The Canuck Williams Family: 2008

Monday, September 1, 2008

Summertime....

Andrew and his friend Kyle made bread this summer - it was delicious!

Here, Andrew has hooked up the water hose to the trampoline for some wet and wild jumping. What a way to beat the summer heat!

Tom Sawyer at work?

We finally painted our front and back porches white (they've just been raw wood since we moved in). It looks much better!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

We took a trip to Banff for our 26th anniversary this year. The hotel (Rimrock Resort) was amazing. Here are some views from our hotel room . ..

And here is the view from the dining room ... the grapefruit juice was fresh squeezed.

At the Cave and Basin museum, we saw a picture of Banff’s main street in the e1880’s. Quite a bit different from the picture I took of main street in 2008!

1880's Banff ...Banff today...

I think our favourite spot was Johnson Lake. Lake Louise and Morraine Lake are much more spectacular, but the crowds of tourists kind of takes away from the enjoyment. Johnson Lake, on the other hand, is small and seems to attract locals more than tourists (some even like to swim in the ice cold water there).

We spent a lot of time sitting on this bench, talking, and looking at the beautiful view...

We also walked around a little trail beside the lake (about 45 minutes worth) - with the bonus of coming on some wild strawberries on the way! The pictures below are from that hike (near sunset)...

On Friday we drove along the beautiful Bow Valley Parkway (the slower scenic route) to Lake Louise. This photo was taken at the site of a famous Canadian photo of a steam engine rounding the bend beside the Bow Valley River. We saw a train there too, but it wasn't a steam engine.

Our first stop was the Lake Louise ski resort, where we rode the chair life to the top of the hill. The best views of Lake Louise were from up there. This is the ski lodge - after riding the chaif lift, we ate lunch on the balcony of the lodge.

I took this over my shoulder as we rode up the lift...

Picture above is Jeanne Louise ... picture below is Lake Louise...

And this is Moraine Lake - really pretty, but too crowded with tourists for our taste.

Our favourite activity of the weekend was canoeing the Bow River. We took a 2 hour trip on Thursday afternoon, and was it ever beautiful. Here are some of the 50+ pictures I took from the canoe.

These two pictures are both of Mount Rundle, which is one of the mountains around Banff. It was named after a missionary and explorer who was very influential in the area.

Mt. Rundle from another view

This cracked us up ... it took us a little while to figure out that when they said Texas Gate, they really meant a cattle guard (except here I guess it's a deer/elk/wolf/coyote guard - maybe "Texas gate" fits on the sign better!)

and speaking of deer and elk ....

We saw a lot of deer and elk. We also saw a coyote, but didn't get a very good picture of that, and we saw some cool birds (a golden eagle taking a branch to its nest as we were canoeing, an opsrey that flew right over us at Lake Louise, and a Whiskey Jack, also known as a Gray Jay, perched in a tree)..We really wanted to see a bear, but weren't lucky enough - this sign at Lake Louise ski resort got our hopes up, though... (if it's too small to read, double click on it, and then click on the back button to get back to this page)

We rented a GyPSy Guide for our trip - it's a little GPS based thing that sticks to your windshield and tells you everything a tour guide would if you were on a professional tour. It was really interesting, and helped us know where the cool places were to go, while telling us interesting history and stories about each place.

Here I am standing on the deck in front of our hotel...

... and David, on the same deck.

It was a beautiful trip. If any of you want to come see the Canadian Rockies, we'd love to be your tour guides!!

CANADA DAY

We had a great Canada Day - went to a multi-cultural festival with some friends, and then watched the fireworks show over the river valley later that night. Here are a few of the pics we took...