Fun with Friends!

Spending time with friends is always a highlight along our journey, and visiting Ken and Sherrie in Calgary Canada is no exception.  We met this lovely couple several years ago when we were hanging out in Indio California for a month.  They were parked behind us and quickly became "fun friends".   When it was shared that I had always wanted to see the Calgary Stampede, and their daughter works for it, it was decided that "someday soon" we would make a trip to Canada for a visit!  We did indeed to do that in 2013 and enjoyed it and our visit very much!

Since then we have managed to meet up with our friends in California almost every year, this time, it was our turn to return to Canada to see them again!  Due to some time restrains with family in Washington, we only had a week together, but we managed to fill it with lots of food, fun and laughter...as usual.  ;-)

Ken grew up on a farm, and I put him to the test this time, having him teach us "what was all that growing in those fields?"  So, as we took a drive out to his old farm one day, he stopped at several fields, and we got out and...right into the fields we went!  First up, Canola!  Well, we had learned about Canola on our first trip to Canada, but had never gotten "up close and personal" with it...this time we did!  It's really pretty!  At least this time of the year.  It's flowering now, then it will grow 'seed pods' that will be harvested, and then pressed into oil...and that's what we all use!  Did you know that "Canola" stands for "Canadian Oil"?  Yep.  Next was the Barley field.  This was a surprise, because it was much flatter than I thought it would be...I would have guessed it was "wheat", instead.  Then, he took us to the "Bearded Wheat" field, it was "bumpy" with long strands sticking up (I guess that's the 'beard').  Both were still a bit green yet, so to early for harvesting.  They will turn a nice yellow to tan color and grow about another 6'' to 12'' depending on the rainfall.  This area had acres and acres and acres as far as you could see of these three types of grains.  They switch them around each season to help the soil out.  Ken said that unless the farmers have animals, once they harvest in the late fall, they usually "head south (USA) for the winter, since you can't do much planting in the snow!"  

While we were out visiting the farm lands, we stopped in the tiny town of Torrington to see the "The World Famous Gopher Hole Museum".  What a hoot!  A little house filled with wooden cut-outs (gopher holes) that have stuffed gophers dressed up in various 'vignettes'.  My two favorites, of course, were the "Village Campground" and the "Blacksmith Shop".  I guess every small town has to have something to pull the tourists in.  While we were there, 10 other people came in!  Got to give them an "A" for imagination! 

As a special treat, we all went to the Sky 360 at the Calgary Tower  downtown for dinner.  It's a lovely restaurant that sits one floor below the observation deck of The Tower, a 627' tall free standing structure built in 1967.  At that time, it was the tallest building in Calgary (not any longer tho).  The restaurant revolves slowly around 360 degrees in a hour so that you can see all of Calgary while you dine.  All the tables are next to the floor to ceiling windows.  It was lovely (and the food was wonderful!).  Afterward we went out on the observation deck as well.  Part of it has a glass floor so you can look straight down if you like, pretty cool (not for Sherrie tho!).  The sun doesn't set until almost 10PM in Calgary, so there still was plenty of time to walk around downtown and see some of the lovely sculptures and Olympic Park.  The coolest, I thought was "Wonderland" by Jaume Plensa, a 39' metal/wire female, shaped head in front of one of the most beautiful buildings in Calgary called The Bow.  Very sheik looking. I also liked sitting with some awesome ladies who, in the early 1900's, challenged the British Empire in various ways (1st female Senator, Social activists, Alberta's 1st female Cabinet Minister, Preeminent suffragist, orator and authors).  Pretty impressive, I'd say, I would have loved to have tea with any one of them!

Saddle Dome & Calgary Stampede area; Old & new City Hall buildings; Sherrie & our desserts; standing on the glass floor; Bow building

Olympic Plaza; "Wonderland" by Jaume Plensa; Marie with  Henrietta Muir Edwards; the awesome ladies; "The Family of Man" by Maxwell Cummings

On our last day together, our friends drove us out to Drumheller, which is the heart of the Badlands.  It looks so very different than anything else we'd seen around Alberta.  Gone were all the farmlands and the city, replaced by prairie and a large canyon.  Our first stop was at Horseshoe Canyon.  What a great sight.  The parking lot had very large"klinkers" bordering it that Jack was amazed at because "klinkers" are the waste products after coal has been turned into coke.  They get them in blacksmithing (very small ones, of course)...these were huge! 

From there, we traveled on to The Royal Tyrrell Museum.  This is where the greatest diversity of dinosaur fossils in the world are found.  Divided into three areas, the exhibit features over 90 specimens chosen specifically to supplement the story of life on Earth.  This place was huge!  We could have spent an entire day there and still not encompassed it all.  So much to read and explore.  They even had a palaeontologist on site working on a piece so that you could talk directly with her.  Very nice.  My grandchildren would have LOVED this place!  They probably would still be there.  ha ha

Like all good things, our trip came to an end...this time, but we will meet up again for more adventures! 

...on the road,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/

Oh Canada! Beautiful Banff

When you share with people that you are planning a trip to Alberta Canada, one of the first things they say is "you must go to Banff and Lake Louise!"  So, as with our habit, we happily added them to our "list" of places to see.  Once the Stampede was over and we spent some time with our friends, we learned that Banff wasn't all that far from Calgary and that it was actually more practical for us to leave our rig at their place and just take our small truck and do a two-day/over-night trip there and back. So that's what we did.

We decided to drive straight to Lake Louise first.  The drive itself goes through Banff National Park with the Canadian Rockies all around you.  They are breathtakingly beautiful.  Not as much snow on them though as I would have thought, so that was a bit of a surprise.  It was also interesting, I thought, how different their shapes were from each other and as you traveled through the Park and saw them from different angles.  I never tired of looking at them.  Another sight that I have enjoyed my whole time in Canada is all the Canola fields.  Acres and acres of sunshine yellow flowers!  They are so very pretty to look at.  It seems that the farmers are not particularly keen on growing them, but that they are a higher cash crop than the grain crops are, so that's what they have to grow, and boy do they!  Miles and miles all across the country.  Besides seeing the cultivated lands, all the wildflowers are in full bloom too.  So as we drove to our destination green and yellow fields, dotted with open grazing land full of wildflowers, interspersed with creeks trimmed with trees and all of this edged with those beautiful mountains, filled our scenery.  Jealous yet?  (had to tease!)

You would think all that would have prepared us for the lake we were about to see (that and every one's insistence on us going there), but I don't think anything could...it's that spectacular.  I don't think I have ever seen a turquoise colored lake before.  Deep blue perhaps, even emerald green, but the shade of that lake is almost surreal, so when you see my pictures, don't think they were doctored up, it really is that color!  Put that in front of those Rocky Mountains with the Victoria Glacier and you have a perfect picture postcard!  It was mesmerizing, you just wanted to sit there and stare at it for a long long time.  We lucked out and the day was perfect as well, sun shining and just warm enough.  Only down side were the crowds, hunting for parking took almost as long as you stayed looking at the lake!  Oh well, guess one can't always have everything (not sure why not, but that's what they keep telling me anyway!).

After a bit of lunch, we headed to another sweet lake that our friends recommended that they said wasn't as "popular" as Louise, but that they really liked as well, Moraine Lake.  A little smaller, a little bluer, a little less crowded but very nice.  It had a large "rock pile" next to it that people were climbing to a high plateau to see further.  I walked around it and found some stairs to it and climbed them (150!) and the view was worth the effort, besides I figured it worked off my lunch!  A nice gentleman took my picture up there to prove I actually made it that high (Jack declined the climb).

After the two lakes, we traveled into the town of Banff and to the Banff Ave Bed & Breakfast spot we had made reservations at.  Connie was a wonderful hostess as well as the B&B was the perfect place to stay.

The next day we took the time to walk around Banff then headed out to see a couple of lakes & waterfalls nearby and to take a look at "the castle" as the The Fairmont Banff Springs National Historic Hotel is called locally, and we could see why.  Phew, what a place!   We even ran into some friendly wildlife...a small heard of Big Horn Sheep (Ewes), that wandered over to see who we were.

Time to head back to Calgary and start to get ourselves ready to head back to the US and our next adventure, Glacier National Park.

Canada, you've treated us well, and it's been a beautiful trip that we will long remember.

 Canadian Rocky Mountains

 Canola Fields

 

Wildflowers

 

Lake Louise & Victoria Glacier

 Moraine Lake

City of Banff

Johnson Lake

The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

Ewes saying Goodbye as we left Banff

...kicking back in Alberta Canada,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/