Day 2: Banff & Lake Louise

  Day 2 of our Calgary trip started fairly early at 8:15am which wasn't as easy with the hour time difference then add the Daylight Saving adjustment. 





  We had an uneventful 2 hour bus ride to Banff and the weather was gray, cloudy and drizzling. The mountains and landscape along the way is really spectacular but it's hard to take pictures through a bus window. The town of Banff is really quaint with some people comparing it to Solvang because I guess that's the closest we have in SoCal to Banff. Cute little shops, cafes and motels. The weather didn't want to be very nice but Lupe & I braved the steady drizzle and walked up to the Fairmont Castle hotel across the river to check it out. It would be a nice walk normally but the drizzle and cold temps made some very icy sidewalks so it took us longer to get there. 



So while the rest of the group did their shopping, Lupe and I trudged our way on slippery ice to the castle-like hotel. On the way we saw a deer in someone's backyard and a car attempting to drive up their icy steep driveway (kind of scary).

Of course, when everyone was loaded on the bus to head to Lake Louise, the clouds gave way for some blue sky and sunshine.



Another 30-40 minute bus ride to Lake Louise where it began snowing. A majority of the bus riders were sooooo excited about the snow. It made for some fun picture taking and playing outside like kids.

The Fairmont at Lake Louise is a grand hotel nestled in the mountains right by the lake. I'm told that the lake is especially gorgeous in the summertime when the water is blue-green. The lake was frozen over solid with lots of snow on top but there was a big ice sculpture castle wall that was perfect for lots of photo ops.










  Another cool thing in Canada is that they try to protect their wildlife as much as possible so much that they created 'animal crossings" (that's the term I came up with) over the highway with fencing directing the animals to these bridges so that they can cross safely. Pretty neat.



We had a wonderful day trip and wish we could more time there but it was time to head back and watch the Kings game at the pub. I'm telling you these people were party all the time...booze on the bus at 8:30am to way beyond after the game to another bar with karaoke. They were lots of fun and that concludes Day 2 in Calgary.