Canada: Day 2

I'm going to skip Music Monday today in order to continue my travel tales. On our second day in Canada, Cody and I woke early (not really on purpose, but we are used to getting up early and it is an hour earlier there, also.) We quickly got dressed and headed on a hike along the Johnston Creek. This is a popular trail with bus tours because the hike to the lower falls is only 30 minutes and the path is paved. We had the entire place to ourselves in the early morning, however, and didn't see another soul until into our return hike. The view of the river is breath-taking along the entire hike. Sometimes, the path turns into a metal catwalk bolted into the side of the mountain, right above the fast moving current. Below is a photo of the lower falls.


At this point one can turn around or continue to the upper falls which is a mile further. We continued our hike. The morning air was so cold that my face and ears were freezing, but I felt warm under my jacket because of the work out from climbing the steep rises. We eventually reached the end of the trail right in front of the upper falls.


We returned to our cabin and then drove about 30 minutes to Lake Louise, a lake famous for its beautiful turquoise water. We spent about an hour there, walking around the lake, and sitting on a bench gazing across it. There were many people from all different countries there sight-seeing. Of course, the person I decided to ask to take our picture didn't speak a word of English, but he did a good job with the photo.


We left the lake and started a long drive North toward Jasper along what is known as the Icefield Parkway. It has been called one of the 10 most beautiful drives in the world. There are stunning mountains, glaciers, and wildlife along this stretch of otherwise desolate road. At one point, we saw many cars stopped along the side of the road and people out with their cameras. Those fools were taking pictures of a black bear (I took this picture of the bear as we drove by slowly...from the safety of the car.)


There were places to pull over and enjoy the view every so often. We pulled over at this vista point to see back across where we had come from.

After driving about 2 hours we came to a Glacier Information Center across from the Athabasca Glacier, one of 6 prominent glaciers of the Columbian Icefield. The glacier is the huge mound of ice between the mountains. I have to admit I was slightly disappointed by this. I had pictured all glaciers as these massive mountains of ice that stood alone. That wasn't exactly the case here, but it was still interesting.


We drove back to our cabin and it was getting past dinner time. We weren't sure where to eat so we eventually decided to drive into Banff to find a hamburger type place. I chose Bruno's from the guidebook. This turned out to be a great choice because I had the best gourmet hamburger and my new favorite food in the world: sweet potato fries. The hamburger was topped with bacon, swiss cheese, sauteed mushrooms and onions and roasted red peppers. The mound of fries was enormous, but I'll tell you now I ate every last one of them. I ate long beyond the point of fullness because there was no way I was leaving a single tasty fry behind. We watched a bit of the Lakers/Celtics game while we ate and relaxed from a busy day. And, I tried a Canadian beer called Kokanee that was the best beer I have ever tasted. Maybe I was just super hungry because everything I ate that night was the best I had ever had.

Coming up on Day 3: Downtown Banff, the hot springs, the Fairmont Banff Springs, and our anniversary dinner.