This Saturday we finally made it to Banff! We got on the road at 8:30 and arrived about 10 at the park. It was amazing. Seeing the mountains in pictures is one thing, real life WOW! I can see why people love it there, and why my cousin Rachel is a Banff fanatic. Stephan is now one too. He wants to move there and be a park ranger or have his own business. Seriously. But he also seriously wants to move to the Northwest Territories.
On the drive in, we saw 2 mountain goats (which is rare to see apparently, since they don't come down to the bottom very often) and some elk. We started off with going up the gondola...on the regular ski lift, not the in-closed one. How Stephan convinced me to do that I don't know, but I did! We were hoping to see a bear, there had been a bear sighting every day for the last 2 weeks on the Gondola. But no such luck. We didn't get to go all the way to the top, as it was closed because of high bear activity...the Mommas are out with their cubs, and there's a lot of females in the area. They didn't want people on the trails near the top. In the gift shop, I found a book on the mountains and National Parks that was in German. I'm going to send it Stephan's dad, along with some pictures from the same locations they show in the book.
After, we went to Lake Louise. The colour of the water was amazing! I mean, I knew it was that colour from pictures...but to really see it was different. We walked around the lake and had some icecream. And Stephan saw the funniest licence plate in the parking lot (see 2nd picture below)!
We next decided to go to Lake Moraine, which is near Lake Louise. Again, the colour was amazing, but more a bright blue than the green of Lake Louise, but a totally different blue then I have ever seen water before. There was a big hill/little mountain we saw that you were allowed to climb up. We saw people climbing up the steep edge facing the water, and assumed that was the way up. So up we went. When we got up to the top, we saw there was a trail coming from the otherside with man-made stone steps that was much easier...so we took the easy way down. Good thing, because I don't think I could have gone down the way I came up.
The town of Banff was the next destination. We stopped at an Indian Museum, and then accidently discovered a place called Cascade Gardens, a public Garden that looks down the main street (Banff Ave). It was absolutely beautiful with the mountains in the background. We had lots of fun exploring the gardens, Stephan knows I like flowers. He made me pose in a dozen different spots, with different poses while he played the photographer. Then we decided to get something to eat. We checked out two restaurants Johnny had suggested to us and decided on Wild Bill's, they have good prices there, and good food. We were seated at a window that overlooked the main street below and faced the mountain. Stephan tried a Buffalo burger, and liked it so much he was tempted to order a second one.
It had been a long day at that point, so we headed home, stopped by blockbuster and rented a movie to watch. The perfect end to a perfect day.
I loved being able to explore Banff with Stephan. We are going to go back, a lot more, and do some more exploring. It makes up a little for not having my lake....A LITTLE. I could live with the mountains anyways :P
Those pictures are incredible!
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