Long, long days up here in Alberta. We went to bed last night at 10 PM and it was still light out, somewhat. And this is the end of July. The days must be short in December.

The word for the day is GLACIERS. And we saw LOTS of them today. We left the hotel this morning at 8:35 and 50 degrees (which bottomed out at 46 and a 20 MPH wind.) We did see 58 at times, but not often. The weather was mostly overcast with some rain. We spent a good deal of time in the clouds and , though I was hoping for the sun to shine on the mountains and have a nice blue sky backdrop for my photos, for the most part, it did not happen. However, it didn't dampen our appreciation of the majestic views…gray mountain ridge after mountain ridge adorned the landscape, massive and powerful in their presence, some with trees growing out of them and others multi shades of gray and tan, with angular faces bold and brazen against the sky. And I thought how wonderful it would be to climb one of these giants. In my dreams…only in my dreams. But I would if I could.

We drove north in Banff National Park up to Lake Louise. We decided it was too fogged in at that time, so the plan was to see it on the way back down, when it would be sunny. That didn’t happen, so we will try again tomorrow morning on our way out of the park. As we drove north we saw massive mountains with glaciers couched in the crevices that are between peaks and blue-green waters flowing below. Wiki says the color of the water is caused by rock flour that mingles with the melting glaciers. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that the color is spectacular. When the sun did come out, it cast dramatic shadows on the mountain faces accentuating the sharp angles in the rocks, adding dimension and depth. (And when it did not shine, the photos were somewhat flat.)

We saw a lot of bikers today. Not the motorized kind, but those who crank out miles and miles of calories from their well-toned muscles, up and down with the many altitude changes, as we moved through the mountain ranges. There they were, in 50 degrees, often with rain falling on them, and they kept going and going, like the Energizer Bunny.

We drove into Jasper National Park and saw still more of the white masses of ice, hanging on to mountain ridges and poised precariously as if to fall, and yet, they are still there after thousands of years.   At one point, in the Columbian Icefields, there were buses driving up onto one massive glacier, climbing ever so slowly on the ice, giving their riders a view of the world from the glacier itself. And it reminded me of the day that Steve and I flew up to a glacier in Alaska and landed on skis in the freshly fallen snow.

On the way back south, Beamer had a close encounter with a black bear. The bear was eating huckleberries by the side of the road and when I got out to take photos, Beamer barked up a storm. Guess he knew it was not the smartest thing for me to do. I got a wonderful video of him in the bushes, but hotel wifi’s are not the best and I just can’t get it to load. So…we will have to settle for a still that I robbed from the video.

Before returning to our hotel, we took a side trip across Banff Village to the Banff Springs Hotel. It is the hotel in my photos that stands in the valley above the trees. It is one marvel of a hotel, built a hundred years ago and giving service to the few who can afford to pay their steep prices.   It reminded me of the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec…huge, regal, and very, very special.

Tomorrow we drive north again and will make another try at Lake Louise before heading west to Kamloops, British Columbia.