It’s pouring in the Canadian Rockies. I am hoping that means that it won’t rain the next two nights that we are scheduled to be tent camping… Today we left Calgary and drove about 2 and a half hours to Lake Louise. After we checked into the Lake Louise Inn (which, I might add, the GPS totally couldn’t find) we drove down to the lake and walked around. It is absolutely beautiful here. The lake is glacier-fed which makes it the same pretty blue-green color as the rivers in Glacier Park. We also checked out Moraine Lake, which was also quite beautiful.

I forgot to mention one fantabulous thing about yesterday’s zoo trip: The Screamer. It was basically an orange pop slushee with the world’s best soft serve vanilla ice cream in the middle of it. OMG – it was totally worth a trip to the zoo by itself. I’ve been craving another one ever since.

Back to Lake Louise: there is an awesome candy store here. It has Galaxy chocolate from Britain, giant pez dispensers, hemp infused energy drinks, cupcake flavored mints and every sort of cool candy and chocolate you could imagine. It’s come to my attention that Canadians really love their chocolate. I have seen more different kinds in the last two days than in the rest of my life.

The only wildlife we saw today were three female big horned sheep. This resulted in an argument between the hubster (who didn’t believe me that they were big horned sheep) and myself. He didn’t think the females had horns like that. Luckily for me, the informative video that is on a continuous loop in our hotel room clearly showed a group of both male and female big horned sheep (cue triumphant evil laugh).

Here we are at Lake Louise:

And here is Lake Louise without us:

For dinner we went to the hotel’s “Explorer Lounge” where Michael tried a maple ale (to die for) and a burger and I had tiramisu and BBQ wings. We played a game of pool and I almost won. It was our favorite dinner so far on the trip. Tomorrow is our first of two tent camping nights. We are camping in Jasper National Park first and then on Tuesday we will be back in Banff. I have now dropped BBQ wings on the white sheets twice while trying to eat and type so I am going to call it a night.

We went to the Calgary Zoo today. It was fun and the temperature was awesome – about 70 degrees. It was totally exhausting tho. When we were almost ready to leave hubster asked if I had the parking pass so we could get out without paying and when I took it out to show him it flew out of my hand right into some kind of  African goat exhibit. Hubster had to jump the fence and reach in and grab it. The stink eye he gave me made me wish I’d dropped in the lion pen, but it was still funny.

We took a nap at the hotel when we got back then walked through China Town and to the Eau Claire Market. Hubster found this restaurant online called the River Cafe he wanted to try so we decided to check it out. Huge mistake. There was really nothing on the menu under 50 bucks and there were only about 8 items. We ended up splitting an appetizer. We ordered the prawns and were warned by the waiter it was a small appetizer. He wasn’t kidding! It was two prawns on some saltly noodle stuff for 14 bucks. It smelled just like the ocean and tasted worse. It was so salty and fishy we couldn’t even eat it. We finally put a napkin over it and got out of there. The only good part was that he found a locally-brewed raspberry ale there that was really awesome.

By the time we walked back (round trip 15 blocks or so) I was totally beat.

Tomorrow we have a bit more time to spend in Calgary and then it’s off to Banff.

Here are a couple zoo pics:

After a 10 ish hour trip we made it to Calgary today. We are staying at the Hyatt – which hubster got a good deal on via priceline. They rob you for parking ($25 a day) and internet ($14 for 24 hours per computer), but it’s downtown and right next to the bus station. We walked downtown and had dinner at an Irish pub called James Joyce. The food was pretty good, but sitting outside people watching was better. It is the last weekend of the Stampede so there are cowboy hat vendors everywhere. I will probably pick one tomorrow just for fun, but in the meantime here is the stud muffin with my hat of choice for him:

Our long-awaited Canadian road trip begins Friday morning! So far, I have the following plans: nights 1 and 2 at the Hyatt in Calgary, a visit to the Calgary Zoo and Chinatown, night 3 camping in Banff, night 4 camping in Jasper, and night 5 at a hostel in Banff. I think a trip to the hot springs is in order for that last night too, especially since I am going to try to convince the hubster to go on a 3 hour hike to Lake Agnes so we can eat at the rustic tea lodge that’s there. Nothing is set in stone at this point, but I do need to reserve camp sites soon.

I haven’t been to Canada since I was pretty young and only remember bits and pieces of the zoo and trip to Edmonton. I haven’ taken this much time off from the paper ever so that part is gonna be a little weird, but I am totally stoked for the trip.

This entry has been a long time coming. Even though summer is probably my least favorite season, I still manage to find enough stuff to do to keep me from my blog. So far this summer we have gone camping on the Missouri River (with 2 smanimals in tow), had friends out for the Lesner/Carwin fight (boo to Lesner!), driven through the Judith Mountains with Anne and Duane, and pulled millions of weeds and grass stems out of the flower beds. It’s been a cool July – Grass Range is still green which is amazing and nobody has been brave enough for the swimming pool yet.

The hubster has been busy with the ranch’s new wheat project lately. This is the first year in many that they have planted any new crops and this stuff has gone crazy. So crazy, in fact, that the swather doesn’t even like to cut it. The stuff is so thick that if hubster drives either too fast or too slow (a fun game without a speedometer he says) it gets wound up and he has to cut it out with a knife. Him and his dad are hoping to get 3 tons per acre with this new wheat – a good deal more than the .5 ton per acre the other fields have been yielding.

Here is hubster and the wheat (he’s 6′1″):

And here is the swather taking a breather:

On Friday I went to Billings to have a girls night with one of my favorite people. Today is her birthday so we were celebrating a little early. We had a blast. The karaoke guy that kinda looks like Keanu Reeves was there and he sang Ring of Fire again. That dude is amazing.  We also met someone who did Dude Looks Like a Lady like a champ. Good times.