O Canada, O Canada!

Escaping the brutal Texas heat, Dale and I flew to Calgary to join our Caravan Canadian Rockies and Glacier Park Tour.  We checked into our hotel, and met up with the group after dinner.  Our tour guide was Jim Chomica and our awesome tour bus driver was Bill Rankin....both outstanding.

After breakfast the next morning we were off to Waterton to enjoy the Bayshore lodge on Waterton lake.  Our journey South through Alberta cowboy country to Waterton Lake was a magnificent display of the rolling prairies, huge fields of hay dotted the landscapes. While in Waterton we cruised Waterton Lake, crossed the border into Montana, hiked to Cameron Falls and visited the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

The next day we boarded the famous "Red Jammers", restored vintage touring coaches for our journey on the "Going to the Sun" drive into the heart of Glacier National Park. With the top down we cruised into Montana and were amazed at the breathtaking vistas.  Our guide, a young woman was great and made the trip fun.....yelling "Prairie Dog" the signal that we could stand up to check our the scenery or take photos.

On the fourth day, we loaded up and headed towards Banff driving through the Kananaskis Valley, arriving at Banff to ride the Banff Gondola to the summit of Sulphur Mountain for a panoramic views. Staying at The Banff Park Lodge we could walk along the river and walk into town for meals.  While walking along the river Dale and I came upon a bull elk in velvet eating branches and I was able to get some great photos. The crowds in Banff were surprising, but our guide and bus driver maneuvered us with no problems.
 

After breakfast the next morning we prepared for our river float trip on the Bow River.  We drove along the shore of Lake Minnewanka and Two Jacks Lake and stopped at Bow River Falls.  The gentle float trip was spectacular and all on board had a great time...our guide was great on the river.
The sixth day we headed to Jasper with a visit to two beautiful lakes....Moraine Lake and the world famous Lake Louise which is a beautiful shade of turquoise blue from the water of the Victoria Glacier.  Dale and I hiked around the lake and enjoyed a picnic lunch by the lake where I was attacked by a ground squirrel......scared the heck out of me!

That afternoon we drove by the Ice-fields Parkway on our way to Jasper.  Dinner that night was at our lodge on the banks of the Athabasca River.  After breakfast the next morning we drove to Maligne Lake ringed by snow capped peaks.  Back in Jasper Dale and I had a great lunch at Montana Bar and BBQ before catching the bus back to our lodge.  Later in the day we took a long hike along the river and listened to a talk by a nature guide.

Day 8 we headed to the Ice-fields Parkway and to our walk on the Athabasca glacier.  We boarded the all terrain Ice Explorer for the drive up to the glacier. This 1.5 million dollar vehicle was massive and slowly took us to the glacier with our 19 year old driver, Jack behind the wheel.

Stepping out on the massive glacier was pretty breathtaking and our guide, Jim filled our water bottles with glacier water....it has special properties!!   Later we stopped at Peyto Lake on our way back to Calgary.  Later that evening we had our farewell dinner where Dale got up and gave a very cute speech.  We said our goodbyes, exchanged emails with all the great folks we toured with for the week.
The next morning after breakfast we took the shuttle to the airport for our flight back to Houston.  Arriving at our home about 11 pm that evening.

Our first trip to Canada did not disappoint.......the Alberta province is amazing with beautiful vistas around every corner.  The weather was almost perfect....ranging from the 40's to the 80's.  We did experience some smoke from fires in the distance....but even the smoke could not spoil our trip. We met some amazing folks on our tour and enjoyed sharing our time with them.  We saw wildlife......bear, long horn sheep, deer, and elk!   We saw turquoise blue lakes that were so gorgeous that no photo could do them justice.  We walked on a glacier, floated a pristine river, and saw valleys carved by glaciers many years ago.  We traveled almost a 1,000 miles on our tour with 45 other folks, one tour guide and a great bus driver.....It was an AWESOME TRIP!