Last weekend Ladonna and I met in Big Timber and went to Leann’s baby shower in Helena. Despite the crappy map we had, we found the place. It was good to see Leann. She looks very cute pregnant. We stopped and visited Amber while we were there. Her and Leann are due within a few days of each other.

Then it was on to Deer Lodge where we met Nena for tomato soup at 4-Bs. It was really awesome to see her and catch up. We all went to the corner after soup and proceeded to stay a little too long, play too much beer bong, and have a lot of fun. It was about 3 a.m. when Donna and I got back to my house.

I took Monday off so we could all float the river, but once again, we got stormed out so we had more tomato soup and then Ladonna and I hit the road. We did some shopping at the Butte Walmart and by the time we got back to Big Timber we were both pretty tired. After we parted ways, I went on to Lewistown and stayed the night there.

Day 4:
We left Lake Louise after another quick visit to the lake. The drive to Jasper took most of the day because we stopped quite a bit. Sunwapta Falls and the Columbia Icefields  were two of the stops and neither was really that fascinating. We got to Jasper in the evening and found our campground – Wapiti. We set up the tent and gathered some firewood from the huge pile the campground had cut and then went into town for some shopping. The town of Jasper was really cute and the mountain views were awesome. Then things went downhill…. We got back to the campground to settle in and realized the cap was missing off the blow up mattress. We turned around and had to go back to Jasper to buy another mattress. That ended up costing about 60 bucks and by the time we got back to camp it was raining. We had bought a campfire permit for 9 bucks and couldn’t use it because of the rain. After we got all settled down for the night we realized the waterproof tent was leaking. While hubster was trying to figure out how to stop the leak he elbowed me right in the eye. It was then he discovered he had chipped a tooth somewhere along the way.

That night I woke up coughing and to a hubster who was worried that my cough sounded like a dying animal. He was afraid it would draw in a bear. He didn’t get much sleep that night because of worrying about bears.

Day 5:
We thought it would be fun to hit up the Jasper Tramway before we went back to Banff. We got up there and had to stand in line for a very long time to buy tickets. Once we got the tickets we realized we had another hour to wait before it was our tram. They only have two trams running and a roundtrip is about 15 minutes. We got on our tram at about 2 p.m. and at the top we could see for miles. They let you off to walk around or hike and then you have to wait in line again for a tram back down. We didn’t see much wildlife to speak of – only a giant mutant chipmunk thing. It was striped like a chipmunk, but huge like a gopher. It was licking milk off the sidewalk. Then the lightening started… and they stopped running the tram. We had to wait at the top of the mountain for the storm to pass which took about an hour. We stood in line the whole time next to a family of 7 foot tall Germans.

I was never more relieved in my life to be out of somewhere than when we finally got back on the ground. Since it took so long on the tram we were kinda rushed on the way back to Banff and didn’t stop often. We did stop at Athabasca Falls which was really pretty. We didn’t get into Banff until almost dark so we set up the tent really fast and then hauled ass to the upper hot springs. Our stay there was short because they don’t recommend you sit in there for longer than 20 minutes, but it was nice. It was basically a giant hot tub. After that we went and ate at Tommy’s Neighborhood Pub. I had the chili in a bread bowl (stale) and Michael had a BBQ burger. The ranch that came with the side salad with mine was the best part of the meal. It was a dill ranch but really sweet. I cant wait to try and make somethings similar at home.

Back at our campground – tunnel mountain – we were past the 11 p.m. fire curfew so we couldn’t have a fire again. A couple people still had fires, but we didn’t want to be the ones to get caught so we just turned in.

Day 6:
A very annoying raven was hard at work waking up the campground today. Hubster and I figured he had a routine every morning where he sat up in his tree cawing until someone emerged from each tent. Once that happened he probably figured his work there was finished. We got coffee in Jasper today and then hit the road for home.

Things I learned about Canada:

- Canadians love chocolate. I have seen more different kinds of chocolate here than in the rest of my life combined.

- Canadians love beer. The best ones we tried were Maple ale, Wild Rose raspberry Ale, Rickers (sp?) Red

- Research parking  before you go so you don’t have to spend $25 a night to park at the Hyatt.

- It’s really hard to find wifi up here and nearly impossible to find it for free.

- Park passes are $20 (10 bucks a person ) each for 16 hours and good for Jasper or Banff if you are driving through  both.

- Canadians don’t make great wine – yet. They do claim to be improving.

- Coyotes stand on hay bales here.

- The best time to drive in Calgary is not during rush hour, during Stampede week, on a Friday, when there is road construction.

- Everything is expensive here, but gas seems cheaper because it’s 92.1 cents for some kind of metric unit.

- It costs 1.10 to mail a post card.

- Candy stores are everywhere here.

- There are a lot of smokers in Canada.

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 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:

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.

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: