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| A lovely drive in Alberta! |
The focus of today was the “Dark Skies”, an excursion to the
ice fields, to enjoy the dark sky far from any lights, and revel in the bounty
of stars! To see the milky way in all its
glory, perhaps some beautiful Northern Lights, and freeze our tukuses right
off!! So, we got up a little early, and
packed up, as we planned to stay up at a hotel near the icefields. It was a little steep, but to save 3-4 hours
of driving after midnight, we thought it worthwhile. But, they only had ONE room for the four of
us. Hmmm. As we got up and going, the weather was
dicey. Heavy wet rain, bits of sleet,
ice on the roads. Hmmm.
We headed out, and
struggled up the road toward Jasper, and past Banff. At a few places the road was slowed to 30 kph
(about 18 mph), and we saw that the main road was closed since a
tractor-trailer had wrecked.
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| The snowy woods. |
But,
leaving early gave us lots of time, so we stopped off at the Lake Louise Welcome
center, and got out for a bit of a break.
There is something about new fresh soft snow that seems to infiltrate
minds young and old, whispering “throw me at someone!!” And so we did. It was fun!
We also found out that our night’s excursion was cancelled. It was a mixed blessing, but the universal
reaction among the four of us seemed to be relief! We looked at the map and considered our
options. Edmonton was an interesting
prospect, but the traveling there was worse than what we’d seen so far. Resolving to head back to Calgary, we asked
the park guide if he thought we might get an Edmonton Oilers shirt there. He wished us luck!
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| The walk around Lake Louise. |
We headed up to Lake Louise to see the difference from
earlier this week. It was fun! More snow!
The snow sirens called to us and others, as we saw quite a few families
boffing snow on each other’s heads. One
snowball missed its target (a big sister) and came dangerously close to Ce, who
then returned fire on the unsuspecting boy!!
(Her aim was better than his!) A
few people had built snowmen, and decorated them with whatever could be found
for eyes, nose, etc.
We set off to walk around the lake, and get a view from the
far side. It was a snowy, slushy, muddy
slog. But it was fun! Well, the first half of the walk. As we neared the end, Theresa didn’t like the
slope, and decided she was done. I
trudged on to round the back side of the lake, insisting on beating the
lake! Back at the Fairmont, we had a cup
of chili with Ce & Charles and then headed off to Calgary.
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| Lake Louise...and snow! |
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| Lake Louise from the far side (looking across to the Fairmont) |
Finally in a hotel room, we took a much enjoyed few hours of
downtime, interrupted only by walking over to the Old Spaghetti Factory next
door! Ah, early to bed!!
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