise, but then we turned south on Hwy 93 down through Banff National Park 104 Km (61 miles) to Radium Hot Springs. The town of Radium is just past the public Radium Hot Springs.

The hot springs are public; have enclosed, but not private, dressing facilities, and have a giant soaking pool as well as a big, cooler and deeper swimming pool. If you haven't tried a hot springs day, this is an excellent place to do it; well run, good conditions; popular; good motel accommodations in town. About motel accommodations; Radium, Fairmont Hot Springs and Cranbrook are all within the political boundaries of British Columbia instead of Alberta.

So when you are at an information center, ask for both a B.C. motel book and an Alberta one. They give all the rates of all the hotels and motels by area and in order of your travel. We have found inexpensive motel rooms for $45 to $60 Canadian, but they have crowded little bathrooms with poor make-up lights and little or no counter space. When you go from $60 to $100, you usually get good bathrooms. Otherwise all the motel rooms, cheap and expensive, have been nice for us; and they all had queen size beds. REMEMBER THAT CANADIAN DOLLARS ARE DISCOUNTED, AND THAT DISCOUNT VARIES FROM DAY TO DAY.

This week the bank gave us $1.32 for each U.S. dollar. The grocery store gave us $1.25. The motels gave us $1.20. So it's a good thing to change some of your U.S. dollars AT ANY BANK IN CANADA, and then plan to live off your Visa or Master Charge for all the expenses you can. You make your charges in Canadian dollars, which are exchanged at par by Visa and Mastercharge on the day the transaction is processed through them. You pay no money-changer fee. For the fast food meals, gasoline, and groceries, we changed $50 and came home with $10 Canadian for the next trip. Unless you want to come home with a lot of Canadian dollars, bring your US currency in $20's and be conservative in how much you exchange at a time. Remember that it costs you from 1% to 10% to convert U.S. to Canadian, and when you come back to the US, it'll cost you that again to sell off your excess Canadian bucks for U.S. ones.

Anyway, when you look at the "high prices", remember that on a credit card, that price will shrink to about 2/3 in U.S. dollars. We didn't find anything we thought was inexpensive (by comparison to prices at home) in Canada. On the other hand, the only thing we found greatly overpriced was gasoline, and there is no price competition among stations. In Spokane WA we bought gas for $1.11. In most of Alberta and B.C. we paid $0.59 a liter, which turns out to be somewhere around the spot price of the same weight in gold. There are, however, some specialty items in Canada that are different from what we see in all the chain stores here, and you'll have fun looking.

In addition to what ever provincial sales taxes there are, the Canadian Government has imposed a 7% sales tax on most of your purchases. U.S. citizens can get this refunded for all our purchases except food and gasoline. You do it at the border-crossing duty free store. Naturally they refund it in Canadian dollars knowing that you'll probably spend it right there instead of take it home as souveniers.

Well, when Phoebe and I went up to check out the conference site, I registered at all the motels as Allison, using Allison's Master Charge card. We got to the border and I went to claim my tax refund. Filled out the form OK, then the clerk asked to see my driver license (which had Gail's name and picture; not Allison's). I explained that I was crossdressed, and that when crossdressed I travel under a different name. I showed her Gail's Master Charge card with the same number on it. I showed her my official State ID card with Gail's name and Allison's picture. All that satisfied her, but not the law, she explained.

The name on the bills has to match the name on the driver license. She said if she made the refund, they would take that back out of her salary. She was very courteous. She suggested I take the claim form home and send it in from there, where I would not need to show my driver license. Obviously they would mail me the refund check in Allison's name, which I could then endorse as Allison and reendorse as Gail for deposit in Gail's bank account. The point is, if you want to keep it simple, you may choose to have your hotel bill show in the name that matches your driver license. I registered at the Kananaskis as Allison, but I'll change it to Gail when I arrive. Then when I get my tax refund at the border, I'll be able to buy enough duty-free liquor to earn three DWI tickets on the way home.

The Canadian highways are exceptionally good. We are told that Trans-Canada Highway 1 is kept open all year. All roads between Banff, Lake Louise, Calgary, and Radium will be open unless you get caught in a blizzard. Same if you're driving up from Seattle or over from Vancouver. And western Canadian people are very courteous. Nobody ever called us anything but "you ladies". Except one waitress addressed me as "dear", and when I stood up to hug her, Phoebe stomped on my arch.